Chapter Text
As his vision clears of the red and black splotches that come with use of the MetaNav, Akira frantically looks around, his eyes darting between the faces of his friends. He was looking for one face in particular.
Where is Ryuji?
There’s no way that his boyfriend didn’t survive the explosion. There’s no way. It would have all been for nothing if Ryuji didn’t make it through.
This was supposed to be the last palace they ever defeated. This was supposed to be their happy ending. They were supposed to be able to live a normal and happy life after this, but Shido had to go and get the last laugh.
Memories of the explosion force their way into the forefront of Akira’s mind as the seconds tick by with no signs of Ryuji showing up. Akira feels like his head is underwater. He can hear his teammates talking around him, but his mind is just replaying the moment of Ryuji’s disappearance over and over, desperately searching for a way that he could have made it out.
His hopes dim with every passing moment.
Akira doesn’t even notice Ann approaching him, with how loud his thoughts are. He can’t help but jump, jolted out of his head, as she wraps her arms around him and begins to cry into his shoulder. He can’t muster up the words to comfort her, not with how tight his throat feels and how scattered his thoughts are, so he settles for wrapping a single arm around her and resting his cheek on the top of her head. His other arm hangs limp by his side, almost like he’s expecting another body to join this emotional hug.
As much as Akira wishes he could, he can’t seem to convince himself that there was a way for Ryuji to make it out of the explosion. He stares blankly in front of him, ignoring his surroundings as he tries to force himself to breathe and retain the mask of the Phantom Thieves’ fearless leader.
“He’s not gone,” Ann mumbles into Akira’s jacket, so quiet that he barely catches it over his own racing thoughts.
All Akira can muster up the energy to do is to shake his head slightly, just barely pressing his cheek into Ann’s hair to show that he heard her. He isn’t strong enough to put on the mask of Joker at this moment.
He allows himself this one time to be weak. After all, Ryuji is the reason they’ve made it as far as they have–the reason Akira has made it as far as he has.
It all traces back to Ryuji.
Akira is suddenly snapped out of his own head by a blood-curdling scream a short distance away. He wastes no time in sprinting in the direction of the noise, turning the corner of the dimly lit street, before finding the source of the yell.
There’s no way… it’s him.
Akira begins to run faster, leaving his friends to run toward Ryuji’s slouching form. He falls to his knees in front of his boyfriend, assuming a position akin to a desperate man worshiping a dying god. His hands hover over Ryuji’s torso, unaware of any injuries and unwilling to hurt him.
Ryuji is sitting on the pavement, his head hanging low enough that Akira can’t see his face. Ryuji’s breaths are coming out in short pants, and he’s obviously in pain, though Akira can’t identify any obvious wounds. Akira doesn’t want to hurt him, but he’s worried that he’ll end up passing out at this rate, if Ryuji’s breathing pattern is anything to go by. He goes to tilt Ryuji’s face up towards the dim streetlamp above them, just to see the extent of his wounds, but thinks better of it.
“Ryuji, look at me, please,” Akira nearly begs. It’s the first thing to come out of his mouth since the explosion.
All Ryuji can manage to get out is a pained whimper, shaking his head and curling in on himself. Akira is grateful that their teammates are giving them some space, because he’s positive that Ryuji wouldn’t want any of them to see him like this. It seems almost like Ryuji is trying to take up as little space as possible, and Akira can feel his heart breaking at the thought.
He doesn’t know the full extent of Ryuji’s past, but he’s learned enough to know that Ryuji’s personality is so large because he never got the chance to be that way at home as a child, not with his dad around. So, seeing him curl up in on himself, purposefully making himself small, hurts Akira. He wants to scoop Ryuji up in his arms and tell him everything’s okay, but he’s still afraid of hurting him.
“What’s wrong, Ryuji?” Akira asks, trying to keep the panic out of his voice. “I can’t help you if you don’t show me.”
Ryuji shakes his head again, still refusing to look up. Akira doesn’t want to force him, especially since he doesn’t know where Ryuji is injured, so he maneuvers himself so that he’s sitting next to Ryuji, and he hovers a hand above Ryuji’s hand that has tightened itself into a fist in his lap. Ryuji doesn’t even seem to acknowledge Akira’s hand, so Akira lets it hover for a moment before slowly dropping it to rest on Ryuji’s thigh.
Ryuji’s reaction is instant. He practically jumps out of his skin, his head shifting enough to give Akira a glimpse of his face.
Akira tries to meet Ryuji’s eyes, and is instead met with red.
The area around Ryuji’s eyes is raw, the skin raised and charred in a pattern that looks eerily similar to the skull mask he often sports in the Metaverse. His eyes themselves are closed, and if Akira focuses hard enough, he can see a barely-there metallic shine coming from a small wound on one of his eyelids. In the quiet of the night, Akira almost swears he can hear Ryuji’s skin sizzling, but that may just be the buzzing panic coursing through his head.
