Chapter Text
Sae needs a vacation. After the brief time she spent held in captivity by Masayoshi Shido’s goons/minions, paired with the massive announcement of the Phantom Thieves going for the upcoming Prime Minister’s heart? (She’s not stupid, she can put two and two together; but the broken body of Kurusu is one HELL of a puzzle piece to put into her lap.) The exhaustion is settling in. Not just because she’s so tired of forging these individual damning pieces into a blade to pierce the conspiracies heart, but…
“Makoto…”
Her charge was gone for a week. Ever since the Thieves’ ringleader has proclaimed the stealing of her heart (still not sure on the particulars, further interviews of the Thieves are prudent,) communications have broken down. Ever since the date wherein she suspects the Thieves procured her sister’s intellect as a strategist, Makoto has been staying out more and more with her friends. More and more withdrawn as the day of the crash passed into the background. At the time, Sae thought Makoto was lost in her own world, ignoring reality and still waiting for her father to come home.
But grief takes many forms.
“Right now you’re useless to me! All you do is eat away at my life!”
She did say that, didn’t she? Another day when work had been hard and Makoto had asked her what she thought about the Phantom Thieves. Curiosity was her rationalization at the time.
You judged her answer, and found it wanting.
Her tendency to ruminate had been getting worse ever since the change of heart. Ever since Kurusu was interrogated,bruises marring his face and needles littering the floor, monuments to the sins of authority. Pride. Had that been the tipping point for Makoto? What drove her to the Thieves rather than simply considering their justice versus the law?
You lashed at her just like you did any other mar-
Knock. Knock. Thud. At the door. Cold fear grips Sae's heart. Have Shido's goons come to tie up another loose end? If they did, they'd just kick down the door, surely. Sae's an orphan. No-one would miss her. So that must mean it's-
Sae doesn't even get the chance to consider that thought any more before the door's unlocked and Makoto is found standing in the doorframe. But…there's so much blood on her. It stains her Shujin uniform a deep, striking red. She isn’t even all there, eyes drifting and disassociating with the application of endorphins to mask agony, and oh god, is that one of her hands dislocated-
“I’m sorry for the mess, Sis. Can I…come in?” Makoto mutters. Her voice so small and wretched, she’s like a mangy cat come in from the rain. Sae can’t stop the concern flash across her face, even when masked by years of training to suppress all weakness. But the poker face of a prosecutor is poorly suited for her sister.
But what other face does she have that…isn't what made things get so fragmented between the two? Who is Sae Niijima behind her duty?
You are no-one.
Sae gestures for Makoto to come in with whatever composure she has left, and the younger sister limps in. The bleeding hasn’t stopped as she slumps on the couch, but at least the floor isn't getting stained. Just Makoto's left hand as she rifles through the bag she has her school supplies in, the outfit that Shujin provides as both proof of belonging and mark of ownership proving its failings as protection. As if that school needed another strike on the record. Consummate academics and extracurriculars from its students, despite all the teachers can do to stop them!
“Makoto, what…what happened to you?”
Disturbingly, Makoto goes alight with purpose with the mention of her preferred extracurricular activity, even while healing her wounds. Strangely, her grades had only improved with the Thieves growing in notoriety and activity, though that was probably due to her having a study group. One of Makoto's hands makes a gesture for the TV remote, but the expression on her face is worsening with inflamed pain as she stretches. With no small amount of hurried grasping just so Makoto doesn't undo any of her hard work, Sae picks up the remote as Makoto relocates her left hand. Function is restored almost instantly, but the Thieves have a tendency to not let their injuries get in the way for long.
“Turn on the TV,” Makoto says, “Any channel should do, if we had our timing right.”
Confusion briefly flickers across Sae's mind like an ember from a dying flame, replaced by disbelief at the end result. No. Impossible. They couldn't have-
“Breaking News!” The national announcement blares out, “Masayoshi Shido has been taken into police custody! After an emergency conference was called earlier today regarding the upcoming election results, Shido has confessed to several murders, conspiracy, defamation, and fraud, along with ties to organized crime! NHK News has this exclusive recording provided by an anonymous source before the broadcast was cut.”
