Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

If Yusuke was being completely honest with himself, he was a little bit disgruntled that he’d been chosen for the B-team.  So far, the shadows in Kaneshiro’s palace seemed most likely to be weak to nuclear, in the same way the shadows in Madarame’s palace had most often been weak to ice.  This meant that Makoto had an automatic place on the team, although Yusuke privately suspected she would have had one anyways, considering that she was almost as good at strategizing in battle as Joker himself.

Joker’s stash of healing items was rather low, and so he’d deemed Ann and Morgana’s healing skills to be necessary for the A-team as well.  Yusuke could understand that, and he knew that he and Ryuji’s physical skills used energy, and required lots of healing items to balance.  Otherwise, they would become too tired, and it would be easy for an enemy to take them out.

So intellectually, Yusuke did understand why he’d been left behind to gather any treasure that Joker had missed, while the main team went on ahead.  But that didn’t mean he was very happy about it.  And in particular, it didn’t mean he was happy to have been left behind with Ryuji.  

There wasn’t actually anything wrong with Ryuji, as such.  But Yusuke hadn’t spent time alone with him yet - the only Phantom Thief he’d spent time alone with so far was, in fact, Joker.  Therefore, Yusuke was rather nervous to be bringing up the rear with Ryuji.  Ryuji had a very specific sort of personality, and people with the specific sort of personality that Ryuji had tended not to like Yusuke very much.

So far, Ryuji hadn’t said anything cruel to Yusuke.  But if Yusuke and Ryuji were paired up for the duration of the palace, it was really just a matter of time.

The one bright shining spot in this whole thing was that, in one of the treasure chests Yusuke and Ryuji had been meticulously searching through, they had found an item that restored both full sp and full health to Joker’s entire party.  An item like this would be invaluable in a palace like Kaneshiro’s, that seemed to go on and on forever.  Finding the item was a ticket to see Joker again, a potential solution to the problem that had gotten Yusuke removed from the party in the first place, a way to escape Ryuji, and a way to earn Joker’s approval.  It was a very special item indeed.

“Um,’ Ryuji said.  They had reached another fork in the seemingly endless maze of hallways that made up Kaneshiro’s bank.  “I know Joker said which way he was gonna go at the turn.  But…uh…I forget?  Do you remember?”

Was this some sort of trick?  Was Ryuji making sure Yusuke had been paying attention?  

“Left,” Yusuke said.

Ryuji grinned, and nodded, and punched Yusuke on the arm.  “Nice!”  

Yusuke drew back automatically.  The punch hadn’t been hard, per se - in fact, it seemed like the sort of thing he’d seen among his more physically-inclined schoolmates.  Still, that didn’t mean that the next one wouldn’t be.

Ryuji peered down the corridor that Yusuke had indicated and waved for Yusuke to join him.  “Man, I wish we had some snacks.  Even the gross stuff Joker takes out of his pockets sometimes, like the really old bread.  I’m hungry.  What do you like to eat?”

Yusuke paused in surprise.  He hadn’t fully realized that Ryuji expected a response from him until he’d asked a question, and now he wasn’t sure what sort of answer was the correct one.

“Anything nutritious enough to fuel my painting,” he finally replied, looking down at the handle of his katana. 

“Okay.  So like, what’s your favorite place to eat, then?”

“Oh, I don’t frequent restaurants much.  The vast majority of my spare funds go to art supplies, of course.”

Ryuji looked uncomfortable, and Yusuke wondered what he’d said wrong and how Ryuji would choose to turn on him.  “Oh.  Well, I guess I could treat you sometime, maybe.”

That didn’t fit into Yusuke’s understanding of what was happening at all.  No one offered to “treat” Yusuke, much less tough-looking jocks who didn’t know the difference between a paintbrush and a lead pipe.  

Perhaps Ryuji just hadn’t realized yet the sort of person Yusuke was.  An artist and a creative, not just a katana-wielding phantom thief.  Until he did, Yusuke could at least try to enjoy the offered camaraderie.

“Alright,” Yusuke said quietly, and Ryuji grinned again.  

“Oh, crap, hey, there’s a shadow!  Hide!”

They were already hidden, so Yusuke didn’t do much aside from stay behind Ryuji.  “Should we fight it, do you think?”  He tried to sound ready, possibly even gung ho.  The sort of way Ryuji might sound.

Ryuji hesitated.  “Um, I think we gotta.  In order to get past.  You think you’re good to take it?”

“Of course,” Yusuke told him indignantly.  “Goemon is very strong.  And I have this katana.”

“Alright, go!”

The shadow - which looked like a woman wearing a black mask, with cat ears and a tail - was easy to finish off.  It was weak to lightning attacks, so Ryuji’s first strike had it on the ground, and from there, it was simply a matter of hitting it a few times until the thing had been finished off.  Yusuke had been nervous to get in fights without Joker there to give orders, but even with only the two of them, the fight truly hadn’t been that difficult.  Yusuke had even gotten in a few good strikes with his katana.

“Awesome!” Ryuji said as soon as the fight ended.  He wasn’t bothering to keep his voice down.  Yusuke hoped they wouldn’t be attacked.  “Heck yeah!”

“What are you referring to?” Yusuke asked curiously.

“You can swing that katana even though it’s almost as big as you!” Ryuji said by way of answer.  “That’s so crazy, dude!”
Yusuke had marveled at the same thing himself.  As Fox, he could swing around a katana with ease, even though he was much less athletic in the real world.  “I agree.  It seems to be a property of the metaverse.  The added arm strength, I mean.”

“Whoa!  That’s wild.  Yeah, I guess it makes sense that you can’t handle a giant katana in real life.  Wait, do you even know how to use a katana in the real world?”  Ryuji paused, thinking hard.  “I guess I’ve never hit anything with a baseball bat or a metal pipe or nothin’ in the real world, but I feel like I could do it.”

There was a lot there, and Yusuke wasn’t exactly sure what he was actually supposed to respond to, and he wasn’t sure if he was being made fun of.  “I can’t use a katana in the real world,” he finally said.  “I don’t know how.”

“Okay,” Ryuji said.  “Do you care if I try your katana out?  I wanna know if I can use it.  You can try my bat.”

“I’m not sure that’s safe,” Yusuke said.  “Perhaps we should wait until we find a safe room, at least.”

“Makes sense!  You’re smart!  Okay, let’s keep on trekkin’.”

Ryuji immediately turned and started making his way down the bank’s wide, lush hallway, staying close to the wall.  Yusuke followed behind him.

“You know, you act quite differently from how I expected,” Yusuke said.  

“Huh?  Uh, is that a bad thing?  What do you mean?”

“It is not a ‘bad thing,’” Yusuke answered definitively.  

Ryuji gave him a small smile, looking…uncertain, Yusuke would have thought, on anyone but Ryuji.  He wasn’t quite sure what it meant, but Ryuji seemed to have the confidence that Yusuke could only attain with a paintbrush in his hand.

“I haven’t known many people like you to be…well, nice,” Yusuke continued.  “To people like me, that is.  I believe you’re called ‘jocks?’”

Ryuji’s small smile split in two, revealing a much larger, full faced grin.  “Me?  A jock?  Maybe once, man.  Not anymore.  I’m a Phantom Thief like you!”

That was…reassuring.  Yusuke found himself smiling back, even when Ryuji looked like he was going to punch him on the arm again.  He apparently thought better of it, falling into step beside Yusuke as they continued down the hallway.

“So, uhh, were some jocks mean to you?  At school or somethin’?”

Not so long ago, Yusuke might have let the memory sour his mood.  Now, with a katana at his waist and the Metaverse spread before him, it barely seemed to matter.  “Well, yes.  Often.  Not at my current school, you understand.  We don’t have sports.  But in middle school.”

Ryuji frowned.  “Dicks.  Hey, you remember their names?  We could beat ‘em up in Mementos!”

Yusuke considered.  “No,” he said finally.  “Revenge is not befitting of a Phantom Thief.”

“Classy.”  Was that Yusuke’s imagination, or did Ryuji’s voice contain a tinge of admiration?

“Maybe if I run across them again, and they repeat their earlier insults.  I suppose at that point it would be for the good of the public.”

Ryuji laughed.  “Now we’re talkin’!  And, hey, just to be clear…I never did nothin’ like that.  Even when I was a jock.  I ain’t like that.”

“I believe you,” Yusuke said, and was hardly even surprised to discover that it was true.  If the jocks he’d grown up around had been more like Ryuji Sakamato, he suspected that he would have had an easier time making friends.  Perhaps it had been easier than he’d thought, all this time.

They made their way almost halfway down the hallway in silence, before Ryuji broke it again.  “So you like art.  Whaddya think of manga?  That’s art, right?”

“I do enjoy manga!  I find the speed quite impressive.  A single painting takes me days.  Weeks, even.  But to produce an entire chapter so quickly….”

“Yeah!” Ryuji said.  Yusuke found it easy to tell when Ryuji was excited, which was a trait he appreciated.  He didn’t generally read other people’s emotions with any particular facility.  “Putting a chapter out every week is, like, so crazy!  I don’t even think I could put out a chapter of stuff every week even if it was all just stick figures.  But I guess that’s why I don’t write manga, huh?”

“I doubt I would be up to the task either,” Yusuke said.  “If I’m being frank.”

“Oh, wow, wait, have you ever thought about trying to write a manga?  Because that would be really, really cool.  And I bet it would make you draw faster as well!  If you ever need any ideas, I would be happy to give you some of mine.  But when it comes to the drawing part…you’re like the only guy I know who might be up to it.”

This was, possibly, the best compliment that Yusuke had ever received.  It was clear that he’d been all wrong about Ryuji.  Ryuji wasn’t the kind of person that bullied people.  Instead, he was clearly one of the nicest humans to ever exist.  Yusuke suspected that it was probably fated that they would become fast friends.  

In any case, Yusuke certainly wanted to be friends with Ryuji.  In situations like this one, Yusuke always felt that honesty was best.

“That’s a very kind thing to say, Ryuji,” Yusuke said.  “I do believe we should be friends.  In light of that, I’ll be formally accepting your offer to treat me to dinner.  I actually have a few ideas as to where we should go.  If we have a nice time, the next time we eat out together will be my treat.  I’ll have to put some strict limitations on how much I can spend on you, however.”

