Chapter Text
Natsumi Sakamoto couldn’t say no to a challenge. Well, most challenges. Academics weren’t exactly her strong suit, so she wasn’t gonna enter a trivia contest or something like that, but anything else? The rough and tumble middle schooler just loved to prove herself. There were the fights she got into, of course, but she loved all kinds of physical tasks. Sports, goofy stunts spreading around online, gym challenges, if it pushed her body to the limit, she always wanted to break through that limit and come out on top. Which she didn’t always, but when Natsumi was bested by a superior opponent, she usually took it pretty well. Competitive as she was, she knew it was unrealistic for her to expect to be the best at everything all the time. It was the challenges where Natsumi was up against herself that brought out the worst in her. Losing a weightlifting contest to a bigger, more experienced gym-goer? That’s just how the world works. Being unable to do a viral 100 push-ups in 100 seconds challenge? For Natsumi, that was her failure as a human being.
The depths of obsession and unwillingness to quit that consumed Natsumi in such instances were a somewhat-frequent source of headaches for her loved ones. Especially lately, with the girl having been transfixed on the Big Bang Challenge. Natsumi had wanted to take on the challenge since she was a little girl. When she was 5 years old, she learned about it and wouldn’t stop asking her parents to let her take it, which of course they wouldn’t. After three months of constant begging, Ryuji and Hifumi finally relented, seeing the experience as a teaching moment. And when little Natsumi could hardly keep down less than a tenth of the Comet Burger, her miserable face plastered in condiments as she finally gave up, she certainly seemed to learn the lesson. The rest of her family divided the rest of the unreasonably-large burger amongst themselves while Natsumi tried her hardest not to throw up.
But that was years ago. Now Natsumi was 13-years-old, and since her parents had deemed her old enough to go out on her own, and she used that freedom to drag her pals to Big Bang Burger so they could cheer her on in consuming literal pounds of meat. And oh, did they cheer. Natsumi’s friends all knew just how well she was able to put away an excessive amount of food, especially for a 13-year-old. And nobody questioned how she stayed so in shape. She lived possibly the most active lifestyle of anyone in the greater Tokyo Metropolitan Area, after all. The Comet Burger that had defeated her in kindergarten held no power over her now, and the triple-decker beast that was the Gravity Burger met its match in the budding delinquent. She even had enough room left over to eat one of the five bonus takeout burgers they rewarded her, proudly displaying her 1st Mate badge on her chest as she shared the rest with her family, providing dinner for the household for the first time ever. An act for which they were grateful, but also VERY concerned.
“PLEASE tell me you’re not going for the third level,” Yoshio said.
“Of course I am!” Natsumi replied. “I gotta get that Captain’s badge, after all!”
“You really do not,” Hifumi said. “It’s just a cheap piece of plastic.”
“I know that!” Natsumi pointed to the second-level badge she’d just earned. “But it’s about what the plastic represents!”
“And what’s that?” Shizuka asked with a smirk. “That you have no sense of self-preservation?”
“That I’m unstoppable!” Natsumi declared. “Dad, you get it, don’cha?”
“Sure I do,” Ryuji answered.
“Please don’t encourage her,” Hifumi said.
“I ain’t. I said I get it. I didn’t say I endorse it.” Ryuji looked at his daughter seriously. “I get why you wanna do the Big Bang Challenge, Natsumi. I was into it once. Even made it all the way up to that same badge you got right there. But when I tried to order the Cosmic Tower Burger, I realized real quick that there were a lot better things I could be doin’ with my time.”
“The Cosmic Tower is too tough even for you?” Natsumi stared at her dad in shock. Logically, she’d known for a long time he wasn’t the invincible superhero he seemed like when she was a little kid, but this was her first time she was really registering that on an emotional level.
“Yup.” Ryuji sighed. “I hate to admit it, Natsumi, but it turns out there is such a thing as ‘too much meat’.”
“So what you’re sayin’…” An unsettling, shark-like grin formed on Natsumi’s face. “Is that if I eat it, I’ll finally have beaten you at something!”
“Oh no,” Hifumi and Shizuka said in unison. In her early years, Natsumi had a habit of sneak-attacking her father to prove she was the strongest person in the world, and while she had moved on from that, it seemed Ryuji’s comment had stirred up whatever remained of that instinct, only pushing the youngest Sakamoto further down this destructive and gluttonous path.
“Natsumi, for real, don’t do it,” Yoshio said. “That thing’s just too much food. It’s almost as tall as you are. There are seniors in my high school that have tried that challenge, and you know what happened to them?”
“What?” Natsumi asked.
“They’d miss school the next day.”
“I’m not seein’ a downside here.”
“‘Cuz they were stuck all day on the toilet.”
“Oh.” That actually gave Natsumi pause for a moment. But just a moment. She quickly steeled her resolve. “Guess I’ll just have to prove I’m better than dad AND high-schoolers, then.”
“Natsumi, no!” Hifumi shouted. “I don’t want you trying to eat that tower burger!”
“Are you sayin’ I’m not allowed to do it!?” Natsumi’s voice rose quickly, not just matching Hifumi’s volume, but exceeding it.