“Ohya came through…” Makoto whispers to the air between the bandaging of cuts and application of medical alcohol. The words feel like they're meant for her comrades' ears, but they only reach Saes.
And you fell out of that criteria a long time ago. Out of anyone's circle of compatriots. Lone Prosecutor Sae.
“Ohya?” Sae inquires with a voice far too similar to the one she used to interrogate Akira, or the one Makoto would see in court-
or the one she used on 6/19 useless useless useless BET IT ALL ON THE COLOUR YOUR HANDS ARE STAINED-
No no no, NOT NOW PLEASE NOT NOW-
Makoto's looking at her with an expression holding far too much cold iron for a young third year in high school. It’s a look she’s inherited from their father and it shouldn’t look so practiced on her. Devoid of anything but a singular, inscrutable intent. Or…or like Sae. Like her staring down a suspect in an interrogation only she’s the one on display, mind cross-examined like a cut of meat for rot. Why look there? Your heart rotted long ago, no?
Sae shakes her head. Clearly, Makoto said something she hadn't caught because of these damned doubts swirling through her head like the ingredients of a cocktail. That’s not the look a smaller Makoto clinging to her leg gave her, nor the look the Makoto of her first and second year of high school wore with equal parts grit and concern in her gaze as a worried sibling. And definitely not the look before her joining the Thieves. Bone-weary, frustrated, lonely-
“Ohya. Journalist reporting on Shido. She laughed at first when she heard we were taking him on. She's probably still laughing.”
No, that is a tone that you get from devotion and sacrifice. That’s the tone she's heard of when she hosted interviews in Shujin searching for the Thieves, about the student council president suddenly truly fighting for the student body with ground teeth and bloodied knuckles; the one the students have started trusting after being burnt at the pyre as offerings for Makoto to be more self-centered. All after Makoto had been given lectures about her capability.
All for you.
That is Queen.
“Why do you think she's laughing?” Sae inquires with a raised eyebrow and what is meant to be genuine inquiry.
“Because she never believed in us until we helped her. Like all the other adults. Like you.”
The cold in the room almost seems to bite like blades to the skin with that response. And as much as Sae thinks she'd be angry at Makoto's talk back, only a text message to inform her that her principal died, you didn't even mention you found why he kept Kamoshida employed-
The only anger she feels looking at this situation is saved for herself. Like a vial of poison kept close to the chest.
Stopstopstop. Please…please not now-
“We didn't believe in you? The Thieves have always had a popularity problem, why bring that u-”
“Not the Thieves. Us. Me. Haru and Eiko and Ryuji and Shiho and Mishima. The kids. Who have to live in the ruins of what the adults do, making homes from the wreckage and praying. Praying. That the bonds we make are in the acceptable boundaries of abhorrence for society, because if they aren’t, they’re destroyed.”
Queen attempts to stand up. Her wounds have been, if not mended, put in a stable condition at least. Bandages have been applied to gashes, and ointments to burns. But she's still dizzy from what must have been a tumultuous journey back home, and she almost topples forward into the glass table where spent medical supplies are gathered in a disposable bag. No mess for Sae to worry about. Still worried about making a mess. After everything.
“I… I can't refute that Makoto. I wish I could.” Sae mutters.
But Makoto's not here, is she? Queen's taking her place while the Phantom Thief is salving her wounds. Two sides of the same coin, kind of like her. But while Queen has seemed to give Makoto strength and heart in equal measure, the balance between Sae's self at home and self at work is gone. No line drawn. The shadow of her work drawing over the whole of her life. Prosecutor Sae devouring her, piece by piece. Still, whatever is left of Sae Niijima props up Queen so she doesn’t fall.
“Ask your question, then get your hands off me Prosecutor.” Queen growls,a guard dog pushed to its limits.
So cold…Sae can't help but ruminate again on what happened to make them like this. All the focus on grades and vigorous critique did push her for brilliance academically, but the cost is too great.
In a sense you did win. Do you feel like a winner yet, gambler?