Ryuji had been crouched against the wall of the hallway, peering around the corner.  At this, he straightened up and turned back towards Yusuke.  “Uhhhh…okay!  Yeah, man, that sounds fun!  We can do a sort of exchange thing.  But…don’t make me go anywhere too expensive either, ‘kay?”

“Perfectly understandable,” Yusuke said.  This was probably the most successful conversation Yusuke had ever had in his life, and he didn’t intend to complain about a limited budget.

“Okay, then great!  Yeah!  Great plan!”

Yusuke was kind of weird, but Ryuji liked him.  It was a little overwhelming how…intense about stuff he could be - Ryuji was really just being friendly, and Yusuke was acting like Ryuji had saved his dog or something.  But even if that was weird, it wasn’t really something to complain about.  It was pretty nice.  Ryuji would be the first to admit that until he’d met Ren, he had been a bit lonely.  Super lonely, actually.  That had faded with each new Phantom Thief they’d added to the party, but Ryuji was starting to feel like however many friends he made, it just made him realize more how unhappy he’d been before.

But at least now, he knew how good he had it.  Yusuke seemed lonely, too, and Ryuji didn’t want anyone to feel like he had.  

Yusuke was cooler than he’d expected too.  Ryuji wasn’t sure what to make of the artist stuff, or Yusuke’s colorful clothes and big words.  But Yusuke liked manga, and eating, and he could swing a katana like he was right out of an anime, and now Ryuji wasn’t just being friendly because it was the right thing to do.  

“Ryuji.  I mean, Skull.  Should I have been using your codename the whole time?”

Ryuji hadn’t thought about that.  He winced, half expecting to hear Morgana calling him an idiot again.  Instead, the voice in his head was his own.  

“Nah, man.  It’s probably fine?  Uh, I mean, we ain’t on the A team.  Maybe just use it from now on.”

Yusuke looked relieved.  “Alright.  I would hate to perform poorly.”

“Same,” Ryuji said, then kind of wished he hadn’t.  “Uh, I mean, what’s up?”

“Oh.  Should we attack that shadow?”

Ryuji hadn’t even spotted the shadow yet.  Yusuke had sharp eyes, maybe from painting?  Ryuji promised himself that he’d ask when the battle was over.  Another cool thing about Yusuke.  He wondered if Ren had realized it, and if he’d ask Yusuke to help him look for treasure.  If he hadn’t, Ryuji would let him know.  

Ren probably had, though.  He probably thought Yusuke was just as cool as Ryuji did, and he already knew all this stuff because Ren noticed everything.

The shadow turned out to be something like a twitching pile of mud with eyes and a mouth.  Ryuji’s lightning missed.  Yusuke’s katana sliced outward before Ryuji could do much more than stumble back in shame, and the shadow moaned and dissolved into a puddle of black goo.

“Sorry, man, my bad,” Ryuji yelped, glaring at his stupid, useless hands and wishing he’d just hit the dumb thing with a bat.  “You were really cool, though!”

Yusuke had been really cool.  Cooler than Ryuji, for sure.  Maybe he was glad that Ren wasn’t here, just this once.  He needed to do better if he wanted to….

Ryuji wasn’t sure what exactly he wanted from Ren, but he was pretty sure he wouldn’t get it by missing a bunch of easy enemies.

“Man, I can’t believe I did that,” he muttered, kicking the pile of goo.

“That’s perfectly alright,” Yusuke said.  “We all have different skills.  Your accuracy may be lower than mine, that’s true.  But if I get hit by a strong attack, I’ll simply die.”

Ryuji straightened up.  “Dude, you…what?”

“I don’t withstand attacks very well,” Yusuke clarified.  

“Oh,” Ryuji said.  “Okay.  Well…that’s good to know, I guess.  We don’t got a lot of items, so…we better make sure you don’t get hit, huh?”

“I think that would be to both of our benefit,” Yusuke said.  “And if it helps, I’m quite good at evading attacks.  The problem mostly comes when I’m faced with an attack I don’t see coming, for example during-”

Sirens blared, and the world was suddenly bathed in red light.  They’d been engaged with talking, and neither of them had been watching out for shadows.  Ryuji had been completely distracted, and an enemy had been able to sneak up on them without either of them being any the wiser.  And now they were paying for it.

“Shit!” Ryuji yelled.  They were fighting two gigantic purple dudes with horns on their heads.  Ryuji definitely recognized this kind of shadow from fights with Joker, but he couldn’t remember what they were weak to.  Even if he did know what they were weak to, it would be a miracle if it happened to be the kind of attacks that he and Yusuke had on hand.

The one thing he did remember about these particular enemies was their strength.  He was pretty sure he had only ever seen Joker fight one at a time.  And he and Yusuke were facing two .

Ryuji hit both of the purple guys with a lightning attack, and while it did a little bit of damage, it didn’t do nearly as much as he would have expected.  Lightning clearly didn’t work well on these kinds of shadows.

“Try ice!” Ryuji yelled.  He felt a little weird ordering Yusuke around mid-battle.  It wasn’t like he’d been a Phantom Thief very much longer than Yusuke had.  But Joker wasn’t there to do it, and they needed to coordinate somehow, right?

Yusuke hit both of them with a simultaneous ice attack.  But instead of it doing any damage at all, it actually seemed to heal the enemies.

“I apologize,” Yusuke said.  “I’m not sure what I did wrong.”

“I don’t think you did anything wrong, man, but… pay attention.”

One of the purple guys was moving, pulling out something that looked like a cross between a sword and a club.  Ryuji remembered from the last time they’d fought these things that it really hurt.  And Yusuke’s sword wasn’t even out, and he couldn’t call Goemon again in time, and he couldn’t take a hard hit very well.

“OVER HERE,” Ryuji shouted, darting forward.  His leg gave a twinge, meaning he was already tired, already a bit low on resources.  He ignored it.  He could take this better than Yusuke could.

For a second, he wasn’t sure it worked.  He wasn’t sure if he was disappointed or relieved.  

And then the purple giant turned towards him, the club-sword swinging in a fast moving arc that Ryuji couldn’t quite follow until it caught him in the stomach.  

The breath went out of him with a rush, and when he tried to suck it back in, the pain came.  He was being crushed and cut at the same time, and it felt like everything in his chest was breaking.

“Ryuji?!”  Yusuke was calling for him, sounding more panicked than Ryuji had guessed he had in him.  Ryuji couldn’t turn to look at him.  He was staring down at the sword embedded in his stomach, trying hard to keep breathing around the pain.

The blow lifted him backwards, off his feet, and Ryuji moaned as he hit the ground.  The giant took a step towards him, and Ryuji scrabbled to get himself upright.  He knew he couldn’t take another hit, but he didn’t want to die, pass out, whatever, lying on the floor.  He wanted to fight.

Ryuji tried to summon Captain Kidd, but he couldn’t quite focus around the pain.  Every time he tried, something felt like it was splintering inside his chest.  It probably was.

“Yusuke,” he gasped.  He managed to get to his knees.  Something thick and hot dripped out of his mouth, and he didn’t realize until it splashed onto his pant leg that it was blood.  

“I have them,” Yusuke answered.  The panic was gone, and in its place was a cold anger.  That was good, since Ryuji felt like getting to his knees had been about all he could handle.  But from the sound of Yusuke’s voice, the purple guys should be running scared.

“Gotta…get em now,” Ryuji panted.  “Can’t…take another hit.  Sorry.”

“Goemon, strike! ”

It looked like he wouldn’t need to.  Ryuji slumped back on his heels as the shadows shrieked and dissolved in the wake of Yusuke’s attack.  The light returned to normal, and the two of them were left alone on the rich, carpeted floors of Kaneshiro’s bank.  The adrenaline slowly drained away, and Ryuji was left shaking.

“You need healing,” Yusuke said immediately. 

“I know, man.”  Ryuji was trying not to sound panicked.  If he sounded panicked, he would panic.  “But…you don’t got any healing, do you?”

“Unfortunately, I do not,” Yusuke said stiffly.

“We can look through our items, but I’m pretty sure Joker’s got most of the good stuff.  And Makoto, and Ann, and Morgana…shit, man.  We make a terrible B-team.  We need to get somewhere safe.”

Ryuji scrambled to his feet in a terrible, painful motion that made him feel like the entire world was rotating beneath him.  He panted for breath.  Since his breathing wasn’t coming easy, he might have some busted ribs.  Not good, not on top of everything else.  Yusuke immediately reached out to steady him.  Ryuji’s nerve endings seemed all mixed up, and even the slight pressure hurt.  But Ryuji stayed quiet, because if there was one thing he was sure of, it was that he wouldn’t be able to stand on his own.

“Can you climb?” Yusuke asked.

“Uh….”  If he was being totally honest, Ryuji couldn’t climb that well at the best of times, on account of his leg.  And this was definitely far from the best of times.  

“Don’t worry,” Yusuke said.  “I can assist you.  Follow me.”

He ushered Ryuji around the corner and into a small, dimmer hallway.  Another turn, and then they were in an open room that sort of reminded Ryuji of a warehouse, complete with metal shelving.  They’d cleared the room with Joker earlier, before splitting off to look for treasure. 

“We can rest up there, unreachable by enemies,” Yusuke explained.

They’d been walking for less than thirty seconds, but even that much walking had left Ryuji way less sure that he was going to be able to climb.  Ryuji was trying hard not to think about the wound in his stomach, but it hurt so badly that the edges of his vision kept blurring out of focus.  He wasn’t sure how much longer his leg would support him.  But he couldn’t pass out…then he would be leaving Yusuke all alone.  What if Yusuke got in a fight?  He’d already admitted that he couldn’t take much of a hit.

Ryuji blinked furiously to clear the dark spots and tried very hard not to groan as Yusuke leaned him against a unit of metal shelving.  Yusuke scrambled up to the first level of shelves, then reached down to help Ryuji.  

The climb up was short, and horrible.  Ryuji collapsed next to Yusuke, curling around his stomach and fighting to keep from throwing up.  Throwing up would hurt more than he thought he could handle.