“I…” Hifumi quickly locked eyes with Ryuji, whose own gaze was uncertain. The two seemed to have a telepathic conversation for a few seconds before Hifumi sighed and turned back to her daughter. “No. We made a deal with you that as long as you kept your grades at an acceptable level and stayed out of trouble, you could spend your free time around town doing whatever you want, so long as it doesn’t put you in danger.”
“And you’ve been holdin’ up your end of the deal,” Ryuji said, “so we’re not gonna go back on our end.”
“Are you saying a four-foot heart attack doesn’t count as ‘dangerous’?” Shizuka asked incredulously.
“It’s just a burger, Mom,” Ryuji said. “It ain’t smart, but it won’t kill her either.”
“I feel like I’m dying,” Natsumi groaned. It was a Saturday afternoon in a packed Big Bang Burger, and all eyes were on the blonde-haired teenager who was clearly in way over her head with the towering burger in front of her. Natsumi had made it through the first third of the nonadecker burger no problem, and then quickly began to slow down as she made her way through the fourth patty. By the time she took a bite of the fifth patty, Natsumi had hit a wall. Though she refused to blame herself for this, at least in full. As she began eating the fourth patty, she started to have doubts that she’d be able to get very far past the sixth one, but failing even by that metric was something she attributed to her present company. Most of Natsumi’s friends were unavailable today, so instead of her usual raucous cheering section, she invited a couple witnesses along who weren’t exactly thrilled to be there.
“Are you stopping here, Natsumi?” Hanami asked. “There’s still a minute left on the timer.”
“Do not egg her on,” Jean said. “She should have stopped AT LEAST three burgers ago.”
“You guys-“ Natsumi paused to let out an epic belch. “Are the worst at supportin’ stuff.”
“I’m not here to support this,” Jean replied. “I knew I couldn’t stop this catastrophe, so I came along to administer first aid or call an ambulance as needed.”
“I’m sorry if I’m not being supportive enough,” Hanami said. “As much as I want you to win, my spirits are a bit dampened when I think of all the poor innocent cows who had to die to make this behemoth.”
“Ugh…” Natsumi let herself fall forward, face laying on the table. “A wuss and a vegetarian. You were totally the wrong guys to bring to this.”
“You can’t seriously be blaming us for your failure,” Jean said as the timer buzzed, announcing Natsumi’s shame to the whole restaurant. “Be honest, Natsumi. Did you really think you were going to be able to eat a week’s worth of food in one sitting?”
“Well…” Natsumi craned her neck up, the leftovers of the burger still reaching above her eye line. “If I’m bein’ totally honest, it mighta been kind of a tall order.”
“Figuratively AND literally!” Hanami chimed in, clearly proud of herself for that observation.
“I don’t know how anyone does it.” Natsumi managed to bring herself back up to a proper sitting position. “I’m not sure that it’s even possible. Has ANYONE ever actually beaten the final challenge?”
“My dad has,” Hanami said plainly.
“He has!?”
It was a strange sight for Ren, to see Ryuji’s daughter bowed so low before him. She wasn’t on the floor, but Natsumi wasn’t all that big into proper manners and showing respect, so even a waist-level bow from her was a rarity. She’d only shown up at his office a few minutes earlier, asking Ryuji if she could hang around so they could go out to dinner together, since they hadn’t had any real one-on-one bonding time in a while. A request that was highly suspicious in itself, but Ryuji was so overjoyed that his daughter hadn’t been fully claimed by the parent-hating apathy of her teenage years yet that he didn’t question it, and was more than happy to run to the vending machine down the street when Natsumi made a comment about being thirsty. Which left her alone with Ren to reveal the real reason she was here.
“Please train me in your ways, Grand Master Uncle Ren.”
“‘My ways’?” Ren asked with no small amount of confusion. “You want to go into politics? I didn’t think you were interested in that kind of thing, Natsumi.”
“Not those ways!” Natsumi stood upright, staring into Ren’s soul with eyes full of purpose. “I mean the ways of the mighty eater! I want to be a Big Bang Captain like you!”
“Huh…” Well, that was certainly more on brand for Ryuji’s daughter, but still unexpected. “You mean the Big Bang Challenge? I haven’t done that in YEARS.”
“But you HAVE done it, right!? All three levels!?”
“Yes,” Ren said, “when I was just a few years older than you.” Then Ren recalled Ryuji mentioning how Natsumi’s current obsession was worrying the rest of their family, so he decided to do some damage control. “I did a lot of things back then I probably shouldn’t have.”
“I’ve already done two of the levels, but I’m having trouble with the third.” Natsumi sulked a little. “That Cosmic Tower Burger is no joke. That’s why I need an expert to train me! It’s time for you to pass down your wisdom!”
“It is?” Ren could not hide his amusement at Natsumi’s declaration.
“It is,” she answered seriously, either not noticing Ren’s amusement or not caring about it. “And we know your daughters aren’t gonna do it. Hanami’s a vegetarian and Ryoko’s like some kind of health robot. So it falls on me to continue your legacy!”