“What happened to you?” Sae asks, “Your wounds are numerous, burns and cuts and what looks like a dog bite on your right leg. I want to know why.” Garnering information sometimes involves sacrifices of dynamic. Sae prepares to make a big one to her charge as Makoto’s proof of justice blares in the background, heard across all of Japan. “I…I won’t be mad. I promise you. Makoto.”
Queen’s answer, undoubtedly extensive and damning of whoever did this to her, dies in her throat as Shido once again announces his guilt to the entirety of Japan,
“The reason President Okumara is dead is because I killed him. And many if not all of the other mental shutdown victims. All on my orders. I also framed the Phantom Thieves for it, manipulating evidence and events behind the scenes. All for my own selfish desire, to become prime minister regardless of what price was paid. Even the people who I once strove to command were spent, in order for me to steer this country as my own ship.”
Sae's plea is ultimately to a woman who is no longer there. “Shido just answered your question.”
‘How the hell does his guilt provide an explain- Oh.” “Oh.”
“You did that to him,” Sae breathes, “You and the Thieves, you took him on-”
“We broke his ship and we’re the only reason it’s getting publicized. Alibaba is probably frying a few braincells combatting the conspiracies influence over the media.”
The same one who helped me evade capture, twice. The hacker who is making a name for themselves by ripping Medjed’s head off, now a member of the Thieves!
“Y-You know Alibaba. And you took on Shido and won, made him confess on live television, cut off the head of the serpent.”
“...Yes, and I took several crippling wounds in the process as one of their members. Are you quite done Prosecutor?”
Given how Queen wriggles out of Sae’s hold while picking up the bag of waste, that wasn’t a question. One more step, and Makoto will be in her room.
“We did that, yes. We killed the hound that was about to rip the Diet asunder. All because no-one else was capable of fighting him sooner.”
“...I’m sure someone would have raised a case against hi-”
“The last person who tried is in a mental institution, ripped from their mind!”
That’s no tone Sae ever expected, or wanted anyone to speak back to her in. No-one had since she started learning the power in posture. How a glare can make someone muttering about how she probably slept her way into her position (how dare ANYONE assume she didn't earn her rank, she fought just like anyone else) shut up quickly. That's the Niijima Curse. The same rage passed from mother to daughter, the one that Makoto's father and hers tried to teach them to wield like a sword rather than letting it surge like fire. And now Sae had that blade pointed at her. Lethal yet cared for, like an heirloom. A booming echo, a barely restrained fury. But similar to the one Akira used when denying that others were involved with the Thieves.
How long had it been since Sae had an outlet for her anger?
Since Makoto started figuring out who she was outside of your notice-
“...I'm sorry for bleeding all over the place,” Makoto says, much more like the little sister she once knew, “It'll all be gone by the time you wake up. Good night Prosecutor.”
But by the time Sae has the chance to process what she’d said-
“Makoto, wait!”
The door to Makoto's room has slammed in her face like a prison gate.
“What have I done.”
With a heartrended whisper to a solid door, Sae slumps onto the couch wherein her charge, her sister, nursed herself back to health and she didn't even help.
And begins to spiral.
Lying in her bed, Buchimaru plushies on one side of the bed while on her back, Makoto begins the process of communion with her other self. The one who chose her, and she chose from the Sea of Souls. First a Sister in a two person Pilgrimage, now two Acolytes at the altar of the collective consciousness. The titles shift as does the spirit. But the devotion stays.
“My Priestess, is our refuge here the wisest decision?”
“It may not be for our safety, Anat. But I needed to speak with Sae. Let her know the stakes of our mission.”
It takes Anat a moment to consider the wisdom in these words, if there are any. But as always, her response is soft. It feels like the touch of her mother on her cheek after a rough day at school, like absolution and understanding. Even if the words are harsh, as they were when Makoto considered a career in the police before seeing Akira broken and bloodied. Her silence on the matter was damning, despite sharing a desire to honour both her parents by pursuing a life of justice.