He could already barely handle this, if he was being honest.  The last time he’d felt anything like this, Kamoshida had broken his knee and life as he’d known it had pretty much ended.  Closing his eyes took him back there, to the car ride with his mom crying, the doctor’s appointments where they told him that this wasn’t the kind of thing time alone could fix, other kids avoiding him in the halls.  

Ryuji knew this wasn’t the same.  This was a Palace, and the real world rules didn’t apply.  Bones mended and skin smoothed over, and after a few Dias all Ryuji would have left would be the memory of pain.

But it wasn’t a memory yet, and the right now was freakin’ brutal.   Ryuji gulped and tried to force his breathing slow and smooth, reminding himself for the hundredth time that he was being stupid.  He would be just fine.  Eventually. 

“I’m not sure we’ll have the items to fully heal this,” Yusuke said from beside and above him.  He sounded scared, but not as scared as Ryuji felt.  

Ryuji wrenched his eyes open.  “I know that, man.  We should….  Um, do we got bandages?  Shit, why am I askin’ you?”

Yusuke blinked down at him, then extended a hand and offered it to Ryuji.  “Should I help you up, or do you wish to remain lying down?”

Ryuji wanted to remain lying down.  He wanted to curl up in a ball and wait for someone to make the pain stop, but that was the coward in the back of his head talking.  He tuned it out and reached up for Yusuke’s hand.

Chapter Text

When Ryuji was sitting up, and the waves of pain had receded, he actually felt maybe a little better.  Almost like he had something about the situation under control, like he was a tough Phantom Thief instead of a scared little kid.

“Okay.  Let’s look for those bandages.”  

Ryuji had a limited store of items, stuff Joker had gotten from his weird doctor friend and handed off to the rest of his party to hold.  Sure enough, tucked in with the bandaids and ointments were some gauze and strips of bandage.  

“Okay, found ‘em.  Now if I just….”  Ryuji looked down at his stomach.  He wasn’t sure exactly what he’d expected, but what he found was a hell of a lot of blood.  It was leaking out of an upsettingly long gash across his stomach, streaking over the torn leather of his suit and dripping onto his lap.  “Um.”

It would have been nice for Yusuke to take the lead, but looking at him now, it didn’t really look like this was the sort of thing he felt good about taking point on.  He’d gone pale, and his mouth was a thin, tense line.  Luckily, Ryuji didn’t think it looked like he was about to throw up or anything, but still.  Not puking on someone you were supposed to be looking after was a pretty low bar.

Ryuji knew a little bit about first aid - god knew he’d gotten injured often enough, and this wasn’t his first palace anyways.  “Sorry about this, man, but we probably gotta stop the bleeding first.  If you could just…uh-”

“Why did you choose to do that?” Yusuke interrupted.  

“Um…what?”

“You drew the shadows' attention, so it attacked you instead of me.  It left you severely injured.  I…don’t understand.  Why did you do that, instead of simply letting it attack me and then finishing it off yourself?  I used a physical attack, something you can use as well.”

It honestly hadn’t been a calculated decision on Ryuji’s part.  They had just talked about the fact that Yusuke couldn’t take hits as well as Ryuji could, and then they’d been ambushed, and Yusuke had risked taking a hit, and…it had just felt natural.  It had been instinct.  Ryuji always protected people, and even if his mind didn’t have time to catch up, his body had known that it just made sense.

“I didn’t really stop to think about it,” Ryuji admitted.  “Just thought I could take it better than you could, that’s all.”

“If I’d been the one to take that hit instead of you, I don’t think I’d still be up right now,” Yusuke said gravely.  “Let me help you get the bleeding stopped.”

“Any time, dude.  Uh, you’re not one of those people who pass out at the sight of blood, are you?”

“It’s never really been put to the test.”

That wasn’t exactly reassuring, but it wasn’t like Ryuji had tons of people lining up to help him right now.  And anyways, Yusuke actually did seem just fine.  He leaned forward and peered at the wound, already seeming a bit steadier.

“Can you remove your outfit, please?  I think that will be necessary in order to apply the bandages.”

“Sure,” Ryuji said, already fumbling at his shirt.  He froze.  “Wait.  I don’t actually know how this comes off.  I’ve never done it before.  I usually just kinda let it disappear when we leave, you know?”

Yusuke bent down, frowning at what appeared to be seamless leather, now that Ryuji was looking at it.  “Is there a zipper?”

“There is, but it stops at my shoulder,” Ryuji said miserably.  “I…man, is it attached to my pants, too?  Who makes this shit?  Ain’t no way I can get this off!”

“Very well,” Yusuke said, and for some reason he pulled out his katana.  “Stay still.”

“Wait, no, don’t use that on me!”  Ryuji pushed himself backwards, but he was already leaning against the wall and there was nowhere else to go.  “Fox, please-”

“Stay still.”  Faster than Ryuji’s terrified eyes could follow, the katana slashed up Ryuji’s chest, trailing the sound of ripping leather as it went.

Ryuji stayed still.  He stayed still until Yusuke had sheathed the katana, looking almost as surprised as he felt.  Then, they both looked down at Ryuji’s chest.

There weren’t any new stab wounds, which was the good news.  The bad news was that the stab wound Ryuji already had looked bad.  It was deep, and still oozing blood every time Ryuji moved.  He was pretty sure he could see little bits of torn stuff that he thought were supposed to be his muscles.

He looked back up at Yusuke instead.  “Pretty cool moves with the katana there.”  His voice sounded almost normal.

“Something about the Metaverse possesses me when I hold it in my hand,” Yusuke said.  He sounded proud, and maybe a bit more relieved than Ryuji was comfortable with.

“Do you think that happens with bandages, too?” Ryuji asked hopefully.

Yusuke frowned down at the pile of gauze next to them.  “I suppose we’ll find out together.  I will warn you that I’m not particularly hopeful, however.”

“Anything’s better than this,” Ryuji told him, gesturing down at the sea of blood his midsection was turning into.

“You’re probably right.”  

Yusuke leaned down with the bandages, and Ryuji winced and gritted his teeth through the painful process of patching him up.  It was hard to tell which hurt more, the stab wound or the ribs that he was becoming more and more sure were broken.  

“Is that better?” Yusuke asked doubtfully, looking at Ryuji’s stomach instead of his face.  Ryuji looked down too, and saw a thick wad of rapidly reddening bandages.  He kind of looked like a mummy.

“I mean, it ain’t drippin’ on the floor,” Ryuji said.  He wasn’t sure if it would actually feel any better when they had to start moving, but at least he wouldn’t be worried about spilling his stomach out onto the ground.  He didn’t know if even a palace could help him survive that.  “Thanks for the help.”

“I’ve taken stock of our healing items as well,” Yusuke informed him.

“Lemme guess.  We have loads of great ones, and you’re gonna be able to give me as much healing as I want after every other fight we have to do.”

“Unfortunately, that’s not the case,” Yusuke said. 

“Yeah, man.  I…figured.  I was messin’ with ya.  Sorry, it’s a reaction to the pain, I guess.”

“That’s understandable,” Yusuke said.  “And I do wish that I had better news.  But unfortunately, our stock of healing items isn’t particularly good.  We have the full restore item we picked up from the chest, and a few other miscellaneous items that will restore a bit of your health, but not all of it.”

“I don’t wanna take the full restore thing,” Ryuji said immediately.  “That’s for Joker.”

“Are you-?”

“There ain’t no point using it on just you and me.  Even if we get in more fights, it’s…real hard to die in palaces.  I can just tough it out.  You said there were a few other things?”
“Yes, we have a handful of items that restore some health, but not all of it.”

Ryuji weighed his options.  The items were precious at this point.  He wasn’t sure if they would be able to avoid getting in any more fights on their way back to the safe room to wait for Joker, and if he got hit again, any extra health from a smaller healing item would be gone.  There was a chance Yusuke would need them too.

But on the other hand, he was in so much pain he wasn’t even sure he would be able to stand.  Any little bit of healing had to help at this point.  They were going to have to move - they had no way to contact Joker, so they couldn’t just stay here and hope for rescue.  A healing item was probably the only way Ryuji would actually be able to do that.

“Alright,” Ryuji said.  “Gimme one of the little ones.”

Yusuke fished around and handed Ryuji a soda that restored a bit of health.  Getting it down was tough - Ryuji’s insides really didn’t appreciate having anything put in them.  But he did feel a little bit better once his health had been restored.  It took the edge off the pain, at least.

“Alright,” he said.  “We’re gonna need to move, right?  I’m ready.”

Yusuke extended a hand to Ryuji and helped pull him to his feet.  He wobbled, putting a hand out for the wall, but managed to stay upright.  Yusuke watched in admiration.  All the Phantom Thieves were tough, but usually they received healing almost as soon as they were hit - the longest Yusuke had ever had to go was simply finishing a fight.

This was different.  Ryuji’s hand was planted on the wall, his head hanging down as he wheezed for breath.  The bandages that Yusuke had wrapped around him were already bloody, and Yusuke had no doubt they would only get bloodier as the two of them made their way back to the safe room.

And if Ryuji hadn’t drawn the shadow’s attack, Yusuke would have been the one to get injured.  Ryuji had…protected him.  Yusuke wasn’t sure that anyone had done that for him before.  Madarame had taken him in, the Phantom Thieves had saved him, and Sojiro had offered him shelter, but all of that seemed different.  Yusuke hadn’t had many friends, but he was fairly sure that what Ryuji had just done for him went beyond the bounds of normal friendships.

He wasn’t entirely sure what to make of that, or how to feel.  He was…overwhelmed, a bit, grateful, certainly - and largely confused.  Gratitude didn’t feel quite right.  He was thankful, of course, and he hoped he could repay Ryuji someday, but he wasn’t sure if that was helpful here, with Ryuji gritting his teeth to keep standing despite the pain.

“Let us go,” Yusuke finally said.  He reached out for Ryuji, who took his arm silently.  Together, they made their way to the edge of the metal shelving and peered down.

“Uh, there’s shadows down there, man,” Ryuji finally said.  