“Well, there’s definitely a certain logic to that argument,” Ren said through a suppressed chuckle. “But I’m afraid I can’t help you. Those days are long behind me.”
“But they’re still ahead of me!” Natsumi protested. “Not even ahead! They’re here right now! Please, Uncle Ren, train me before they pass me by!”
“You have to understand, Natsumi…” Ren turned around a framed photo on his desk, showing him with Makoto in uniform, from the day she graduated the police academy. “I have a long and epic relationship with junk food, and your Aunt Makoto has very strong opinions on the subject. Even if I wanted to help you, if she caught wind of me having ANYTHING to do with the Big Bang Challenge, it’d be a real problem for me.”
“So we don’t tell her!”
“It’s not that simple.” Ren turned around another framed photo, showing Hanami and Ryoko from their first day of high school, wearing their Kosei and Shujin uniforms respectively. “Even if I can keep a secret from Makoto, you socialize with my daughters enough that they’d know what’s going on. And if Ryoko knows, Makoto knows. And if Makoto finds it out from Ryoko, I’m in even more trouble. I’m afraid my hands are tied.”
“So I have to suffer because you’re a coward!?”
“You call it ‘cowardice’, I call it ‘keeping the peace at home’.” Ren turned the photos on his desk back towards him. “You’ll understand someday when you’re married.”
“If being married means I can’t do what I want, then I’m never getting married!” Natsumi sneered at Ren. “You made a mistake, Uncle Ren.”
“Not a mistake,” Ren corrected her, “a sacrifice. We all make them sometimes.”
Ren left the office shortly after, and instead of heading straight home, he stopped by Leblanc, having a coffee and a long chat with Sojiro, then going upstairs to the attic. Although it had long ago returned to its purpose as a storeroom for the cafe, Ren knew he still had some personal items in there, though he had to move around a lot of heavy objects to reach them in the back. Ren opened up a box and started digging through it. It was full of old accessories: Bits of costume jewelry, weird belts and armbands, expired medical patches, and other miscellaneous knick-knacks that weren’t worth much in the real world, but had produced great effects in the Metaverse. Most of this stuff was junk that didn’t even have any significant memories associated with it, but Ren kept it all around anyway. It was hard to let go of any mementos of the Phantom Thieves’ heyday.
Finally, he came across a trio of spaceship-shaped, time-weathered plastic badges, and these did spark some memories in him. Memories of a lanky delinquent trying to make his way in the big city, trying all kinds of random things on a quest for some kind of self-improvement at the suggestion of a talking cat. All those books read, hangouts with friends, and odd jobs worked that, while they seemed little on the surface, did accumulate into a shocking amount of personal growth. And the burgers, oh, the burgers. Those big, greasy, not high-or-even-average-quality but still delectable mountains of beef that he worked up courage and grit to overcome, no matter how much his body told him to abandon course. Completing the Big Bang Challenge was the least important thing Ren had done that year, and yet, in those moments, polishing off those burgers felt nearly as monumental as stealing a treasure from a Palace. Maybe it was weird and dumb, but as Ren became overwhelmed with the nostalgia of it all, he couldn’t help but think that maybe Natsumi was right when she said he made a mistake. Not in marrying Makoto, of course, but maybe he SHOULD pass his wisdom down to her. Wisdom of a very stupid thing, but after all, isn’t it the stupid, bad ideas that wind up being fun regardless half of what make life worth living? Ren pulled out his phone and called the Sakamoto household landline.
“Hello,” an older woman’s voice answered, “this is the Sakamoto residence.”
“Shizuka-San! Are you having a pleasant evening?”
“Ren-Kun!” Shizuka’s voice filled with glee. “My, but it’s been a moment, hasn’t it? When are you and the girls coming over for dinner again?”
“I’m sure we can schedule something soon. But I’m calling about something else.”
“Are you looking for Ryuji? He and Natsumi just got home. Did his phone run out of battery again?”
“It's actually Natsumi I'm calling for. I found some kind of keychain in the office that I think she might’ve left it behind. Could you get her on the phone so I can confirm it’s hers?”
“Oh, perfect timing then! I’ll get her right away.”
Ren waited a moment, only for a much less polite greeting to come out of the phone.
“Yeah, what?” Natsumi grumbled.
“Listen to my instructions carefully”, Ren said. “I’ve decided to train you to complete the Big Bang Challenge after all. If you understand, just say, ‘Uh-huh’, and make it sound casual.”
“Uh-huh!” Natsumi said with a little too much gusto.
“I’ll give Ryuji something to help you, and when you get it, you’ll tell him you’re going to call me to thank me, and I’ll begin your training for real. We have to make all this look innocent so as few people as possible know that I’m training you, so whatever he thinks he’s giving you, go along with it. If you understand, say ‘No, that’s not my keychain’.”
“Uh… no. That’s not…” Natsumi paused as she mulled over Ren’s words, making sure she got it all right. “That’s not my keychain.”
“Alright then. We’ll be in touch soon. Bye, Natsumi.”
“Bye, Uncle Ren.”
The old Joker smirk appeared on Ren’s face as he hung up. Some part of him knew he was already having too much fun with this, but he wasn’t going to let that stop him.