“This is the end result of the state,” Anat had hissed from beneath her soul-steel casing, “The subjugation of the just in the service of the corrupt.” That day, she had divined her path of strife did not involve riding alongside the agents of a corrupt state. She had briefly apologized to the rest of the Thieves for her previous deliberation on her future, but they immediately held her close. Ryuji, of all people, told her it was alright first. Ryuji! The punkest of the group, absolving her of the sin of almost becoming a turncoat! Her father may not have been proud of what she chose. But her mother certainly wouldn't have. And that made her smile.
“Hmm. I would ask if you needed to show her the end result of our pilgrimage to excoriate the Sinner of Pride of his sin, but the Niijima family has never been easily swayed, have they?”
“Yes. We have iron wills. And in you, I can see the strongest.”
“Your flattery is pointlessly used on me. But it is not a falsehood. I can sense the truth in your words.”
“I am thou. Thou art I. You let me be more honest with myself, Anat. In that, you are the catalyst that allows us to cut through falsehoods together.”
“...I must thank you, Makoto. As I am your eyes, you are my hands.”
“No amount of words can express the gratitude for you I hold in my heart.”
“Rest, my Priestess. I will soothe our wounds while you dream. Tomorrow we will tackle your sister together, and we will see how she may be granted sight.”
“I will try, Sister.”
“The others will want to help. With your sister, but primarily you.”
“I'll call Futaba. Make it a Phantom Thief meeting?”
“Yes. The Titan of Man and his Oracle will assuredly have much to discuss with you all.”
“Mhm…”
In her bag, her phone vibrates with a frantic frequency. But Makoto has already drifted to dream. To a world filled with an Empress she pledges her loyalty and steel to, to dimpled cheeks highlighting soft smiles while fireworks blast in the background and an axe swing delivered at lightning speed from the back of a motorcycle.
After the infiltration and subsequent invasion of the Casino of Envy, ruin had come to it. With the Treasure dissolved, there was no proof of The Director's supremacy along with her drive to win at all costs. The dice had no more jump, the slot machines had broken down. Envy was gone.
Now though, something old and terrible is now the core of her distorted desires. Envy is a powerful force, and taking it out incompletely the Palace into a corpse of itself, undergoing death throes.
But death does not stick easily for the determined.
“How are the reconstruction efforts going?”
And rage finds a target regardless of how long you hold it, bury it. And if you bury it inside yourself, let it fester like an infected wound…
“The Court should be open by the end of the day Ma’am. Are- Are you sure this is what you want, Prosecutor?”
How could you be surprised when it exacts a bloody toll from you, and then makes something grotesque from the waste material that was once your body?
“...Someone must pass judgement on Sae Niijima. The Thieves were disrupted from their justice by a turncoat. I will not have her escape her penance again.”
The cognition, a tall man with a grim expression, the same one that delivered the news of the valued officer who held the Niijima family together after their mother’s flight, simply nods. “Yes Ma’am.”
“Go. I must review my notes for the upcoming trial.”
The cognition leaves with that dismissal. In the fallen ruins of the Casino of Envy, the Director turned Prosecutor looks over several splayed open files on the last standing desk. Far across the Metaverse, a new Palace is being built from old walls as testament to sins escaped while a mutated Shadow plans to exact a blood price from their corporeal self. While alone, certain concessions to a human nature can be made.
The Prosecutor opens up a desk drawer in search of something much more precious than one of the many pieces of evidence sprawled across the desk. Justice is a nebulous motivation, but can be pure. Leviathan needed no such justifications for her rigged games. Winning was all that mattered, the sensation of victory. Justice does not motivate who Shadow Sae is now, whatever demon has taken form in her nebulous form as a title is unknown. All that she desires is retribution.
And taking hold of the freshly formed Treasure from the bowels of the evidence drawer, born from the path of strife and the coagulation of despair, she knows why her flesh and blood self must pay dearly. A worn Buchimaru plushie, tear tracks carving lines through the dust on it, glows with the light of lustre lost. Of a time that existed only in memory and dream. Long, long gone. To this effigy of what Sae has lost to both fate, and to her decisions, she reaffirms a grim vow.
“There will be vengeance, regardless of the price.”