“So there are.”  Quite a few of them, actually.  Yusuke didn’t have Joker’s keen vision, and he didn’t know the rank of each shadow patrolling below them, but there were definitely more than he was comfortable fighting with Ryuji in such a state.  

“I don’t…do you think we can make it back to the safe room?”

Yusuke paused, immediately flattered that Ryuji was asking him for his tactical opinion.  He looked over the edge one more time, counting the guards.

“I imagine that if the patrols returned to this room when we moved upwards, the way back to the safe room will be similarly guarded.”

Ryuji nodded.  His face was white, and his jaw set in what could be either pain, fear, or determination.  “We should keep goin’ forward, then.  Try to meet up with Joker.”

“You’re right,” Yusuke said, trying not to sound as uncertain as he felt.  “Do you…would you like any additional healing before we push onward?”

Ryuji frowned.  “Joker’s going to be able to fix me up way better than a couple of healing items will,” he said.

“That’s…true, but based on the number of shadows in even this room alone, I think it’s likely that we’re going to get in more fights before we can reach Joker.  I don’t want you to….”

“I’ll be alright, man.”

“We do have more healing items on hand, even if our stock is somewhat limited.  Are you sure you don’t want to-?”

“Nah,” Ryuji said.  His voice was small, but he sounded sure.  “If we’re going to be maybe getting in fights, you’re gonna need those more than I will.  You’re going to be doing physical attacks, ‘cause I sure won’t be able to, and we both know how much energy those use up.  You’ll need the items yourself or neither of us are gonna be able to get out of this.  Plus what if you get hurt?  Yeah, nah.  Don’t waste anymore on me.  I’ll be fine.”

Yusuke generally didn’t find subtext easy to interpret at all, but in this case, it was obvious that Ryuji was in a lot of pain.  Ryuji was now a good friend of Yusuke’s, and he felt quite uncomfortable asking him to walk, run, even fight when he was hurt this badly, and he felt even worse about the idea of using their meager stock of healing items on himself.  But Ryuji had so far made a lot of good points.  Ryuji certainly couldn’t pull off a physical attack at this point.  If Yusuke ran out of the energy needed for them as well, the two of them were never going to be able to reach Joker.

“If you’re certain,” Yusuke said.  Ryuji nodded firmly.  He’d gone very pale, but he looked determined.

They climbed down the opposite side of the shelving, and immediately ducked into a hidden corner between the shelf and the wall.  Yusuke had figured climbing down would be easier than climbing up, but this much movement clearly hadn’t been kind to Ryuji.  He was white-faced and gasping for breath, a hand pressed against his side.  Even though they had a plan to defeat shadows without Ryuji needing to do much, Yusuke still felt terrible for dragging him into any fights at all.  He resolved to sneak as much as possible.

Yusuke left Ryuji and peeked his head out of their hiding spot.  He noted the positions of all the shadows in the room.  They would have to make it across an open section of floor to get out of the room without a fight, but there was a period of time where every shadow would be turned away from their route.  They would just need to hurry.

“Be ready on my mark,” Yusuke informed Ryuji.  

Grimly, Ryuji nodded and pulled his hand away from his side.  He wheezed in another choppy breath and frowned.  “Ready…for what?”

“Oh.  To dart across the room without attracting the notice of the shadows, of course.”  

“Got it,” Ryuji mumbled, and Yusuke watched as he drew himself as upright as he could manage, a sort of hunched position that had him partially tilted towards the side with the broken ribs.  “Ready.”

He didn’t look ready, but Yusuke trusted him to know what he was and wasn’t capable of.  Yusuke crept up to the very edge of their patch of shadow, waiting for their moment.

“Now,” he hissed, and ran forward.  

He moved as quickly and silently as he could, keenly aware that being seen would have consequences far worse than merely raising the alarm.  Usually, if they were caught, Yusuke was confident that they could simply fight their way out.  He wasn’t so sure of that with just him and a very-injured Ryuji.

Yusuke looked back over his shoulder, hoping that he would see Ryuji following close behind.  He was there, limping badly, listing to the side, ashen, but within arm’s reach of Yusuke.  

The next time Yusuke looked back, only a second or two later, he’d dropped back a few feet, and he looked like he might fall.  Yusuke’s silent sprint faltered, and he took hold of Ryuji’s wrist without thinking.  He clutched it tightly and pulled him along, darting through the doorway right as the final shadow began to turn around.

Instantly, Ryuji staggered to the wall and collapsed into it.  They weren’t running anymore, but his breathing was still coming in ragged, shallow gasps.  His color was, if possible, even worse than before, an unpleasant shade of grey that made Yusuke think of something dead.

“Ryuji?”  Yusuke moved forward automatically, stopping short of touching his new friend.  He put his hand back down by his side instead.  “Are you alright?  Well, I suppose I mean alright in the context of being very badly injured in the midst of a Palace.”

Ryuji heaved in another jagged, shuddering breath and went a little paler.  He shook his head, miserably, and the hand that wasn’t planted on the wall tugged at the bandages around his middle.

“Can’t…breathe,” he wheezed.  “My ribs.  Bandages too tight.”

Now, Yusuke did reach out to Ryuji.  As gently as he could, as though he were handling a freshly finished painting, he took Ryuji’s arm and helped him lower himself to the ground.

“Sorry, sorry, sorry,” Ryuji mumbled, around intermittent gasps for air.  “Slowin’ us down.”

“Don’t apologize,” Yusuke said firmly.  His general life philosophy was that if an apology was necessary, someone else would have to ask him for it.  And he certainly hadn’t asked Ryuji for one.  “You didn’t do anything wrong.”

“I think…my ribs are busted,” Ryuji said.  

“I can help you loosen the bandages,” Yusuke said, kneeling down beside Ryuji.  The bandages were pretty bloody already, which Yusuke didn’t think was good at all.  Yusuke had applied the bandages mere minutes ago, and so far all they’d done was make it out of a single room. 

“Sorry,” Ryuji said again.  “Shoulda said something earlier, I just didn’t realize-”

“You don’t need to apologize,” Yusuke repeated.  It seemed that apologies might be more of a matter of course for Ryuji than they were for Yusuke.  He’d apologized more in the past thirty seconds or so than Yusuke had in the past…he wasn’t even sure how long. 

That did make Yusuke wonder if perhaps he should be apologizing as well.  Ryuji had, after all, taken the hit for him.  If Yusuke hadn’t been here, or if Ryuji had been paired with someone a bit more durable for the B-team, it was very possible that he wouldn’t have ended up in this situation at all.  Yusuke wouldn’t go so far as to say it was his fault that Ryuji hadn’t been hurt.  He hadn’t pushed Ryuji in front of the blow - in fact, he hadn’t even asked for Ryuji to take it.  But even so, it did rather feel like Yusuke’s responsibility.

“Perhaps I should be apologizing to you,” Yusuke said.

“For-”  Ryuji broke off as Yusuke pulled gently at the knot that held his bandages on.  Yusuke thought he was being very brave, but he was still clearly in quite a bit of pain.  “For what, man?”

“Well, you did end up with this injury on account of me, after all,” Yusuke said.  “So…I’m sorry, Ryuji.”

“Oh,” Ryuji said.  He was quiet for a long moment, and the only sound was his heavy breathing.  “Wow.”  There was another beat of silence.  “Thanks.”

“No, thank you,” Yusuke said earnestly.  “Please, refrain from either thanking me or apologizing.”

“Um,” Ryuji said.  “Any time, man.”

Yusuke finished loosening the bandages.  That would hopefully make it easier for Ryuji to breathe, although Yusuke also thought it might make it more difficult for Ryuji’s blood to remain inside him.  He would have to weigh those things, he supposed.

“Is that better?” Yusuke asked, eying the blood on the bandages with some concern.  He wondered if it was possible to bleed out inside a Palace.  He hoped that they weren’t about to find out.

Ryuji took a breath that still sounded horrible to Yusuke, but he nodded and gave Yusuke a thumbs up.  “Yeah.  Thanks.  I’m ready to go.”

Yusuke helped pull Ryuji to his feet, which did seem to go better this time than it had the last.  “Please, let me know if you require any further adjustments to your bandages.”

Ryuji nodded, and they continued onward.  They made it through a few rooms unchallenged before they came to a passage guarded by one shadow, patrolling squarely in front of the door they needed to pass through.

“I’m not sure we can evade this particular shadow,” Yusuke whispered reluctantly.  Ryuji had improved since they’d loosened the bandages, but he was still too pale and unsteady on his feet.  After the success of the last few rooms, Yusuke had allowed himself to hope that they could make it all the way to Joker without engaging in another battle.

“Nope,” Ryuji said.  “Shouldn’t try to sneak past, in case it sees us.  I think we should ambush it, huh?”

If Yusuke hadn’t been crouched right next to Ryuji, and able to see the slight tremble in his arms, or the tight set of his jaw, he would never have realized Ryuji was frightened.  Until now, he would have guessed that Ryuji was the sort of person who had never felt frightened in his life.  Knowing that he did, and that he chose to fight anyway, made Yusuke like him even more.

“On my mark, or yours?” Yusuke asked.  Ryuji responded with a quiet, painful laugh.

“Yours, man.  You’re way faster’n me right now.”

“Point taken.”  Yusuke waited for the shadow’s back to turn, and launched himself forward, drawing his katana.  The shadow screeched, morphing into a chimera-like creature and recoiling from the blow.  Much to Yusuke’s dismay, it didn’t dissolve, and he leaped backwards to clear the way for Ryuji to attack.  “Skull!”

Electricity arced past Yusuke, and Ryuji bent forward over his knees, panting.  The shadow howled, and Ryuji pumped his fist in triumph.  “Hell yeah!  Take-”

The beast leapt forward, lashing out with open jaws.  Ryuji screamed, blood spraying from his chest and splattering onto his face, his hands, the shadow.  He collapsed without another sound, crumpling face down onto the floor.

“Ryuji!”  Yusuke almost started for Ryuji, but stopped himself.  He needed to defeat the shadow first, or it could easily kill them both.  And anyways, Ryuji was unconscious.  Even if Yusuke had healing items to spare, which he didn’t, they wouldn’t do anything unless they could revive Ryuji first.

Yusuke hit the enemy with ice, and thankfully, it seemed particularly susceptible to this kind of attack.  Yusuke managed to knock the shadow down, although he couldn’t hold it up on his own.  He wasn’t sure if the problem was that he was by himself, or that he was without Joker.

The shadow seemed uninterested in Ryuji’s fallen body, thankfully.  Yusuke managed to dodge its next attack, and then hit it with ice again.  The shadow fell once more, but it still didn’t look any worse for the wear.  Yusuke’s ice attacks were helpful for holding up shadows, but not nearly as strong as his physical attacks.  Conserving HP was important, but if he had to go too many rounds with this shadow, he was bound to get hit eventually.  Taking the brunt of an attack would surely do much more damage than dealing one of his own would.

So the next time Yusuke spotted an opening, he poured all his energy into hitting as hard as he possibly could with the sword.  For a second, he was sure that it wasn’t enough, and the fight wasn’t over, but then the shadow collapsed into smoke.  Yusuke breathed a sigh of relief and sheathed his sword.  

As soon as the battle was over and the light returned to normal, Ryuji started to stir.  Yusuke was greatly relieved.  When one of them was injured badly enough to go unconscious during a battle that included Joker, they woke up a bit as soon as the shadow had been defeated.  But Joker was clearly special, and Yusuke hadn’t wanted to assume that the same thing would happen in a battle that didn’t include Joker.  But apparently, he had nothing to worry about.  Ryuji pushed himself up on an unsteady-looking hand, weak-looking and clearly still injured but very much awake.

“Skull!” Yusuke exclaimed.  He knelt beside Ryuji, and realized that he did so that his own muscles were aching badly.  He told himself firmly that he was going to need to ignore that for now.  They didn’t have enough medication for him to constantly have his full amount of HP, even if it was uncomfortable for him to dip too far below that.

In any case, if his HP had dropped low enough that his muscles hurt, he shuddered to imagine the condition that Ryuji was in at this point.  His HP would have had to drop all the way to zero for him to go unconscious.  Even if he’d woken up, it was surely still incredibly low.  

“I’m alright,” Ryuji said.  He didn’t sound alright.  He coughed, and a bit of blood came out of his mouth.  Under more normal circumstances, Yusuke might have been disgusted, but as it was, he felt nothing but worry for his dear friend.  

“We need to get you some healing items right away,” Yusuke said.  He began rifling through their stash, trying to find the one that returned the most HP.  “You’re sure you can manage eating, correct?”

Ryuji coughed more blood and shook his head.  “Wait a minute, man.”

“You can’t eat?” Yusuke asked distractedly.  “I suppose that isn’t surprising.  Perhaps I can find a salve….”

“That ain’t what I meant,” Ryuji said, pushing himself laboriously to his knees.  He bent over, wheezing.  Blood was trickling out the side of his mouth.  “I…shouldn’t take it.”

Yusuke looked at the now-soaked bandages, then up at Ryuji’s pale face.  “I believe you most certainly should.  You have hardly any health.  Any single attack could knock you unconscious!”

“Yep.”  Ryuji tipped his head back and closed his eyes.  “That’s why I shouldn’t take it.  You gotta be our fighter, dude.”

Yusuke blinked down at the ointment he held.  “But-”

“‘Sokay,” Ryuji said.  “I’m prob’ly gonna go down every fight even if you give me one of those.  A little bit like that ain’t gonna do much to this.”  He gestured down towards himself with a shaky hand.  “But if you take it…you c’n top yourself up.  Keep doin’ physical attacks.  It’s not like I’m gonna die, or nothin.’”

Yusuke frowned.  “So your new plan is…that you fall unconscious in every battle?”

Ryuji gulped, then smiled cautiously.  His teeth were streaked with blood.  “Yeah, man.  I can take it.”

Yusuke wasn’t convinced that he could.  They’d never done anything like this before - Joker would never let one of them stay so low.  “Are you sure?  What if it…stacks, somehow?  What if you don’t get up?”

Ryuji grimaced, looking so scared that Yusuke suddenly wished he hadn’t said anything.  “Well, I’m gonna try real hard not to get hit.  But…I’m pretty sure that if everyone goes down, that’s it.  No do overs.  So…I really don’t want that to happen?”

Yusuke didn’t know what to say, or even where to look.  He tried staring down at the ground.

What Ryuji was suggesting made a bleak kind of sense.  It was definitely the best plan either of them had come up with, and try as he might, Yusuke couldn’t think of anything more likely to keep them both alive.  But still, he was surprised that Ryuji had suggested this.  It was going to be very physically uncomfortable, and could be dangerous too.  His friend was very brave.  And on top of that, he was very selfless.

Yusuke resolved to hit as hard as he could during every single fight they got in.  If the fights went by quickly, Ryuji would spend less time in a state of discomfort.  Yusuke honestly wasn’t sure how else he could help, but…he could do that, at least.

Chapter Text

Ryuji knew he hadn’t had very much HP even before he’d taken the hit from that dumb dog thing, but he had definitely had more than one stupid point.  He certainly hadn’t felt great before, but he still managed to be surprised by how much worse he felt now.  He’d never stayed at one hit point longer than a minute or two - he just had to wait for the fight to end and for Joker to flip through his items or cast a spell, and that was that. 

But apparently, staying at one hit point made injuries feel worse.  The place where he’d actually taken the hit hurt like crazy, and that was obviously the worst thing.  But his leg actually managed to hurt a ton too.  His knee was stiff, aching when he straightened it and throbbing when he bent it.  He didn’t feel particularly steady on his feet, and he was kind of worried that at some point, his leg was going to give way altogether and spill him onto the ground.  If that happened, Ryuji didn’t know if he was going to be able to get back up.

Ryuji had started using his bat as a sort of makeshift crutch.  It felt silly and almost disrespectful, but it wasn’t like he had a lot of options.  Yusuke was a nice guy, but Ryuji had too much pride to ask him to help Ryuji walk, and besides, he was keeping a lookout for Shadows and stuff.

Ryuji was pretty sure at this point that if he hadn’t been inside a palace, he wouldn’t have been standing at all.  He was intimately familiar with all the different ways that his leg could hurt him, and if he hadn’t been helped by the Metaverse, he knew that he wouldn’t have been able to walk.

“Skull!” 

That was about all the warning he had before a shadow materialized in front of them.  He never saw the attack coming, just woke up on the ground, staring up at Kaneshiro’s fancy-ass ceiling.  He knew he’d fallen unconscious, and he hadn’t even managed to get a lightning attack off.  Stupid.  That was the one thing he was supposed to do, and he couldn’t even handle that.

Still, he’d woken up, so Yusuke must have been able to handle the fight on his own.  Ryuji pushed himself to his elbows and paused, moaning, as his ribs shifted inside him.

“Skull?  Are you alright?”  Yusuke’s hand hovered over his shoulder blades, and Ryuji could feel his fingertips just barely grazing his back.

“Awake,” Ryuji answered, and pushed himself the rest of the way up.  He didn’t really feel alright.  He felt like most of his bones - and some of his organs - had been squished.  “Thanks for…beatin’ it, I guess.  Savin’ my ass.”

“No,” Yusuke said, blinking solemnly down at Ryuji.  “You are ‘saving my ass,’ as it were.  That was a very hard hit you took.  Just now, I mean.  In addition to the other hard hits.”

So maybe Ryuji wasn’t entirely useless, after all.  If he could draw the hits away from Yusuke, even if he dropped immediately, at least he would be conserving Yusuke’s precious HP.  If he was being honest, his lightning attacks weren’t very good anyway.

“Don’t mention it,” he said, and took the hand Yusuke was offering.  His knee threatened to give out on the way up, and Ryuji quickly steadied himself on his bat.  “Let’s go.”

The next shadow appeared almost immediately.  Ryuji hoped that meant that the amount of shadows meant they were getting close to Joker, but he didn’t really have any idea.

Right before their enemy attacked, Ryuji took a wobbly step forward and raised his hands, trying to catch its attention.  He was scared, already in so much pain that moving was a struggle, an endless reminder that nothing in his body was right anymore.  He didn’t want to get hit and risk making the pain even worse, even for a second.

But thinking like that wasn’t going to stop the pain.  Joker would, once they got to him, because this wasn’t the real world and Ryuji hadn’t ruined things unless they died here.  Ryuji just had to keep going.  

“Hey!  Over here!!”  It would all be just fine when he woke up.

“Skull?  Are you with me?”  Yusuke’s face appeared above him, a bit out of focus.

“Ye-”  Ryuji’s throat spasmed as something thick and hot forced its way up it.  He gagged and tasted blood on his lips.  He rolled his head to the side, letting it drain out, and tried not to breathe too deeply.

The pain was worse.  He had the same amount of hit points, presumably - it’s not like you could be at less than one.  But that one hit point seemed to be doing a whole lot less for him.  He felt shakier on his feet, weaker.  The pain was so bad he felt nauseous with it.  He tried to sit up, and had to pause propped on his elbows when the world started doing lazy circles around him.

“You haven’t recovered as well this time,” Yusuke said worriedly.  He seemed to have knelt beside Ryuji, and Ryuji honestly wasn’t sure when that had happened.  He seemed to have lost a little time.

“I think I just need to get used to it?”  Get used to what?  Ryuji wasn’t sure.  He was just talking to fill the silence at this point, hoping vaguely that he could reassure Yusuke.  He thought Yusuke might be right, that he hadn’t recovered as well this time, but….

But there wasn’t a lot he could do about that, was there?

“I don’t think so,” Yusuke said.  “You’re definitely doing worse than you were before.  I’m relieved that you’ve continued to regain consciousness.  But….”

“Maybe you’re right,” Ryuji said.  He was in so much pain he was clenching his jaw - it’s not like he was really going to be able to lie to Yusuke.  “Yeah.  Hurts worse now then it did after waking up last time.”

“Perhaps we should-”

“Hey, none of that,” Ryuji managed.  “We don’t really got a different option, do we?”

“But-”

“I’m fine,” Ryuji said.  Was he slurring?  He felt like he was slurring.  “I did wake up, didn’t I?”

Ryuji forced his eyes to focus, and Yusuke’s face swam into view.  He was pinched with worry.

“Yes,” Yusuke said slowly.  

“So…I’m probably gonna keep waking up every time.  Even if it keeps getting worse.  I’m not gonna stay unconscious.”

“We don’t know-”

“But it just makes sense, man.  If this were the real world, I definitely would have already gone down for real, so I know the metaverse is still helping me out.  I’ll keep waking up.  It’s…just gonna hurt more.”

Yusuke still didn’t look sure, but he nodded cautiously.

“How are you doin’?” Ryuji asked.

Yusuke looked uncomfortable.  “Comparatively, quite well.”

Ryuji wasn’t one hundred percent sure what the words Yusuke used meant, but he understood the general sentiment.  Yusuke was hurting, too, even if he didn’t want to say it.  “Aww, did it get ya?”

Yusuke shook his head rapidly.  “No, I’ve just been using my katana.  I’m not nearly so low as you.”

Ryuji managed to make it to a slumped kneeling position.  Yusuke hurried to prop him up, which was kind of embarrassing, but he probably needed it.  As soon as he pushed himself off his elbows, everything started to go fuzzy. 

“You should probably take something,” Ryuji gasped.  He swallowed, ignoring the coppery tang at the back of his throat, and tried to sound less like he was one step away from passing out.

Yusuke looked at him, and Ryuji tried his best to smile.  Yusuke clearly felt bad about using their items when Ryuji was this low, and that sucked, but they’d been over it every which way and had failed to come up with any other options.

“Alright,” Yusuke finally said.  “I think we can conceal ourselves from sight in that corner.”  

He nodded to a patch of wall that was thankfully close by, and Ryuji gritted his teeth and levered himself upright, leaning heavily on his bat.  Spots swum in front of his eyes, so Ryuji closed them.  Slowly, he limped over to Yusuke’s corner.  

For a moment, Ryuji considered just staying upright.  He wasn’t sure how easily he could get back on his feet, and his entire chest was a mass of pain that didn’t respond well to movement of any kind.  Blood kept coming up the back of his throat, which was unpleasant at best, and at worst, made him feel like he was going to throw up.

But his knee felt like hot iron nails were being driven into it with every second he spent standing, and that made the decision for him.  Ryuji slithered gracelessly down the wall to join Yusuke.

“Are you sure-”

“Eat up, man.”  Ryuji wished Yusuke would stop asking him if it was okay to take their items.  Obviously, he’d rather drink one of Joker’s horrible sodas and feel even the slightest bit better, even knowing it would go away the next time he got hit.  Every time Yusuke asked him, it was that much harder to refuse.

Yusuke sighed miserably, and fished around in their inventory.  He came out with a yakisoba pan.  Things somehow stayed fresh in the metaverse for a long time, even stuff that would have gone bad real fast if they’d been toting it around the real world.  It looked a little droopy and Ryuji didn’t think it was warm, but it smelled fine, at least.

“This should restore enough of my energy to allow me to continue using my katana,” Yusuke informed him.  “Although even at the best of times, I don’t particularly care for yakisoba pan.”

“That sucks, dude,” Ryuji said.  He sure wouldn’t want to be eating yakisoba pan right now either.

“And this is far from the best of times,” Yusuke said.

“Yeah, I get it.”

“As a result, I wish that I had something else.”

“Yeah, like I said, I get it.  But we don’t got anything else.  Eat up.”

Yusuke sighed again and started eating the cold yakisoba pan.  Ryuji leaned back against the wall.  He felt a cough building, which he really didn’t want to give into.  He was pretty sure coughing was going to hurt a ton.  His ribs felt terrible, and any sudden movement that affected them seemed like a very bad thing indeed.

Unfortunately, Ryuji seemed to have very little control over his own body anymore.  He gave into the cough, and blood sprayed out of his mouth in a fine mist.  The pain was intense, and immediate, and Ryuji couldn’t help but cry out.  He would have liked to pretend everything was under control, so he could keep from scaring Yusuke, at least.  But that was impossible.  Black spots were starting to crowd the edges of his vision, and he thought it would be a miracle if he was even able to stay conscious.

Ryuji looked up at Yusuke, and saw that Yusuke had set down the yakisoba pan and was staring at him with an expression of extreme horror.  Ryuji honestly thought there was some chance he was going to pass out too.  He was always a pale guy, but Ryujji had never seen him look paler.

“I’m alright,” Ryuji said.  Or at least, tried to say.  When he opened his mouth to speak, his voice was so weak he had to pause, clear his throat, and start over.

“You don’t seem alright,” Yusuke said.

“Just finish up the sandwich.  I…really wanna get to Joker.”

Yusuke ate the rest of his yakisoba pan in silence, casting occasional concerned glances towards Ryuji.  Ryuji endured them, keeping his eyes closed until that made him too dizzy and then hauling them open and staring into the middle distance.

He saw the shadow first.  The guard walked out of a passageway a little ahead of them, and Ryuji froze. 

“Hey,” he hissed, and looked over at Yusuke.  “Can it…see us?”

“We’re hidden,” Yusuke replied quietly as the shadow got so close that missing them would have been impossible.  “Shall we wait to see whether or not it retreats?”

Ryuji waited with Yusuke, struggling against the urge to cough again.  He wasn’t entirely sure how sneaking in the palace worked, since he felt like they were way too loud to actually avoid notice.  He usually just didn’t worry about it and let Joker lead the way, which had felt like a fine strategy until he and Yusuke were stranded a few fights away from a graphic death.

“It doesn’t appear to be moving,” Yusuke finally whispered.  “We need to attack in order to move on.  Are you-”

“Ready,” Ryuji interjected.  He wasn’t, not in the slightest.  But every second that they wasted made him more aware of his shattered ribs and shredded chest, and the shadow clearly wasn’t planning on moving any time soon.

“Very well,” Yusuke said, and launched himself forward.

Ryuji managed to pull himself upright just as the shadow readied its attack.  He pushed himself off the wall. 

He couldn’t lie to himself about feeling fine when he woke up this time.  He knew he was going to feel worse, if he woke up at all.  He was scared.  He didn’t want to get hit, didn’t want to feel more pain, didn’t want to step forward.

He did anyway.  “Hey, you big ugly loser!  Come on and-”

The pain felt like it was going to tear him apart.  Ryuji felt something rip loose inside his chest, and he didn’t realize his knee had given way until he felt his cheek hit the ground.  He blinked, once, and then everything went black.

Yusuke obliterated the shadow as soon as it was distracted by Ryuji, then turned to his friend as the lights returned to normal.  Over the past few fights, they’d built a horrible kind of routine.  Ryuji would fall, Yusuke would finish off the enemy, and he would help Ryuji up off the floor.

But this time, Ryuji wasn’t moving.

Yusuke’s entire body went cold.  He ran to his friend’s side and crouched next to him. Ryuji was lying very still, and there was no evidence that he’d realized that the battle was over.  Was Ryuji perhaps dead?  Yusuke wasn’t sure he’d ever been so terrified.

He reached out a tentative hand.  He very gently touched Ryuji’s shoulder, terrified that Ryuji might have already gone stiff and cold.  But instead, he was rewarded with a small cough. 

Ryuji was alive.  Yusuke felt like he could breathe again.  Now that he knew his friend hadn’t perished, he could make out the faint movement of his back as he breathed. 

But despite that, he clearly wasn’t doing very well.  As carefully as he could, Yusuke used both hands to roll Ryuji onto his back.  To his surprise, Ryuji seemed to be fully conscious.  His eyes were open, although they were wide with pain.  Blood trickled out the side of his mouth.

“Hey,” he gasped.  “Sorry…for…scaring…ya.”

“That’s far from the point, Skull!” Yusuke said.  He wasn’t angry, but he feared he was coming across that way.  “You’re in terrible shape!  For a moment, I really thought that you were dead.”

“Sorry,” Ryuji managed.  He coughed again, and a little more blood flecked his lips.  “Just…can’t really move…so good.”

“Let me get you some items-”

“Nuh uh,” Ryuji whispered.  “You…look…bad…too.”

Yusuke knew better than to be affronted, but still, given the circumstances, he really didn’t think he should be taking any more of their items.  Ryuji was going to need them.  If they couldn’t get some more HP into him, Yusuke doubted he was even going to be able to stand.

But now that Ryuji had mentioned it, Yusuke really did feel rough.  He’d used up more of his energy than he’d intended to during the last fight.  He was sore, yes, but below that lurked a frightening weakness.  He’d noticed it when he’d had to turn Ryuji over.  His fingers lacked strength, his muscles seemed not to want to engage.  

“Just…take the stuff,” Ryuji said.  “No time…for arguing.”

“You’re right,” Yusuke said, and reached into his pocket.  “There isn’t.  And you can’t stand like this.”  

Ryuji’s eyes narrowed, but he didn’t move to stop Yusuke as he twisted the cap off a now surely flat soda.  He probably couldn’t.  Blood was still trickling out of the corner of his mouth, and it didn’t look like he could move even his arms well.

“Do you think you can drink?” Yusuke asked doubtfully.

“Dunno,” Ryuji responded.  “That’s why you should-”

“Shh.”  Yusuke slipped an arm underneath Ryuji’s shoulders and helped him sit up.  Thankfully, Ryuji’s muscles seemed at least partially engaged - Yusuke didn’t think that he would be able to lift him on his own.  “I simply won’t be able to take any items myself until you try something.  I refuse.”

Ryuji groaned softly.  “Alright.  Fine.”

Yusuke tried to act as though he’d expected Ryuji’s eventual acquiescence.  It wasn’t that Yusuke wasn’t used to asserting himself, more that he wasn’t used to the people around him listening.  They usually merely ignored him.

“Very well.  Do you think you can hold this, or….”  Yusuke trailed off delicately.  

Ryuji frowned, flexing his hand, and grabbed the soda from him.  “If I can’t hold it, I ain’t takin’ it,” he said definitively, and raised the soda clumsily to his mouth.

He managed a few swallows before he went off into another coughing fit.  Bloody flecks flew from his mouth, dappling the ground in front of him.  Yusuke winced, recoiling even more at Ryuji’s whimpering moans of pain.  He didn’t know how to help, or what to say, or even whether he should say anything at all.  Madarame hadn’t done very much for Yusuke when he’d been sick, aside from taking him to a doctor, and Yusuke had never even done anything approaching that for anyone.

“It’s alright,” he finally said, knowing that the words were useless even as he said them.  “You’ll be okay.”

Ryuji spit weakly onto the ground, a small pool of red forming next to the spatter marks.  “Sorry,” he gasped out.  “Think I…wasted it.”

“You didn’t even want to take it,” Yusuke said sadly.  “I believe I’ve just caused you more pain.  I assume you don’t feel any better?”

“Nope.”  Ryuji’s voice sounded small and thin, not like Ryuji at all.  “S-”

“Do not apologize,” Yusuke told him.  “Not anymore.  And you don’t want to try again?  Of course you don’t.  I’m not thinking.”

“None of the items you got will do me any good, I don’t think,” Ryuji said.  “Not even the full restore one.  I can’t…can’t take it.”

Yusuke nodded solemnly.  “We have no choice but to get to Joker at this point.  I believe a healing spell is going to be necessary.”

“I think you’re on to something,” Ryuji said.  “But…a couple “dias” can fix anything, right?”

“I’d like to think so.  Can you stand?”

Ryuji grimaced, and Yusuke understood that he wasn’t certain.  The metaverse made Yusuke stronger than he could even imagine in the real world, but he was still slender and not particularly athletic, and he doubted he could completely carry Ryuji.  That being said, he was sure that he could support him, and hopefully, with Yusuke’s assistance, Ryuji would be able to walk.

Chapter Text

Getting Ryuji horizontal was an awkward, intimate, and rather sweaty process.  Ryuji’s eyes were wide with pain but seemed horrifyingly aware.  Even though it would have made things quite difficult, there was a part of Yusuke that almost wished that Ryuji would just pass out.  Once Ryuji was upright, it seemed to be costing him everything he had to stay that way.  His legs kept threatening to buckle, and he grasped helplessly at the front of Yusuke’s suit.

“Are you alright?” Yusuke demanded.  He wrapped an arm around Ryuji’s waist, careful to avoid the worst of the injuries.

Ryuji didn’t seem able to answer.  He tipped his head back against Yusuke’s shoulder.  His panting breaths were loud in Yusuke’s ear.  If Yusuke had chosen to stop supporting Ryuji, then his friend definitely would have fallen.

Yusuke found himself a little overwhelmed.  He didn’t think he’d ever been this physically close to another person.  Yusuke could admit he tended to be rather isolationist, and outside of the assistance the Phantom Thieves had given him with escaping Madarame, he couldn’t come up with a clear memory of being helped by another person or helping them.  Art was…everything to Yusuke, but it couldn’t be this.  There was no way to paint the feeling of Ryuji’s trembling, injured body in Yusuke’s arms, to capture with a brush the knowledge that Ryuji wouldn’t be standing if it weren’t for him.  He didn’t know what to think, or how to act.  This didn’t seem like the type of thing one could learn, like brushwork technique or color mixing.  He hadn’t had much practice.  He hadn’t had any practice.

Yusuke took a halting, careful step forward with Ryuji.  Ryuji’s feet seemed to trip over themselves, and a hacking cough ripped through his chest.  Red flecks spattered all over the front of Yusuke’s shirt, a big, globby clot landing directly on his collar.

“Euchh.”  Yusuke didn’t really even like when shadows got their slime, or whatever it was, on his clothing.  He definitely wasn’t ready to deal with the blood of other phantom thieves.  

“Sorry,” Ryuji whispered, and tried to pull his head off Yusuke’s shoulder.

“Oh,” Yusuke said miserably, realizing that he’d made the noise aloud, instead of in his head, and that Ryuji was a good listener even in a state like this.  “Please, ignore me.  Really….”

Ryuji instead chose to ignore that, and finally forced his head upright.  He wobbled a bit, looking at any second as though he might fall right back onto Yusuke.

“It’s alright,” Yusuke told him.  “I should be the one to apologize.  You can…put your head on my shoulder if you need to, and I won’t say a word about any blood.”

Ryuji looked like he would have been blushing, if he had enough blood left to rise to his cheeks.  “I’m…good, man.”  

Politely, Yusuke allowed Ryuji to drag the rest of his torso upright and pull away from Yusuke.  He released Ryuji’s elbow, and watched with dismay as Ryuji’s leg instantly buckled and he spilled right back into Yusuke’s side.

Yusuke caught him without a word this time, even when Ryuji coughed more blood onto his shirt.  He even managed not to flinch.

“Sorry,” Ryuji said anyway.  “My leg.”

Yusuke frowned.  He’d missed that, somehow, when dealing with Ryuji’s other injuries.  “What happened to your leg?  Did a shadow hit it?”

He looked down now, and saw that indeed, Ryuji’s left leg was trembling.  As he watched, Ryuji tried to straighten himself, and his knee buckled before it could take his weight.

Ryuji shook his head, spitting blood angrily onto the ground.  “Nah.  Broke it last year.  It just…ain’t right yet.”

It clearly wasn’t anywhere close to right.  Now that Yusuke thought about it, he seemed to recall Ryuji limping fairly early on in their journey.  He’d thought he was just favoring his ribs, but now his leg wouldn’t even take his weight.

“What happened?  Was it in a palace?”  It seemed unlikely that Ryuji could have suffered such a terrible injury in the real world, although Yusuke wasn’t entirely sure what could have gone wrong in a palace, either.  Perhaps Yusuke should be more careful in the future.

“Nah, not a palace.  Sorry…guess I maybe should have brought this up earlier.  I just…don’t like talking about it.”

“What happened?” Yusuke asked.

“Teacher broke it.  First guy we took down.  I was mouthin’ off to him, and…he kicked me.  It’s mostly healed up, but…ain’t the same as before yet.”

Yusuke stared at Ryuji in horror.  Madarame had been far from kind to Yusuke - it had been hard for Yusuke to recognize at the time, but now, with some distance, he could see it.  But Madarame had, despite all his numerous shortcomings, never laid a hand on him.  Ryuji having his leg broken - and by a teacher - was almost incomprehensible.  Thinking about it made Yusuke feel sick.  And the matter-of-fact way that Ryuji had explained it to him made him feel even sicker.

“Do you need-?”

“Like I said, it’s hard for me to talk about,” Ryuji said.  Yusuke understood not to press, although he promised himself that later, he would address this whole situation with Ryuji and make sure that Ryuji felt properly supported.  For now, he would just focus on making sure that Ryuji didn’t have to worry about his leg.  Yusuke would keep him upright.

Ryuji bent forward, allowing Yusuke to keep hold of his shoulders, and spat another mouthful of blood onto the ground.

“Is that coming from inside your mouth?” Yusuke asked nervously.

“Uh, as opposed to…?”

“As opposed to coming from inside you,” Yusuke clarified.  

“Oh.  Huh.  Not sure.”  Ryuji paused.  “If I thought it was coming from inside me, is that bad?”

“I’m sure Joker will be able to heal any internal damage you might have sustained,” Yusuke said definitively.  “We should keep moving.”

“Yeah, okay.  Let’s…go.”

They stumbled forward together.  Ryuji was leaning heavily on Yusuke, but that didn’t seem to be doing much.  Ryuji was almost dragging his weaker leg behind him, and he was shaking with the effort of staying upright.  Yusuke wished that he could carry him, but even with his enhanced strength from the palace, he thought he could have managed only a couple of steps that way.

“Watch…out,” Ryuji panted from beside him, and Yusuke felt hot droplets of blood splatter onto his ear.  This time, he resisted the urge to shudder and looked ahead, where Ryuji was looking.

Another shadow, blocking their way.

“There’s no way past,” Yusuke hissed.  “No way to remain hidden, at least.”

Ryuji nodded grimly.  “Same plan as last time.  I guess we gotta fight.”

Yusuke pulled Ryuji a little closer, trying to avoid his broken ribs and, by the hissing sound escaping from Ryuji, utterly failing.  He waited until the shadow’s back was turned and crept hesitantly forward.

Moving silently was harder while carrying an additional person, it turned out.  The shadow stiffened, then spun to meet them, and Yusuke needed his hands free in order to draw his katana.  Ryuji slithered to the ground with a yelp, Yusuke brought his sword up just in time, and the shadow took its true form.  

“Ryuji?  Are you alright?”  Yusuke spared a second to glance towards his friend, who was curled on the ground.  One trembling hand was splayed out in front of him, but he didn’t seem to be able even to sit up.

“Per…sona,” Ryuji coughed weakly.  His lips were bright red.  Electricity sizzled off of him and bit into the purple demon standing ready in front of them.  “Shit….”

The shadow barely seemed to notice the attack.  This was the same kind of shadow that had hurt Ryuji so badly, and electricity hadn’t done much damage.  Ice had nothing, and Yusuke was running low on physical reserves.  Still, he didn’t have much choice.  He would need to protect Ryuji as best he could.  He readied his katana.

Ryuji tried and failed to push himself upright again.  His arms gave out on him, and now he was stuck lying on the floor of the palace, cheek stuck to the ground with his own blood.  The stupid purple thing was coming closer, and Yusuke was standing between him and it with his sword out, but Ryuji knew he wasn’t doing too hot.  “Better than Ryuji” was kind of a low bar right now.

The shadow looked like it was about to attack.  Ryuji willed himself one last time to sit up, to stand up, to take its attention away from Yusuke.  He dug deep.

It didn’t matter.  Ryuji had nothing left, and he couldn’t even get his arms to move.

“Hey,” Ryuji shouted from the ground.  “Hey, over here!”

It didn’t even notice him.  Yusuke was the bigger threat, and it raised the same weapon that had bit deep into Ryuji’s gut and swung it into Yusuke.  Yusuke crumpled to the ground, face down.

Shit.  If he was unconscious, he would need a revival item to get him back on his feet, and Ryuji didn’t have any of those.  Their only hope to take down the Shadow was for Ryuji to do it, and he…wasn’t going to be able to.  He didn’t have the energy to pull off even a single physical attack, and lightning didn’t work on this dude.  They weren’t going to be able to get the full restore item to Joker.  They also might be about to die for real, but that felt distant now.  Ryuji didn’t want to die, but whatever happened after this fight wasn’t going to be his problem.

This was all pretty embarrassing, and definitely disappointing, but the pain ending would be nice, at least.

“Persona!” a voice suddenly yelled from somewhere behind Ryuji.

Ryuji tried to push himself up, but his arms felt like noodles and his shoulders didn’t seem to want to engage anymore.  It didn’t matter.  He lived for the moments when he got to hear that voice - he would have known it anywhere.  It was Joker.

A second later, a nuclear attack hit the purple guy.  He was knocked back on his ass.  Joker, Ann, Makoto, and Morgana surged forward, flooding Ryuji’s field of view.  With the shadow softened up by the nuclear attack, the rest of the team was able to make quick work of him.  Joker didn’t even try to negotiate with him, just beat the shit out of him until he dissolved.

The second the Shadow was gone, Yusuke started to stir.  A feeling of great relief washed over Ryuji.  He had been sure for a second there that he was about to get Yusuke killed by not having enough hit points or good attacks to get out of this.  He didn’t want to think about that too much, but he was just…really glad that it hadn’t happened.

Ann and Morgana hurried to Yusuke, and Ryuji saw Ann kneel down beside him.  Ryuji was pretty sure she was pumping him full of healing spells.  Good.  If Yusuke was being taken care of, Ryuji thought it might be a good time to pass out.  His insides really hurt, he was lightheaded and dizzy, and his mouth tasted like pennies.  It would definitely be easier to stop being awake.

Ryuji could vaguely hear Yusuke’s voice as he woke up under the healing spells.  “Get Skull!  He needs help.  You need to-”

Ryuji let his head flop down onto the floor, and he saw a sideways version of Joker rushing towards him.  Joker crouched in front of him, one hand on Ryuji’s shoulder.

“You need to take-”

Ryuji coughed, and the taste of salt flooded his mouth.  “Can’t eat, man.”

“I’ll heal you.”

A pleasant warmth spread through him, radiating outward from Joker’s hand.  It faded, leaving Ryuji feeling a little tingly, and a little better.  He was still hurting, but even without examining himself, he could tell that he wasn’t as badly injured as before.  He thought he could move now, maybe even on his own.

“Thanks, man-”

Joker’s other hand latched onto his arm, and Ryuji found himself sliding into Joker’s lap as Joker healed him again.  And again, and again, and again, until Ryuji felt almost completely better and Joker looked the slightest bit tired.  

“Ryuji.  Skull.  Are you….”  Joker trailed off, without letting go of Ryuji’s arm.  His knees were poking into Ryuji’s spine, but Ryuji didn’t care.  That sort of thing was a lot easier to handle when your insides were staying where they were supposed to be.

Ryuji didn’t feel like moving quite yet.  Instead, he reached into the remains of his jacket and pulled out the full restore item.

“Hi.  Got this for you.  Sorry we’re late.”

Joker frowned and took the item from Ryuji’s bloodstained fingers.  Ryuji saw his eyes widen behind the mask, and his hand tightened on Ryuji’s shoulder.

“Ya like it?” Ryuji asked.  “Uh, we’re cool, right?  Sorry for having to get rescued.”

For a moment, it almost looked like Joker wanted to pull him into a hug.  Instead, the item vanished into his giant coat, and he looked down at Ryuji with a grimace.  “I’m never putting you on the B team again.”

Ryuji figured that was probably even better.  “Cool,” he said happily, enjoying the absence of blood in his mouth.

Joker let go - was it just Ryuji’s imagination, or did he seem almost reluctant - and Ryuji sat up.  Moving was way easier than it had been, but Ryuji still felt stiff and sore, kind of like he’d gotten beat up pretty badly a few days before.  He figured he was probably lucky he didn’t feel worse.

“Skull?”  Yusuke’s worried face appeared at the edge of his vision, and Ryuji waved.

“Hey man.  You doin’ okay?”

Yusuke frowned.  “Better than you, I’d imagine.  Joker, I hesitate to overstep my role, but-”

Joker nodded.  “We’re going home.  Right now.”

Ryuji didn’t argue.  He wasn’t that tough, and he didn’t want to feel pain like that ever again.  He probably would, with the phantom thieves, but at least he could go home and rest first.

“Sorry,” was all Ryuji said.  “Um, again.”

Joker just shook his head, before navigating the team out of the Metaverse.

Ryuji definitely felt a lot better after being healed, but he didn’t feel all the way better.  That had been obvious inside the Metaverse, but it was even more obvious once he left it.  Ryuji’s chest no longer hurt so badly, and he could move around, but he was still lightheaded and dizzy, presumably from losing all that blood.  He was also completely exhausted, and what had settled into a dull ache in his bum knee in the Metaverse became a piercing pain back in Shibuya.

Ryuji stumbled, and had to catch himself on the wall.  He would have liked if no one noticed, and he just came off looking like a really cool guy who could take some serious damage and come out of it swinging.  But when he looked up, the eyes of every other member of the Phantom Thieves were on him.  

“You’ll need help getting home,” Yusuke said immediately.  “Allow me to-”

“Nope.  No, man.  Thanks, but I’m fine.”  Ryuji wasn’t going to argue about leaving Kaneshiro’s palace, but after forcing everyone home, he didn’t also plan to ruin everyone’s evening.  He was tired and definitely in some pain, but he could get himself home.  It wouldn’t be the first time, and it wouldn’t be the last.

“Call us if you need anything,” Joker said solemnly.  His flashy Joker vibe had vanished with the Palace, but Ryuji thought he was standing up a bit straighter than usual.  Maybe he’d been nervous.  Ryuji supposed he had looked pretty bad.

“Okay.”

“And text in the chat when you get home.”

“Yeah.  Sure.  I can do that.”

The ride home was painful, but doable.  Ryuji hadn’t really ever been planning on doing his homework, but by the time he actually stumbled back into his apartment, he was also ready to forgo eating and bathing.  It was all he could do to change, update Joker, and drag himself to bed.  He hoped he would feel better after a good night’s sleep, because otherwise, he wasn’t sure how he was going to make it to school tomorrow.

He did feel better the next day, thankfully, but better was still a long way from good.  He texted Joker once again, reassuring him that he was exhausted and sore but not by any means dying, and then forced himself to school.  If he had a good way to get out of it he would have, but he was a little afraid that skipping would somehow make him look suspicious, and his mom wouldn’t like it.  Plus, if he showed up at school, he would at least be able to say hi to Joker.

Most of the day passed in a slow haze of pain and wrong answers.  Ryuji was never great at paying attention to his teachers, but when he was in pain, it was nearly impossible.  

So when his phone vibrated in the middle of class, he didn’t hesitate to check it.  It was Yusuke, which was normal enough, but he wasn’t messaging in the chat, which was weird.  It had just gone to Ryuji, and he was asking him to come to the Kosei dorms after school.

Ryuji didn’t really feel like going.  His knee still hurt, he was still kind of dizzy, and he wasn’t entirely sure what Yusuke wanted, but if it was anything hard, Ryuji wasn’t up for it.  But he liked Yusuke, and he still felt kind of bad about how everything had gone yesterday.  He didn’t want Yusuke to think hanging out with him was always like that.  And besides, the dorms were a little closer to Shujin than Ryuji’s apartment was, so at least he wouldn’t be stuck on the train at rush hour, standing until his knee felt like it might give way beneath him.

Ryuji told Yusuke he’d be over.  The teacher was glaring at him, but Ryuji didn’t really care about that.  He wasn’t going to understand anything from this lesson anyway, so he might as well text during it.

Getting to Kosei was even worse than Ryuji had expected.  By the time he finally found Yusuke’s dorm building and rang the buzzer, he kind of wished he’d gone straight home.  His head was spinning with effort and exhaustion, and whatever Yusuke wanted from him, he’d probably be shitty company.

“Ryuji?  Come right up!”  

The door unlocked with a loud click and Ryuji limped into the lobby, going straight for the elevator.  Usually, he tried to take the stairs as much as he could, to keep his dumb knee in fighting shape.  Today, he didn’t think he could make it up them.  

Yusuke was on the third floor, and the only way Ryuji found his room was because the door was open, and Yusuke was standing in it.  He waved, with an expression that Ryuji thought might be enthusiasm.

“Ryuji.  Please, come in.  Do you like soup?”

“Uh…yeah, I like soup,” Ryuji said.  The door shut behind him, and Yusuke nodded to himself.

“Excellent.  I assumed that you would be feeling poorly, after the trying experience in the metaverse.  I’ve made you soup.”

Ryuji blinked.  Yusuke had dragged him all the way out here to…take care of him?  It would probably be rude to laugh.  He couldn’t help it, and did it anyway.  Yusuke didn’t seem to mind.

“Unfortunately, I don’t have access to a stove.  Nor do I have a recipe for soup, if I’m being honest.”

Ryuji laughed again, then tried to cover his mouth.  Yusuke looked at him, surprised, then joined in.  

“My apologies.  I haven’t done something like this before, you see.  I understand that it’s fairly typical to watch a movie?”

Ryuji decided to just go along with it.  “I like movies too, man.”

Yusuke smiled.  “Excellent!  Would you like to select the film?  I mostly own ones about art, although I’m sure I can-”

“You got a laptop?  I can find movies.  No viruses, promise.”

Yusuke looked at Ryuji as though he’d promised to rob a bank untraceably.  With something like awe, he handed his laptop over to Ryuji.

“Okay, you just go to this site, here….”

“We are…friends, yes?” Yusuke asked suddenly, as Ryuji was showing him how to search for semi-illegal dubbed American movies.  “I’ve heard of friendship often without personally experiencing it.  I would hate to assume incorrectly.”

Ryuji paused and grinned.  “Yeah.  This is all it is, man.  We’re friends.”  He thought about it for a second, Yusuke helping him through the palace without judgement, and still wanting to spend time with him afterwards.  Not many people sought him out - not even all the phantom thieves.  “Maybe even best friends.”

Yusuke extended his hand, and a little awkwardly, Ryuji shook it.  “I’d be honored.”