“Ryu…,” Akira starts, trying to keep the panic out of his voice and failing miserably, if Ryuji’s flinching is anything to go by.
“‘Kira, please,” Ryuji begs, his voice slurring with pain. “I can’t see.”
The panic in Ryuji’s whimpering voice confirms to Akira what he’s been scared of since he found Ryuji, which is that something is incredibly wrong. Akira can’t see the full severity of Ryuji’s wounds, with only the nearby streetlight illuminating their surroundings, but this is nothing like the other times the Phantom Thieves have been injured. No one has ever been this hurt outside of the Metaverse.
It takes every ounce of Akira’s self-control to slow down and stop himself from scooping Ryuji up and running to the nearest hospital. He reminds himself that running, with Ryuji’s facial injuries, would do more harm than good. Just as he’s about to call their teammates over to try and figure out what to do, Akira feels Ryuji’s body go slack under him, slowly tipping into his side.
Fear shoots through Akira’s body as his arms come up to instinctively wrap around Ryuji’s shoulder. He looks up from the limp body in his arms for the first time since he laid his eyes on Ryuji’s pained form, wary eyes searching for his team members. He meets Ann’s eyes from where she’s standing at the head of their friends, grouped by the corner Akira had to run past to find Ryuji. He beckons her closer with a nod of his head, and she turns to guide the rest of the group to where Akira and Ryuji are seated.
Ann immediately drops down to their level as she reaches Akira, who’s still holding Ryuji’s unconscious form. Akira knows that he probably looks panicked right now, but he tries to calm himself to not scare his friends.
“I’ll call an ambulance,” Futaba states, surprisingly calm compared to the others, who were all in similar states of shock.
“Is it possible to take him to Takemi?” Akira asks, but he knows it’s futile. Takemi, with her limited medical tools in the clinic, wouldn’t be able to get Ryuji the kind of help he needed. He’s worried about having to come up with a realistic excuse as to what happened that wouldn’t get anyone in trouble, but he knows Ryuji has to go to the actual hospital.
A few shaking heads confirm his inner turmoil–they’ll have to take Ryuji to the hospital. They really have no other option at this point. It’s hard to tell what condition Ryuji is in, but the mask-shaped wound on his face looks like it could be a full-thickness burn.
Akira stares down at Ryuji’s unusually still body, his only solace resting in the fact that he can feel him breathing against his side, even if his breaths are short and unusually shallow. He can vaguely hear Futaba and Yusuke on the phone in the distance, as well as the other Thieves’ worried conversations, but Akira can only find himself repeating one thing in his mind.
At least he’s still alive.
As the seconds tick by with no ambulance lights in sight, Akira grows increasingly more anxious. He knows it’s unrealistic for them to respond so quickly, but the situation could be dire. Ryuji isn’t breathing right–Akira can tell from his previous experience holding him close–and Akira doesn’t want him to die. He can’t die. He wouldn’t be able to do this without Ryuji. He wouldn’t be able to carry the burden of being the leader of the Phantom Thieves, even if this was their last fight. He wouldn’t have anyone to go to about Akechi’s death, his arrest, or just the general unfairness of the world they were born into.
I need Ryuji to make it through this, Akira thinks, reaching one of his hands down from where it rested on Ryuji’s back to grasp his limp hand and lift it up to his lips, pressing a gentle kiss on his bruised knuckles.
When Ann moves over to sit in front of him, Akira barely notices. He only realizes that she’s in his space when he feels soft hands wipe away tears that he didn’t know were falling off of his cheeks. His throat tightens at the soft gesture, and he forces himself to choke back a sob as she reaches for Ryuji’s other hand, cradling it in both of hers. Akira is overwhelmed at her actions, an amalgamation of so many emotions swirling in his chest that he couldn’t possibly put a name to it.
Ann has been there for him–for both of them–almost as long as Ryuji has. They were the original Phantom Thief trio; they all awakened in Kamoshida’s palace and were able to learn about this new world together. They’ve been constants in his life, Ann and Ryuji both, and he finally lets out a sob as he realizes this might be the last time all three of them are able to be together.
Ann gives him a melancholy look, her bottom lip trembling as she pulls it into a wobbly smile, as if she knows exactly what he’s thinking. Keeping Ryuji’s hand clasped in one of her hands, she shifts so that her other arm is wrapped around Akira’s neck, pulling him into a slightly contorted hug. His head lands on her shoulder, and while the position is slightly uncomfortable because of her ponytails, he immediately relaxes into her. With her as something of a makeshift shield between him and the rest of their team, Akira allows himself to cry.
Akira feels pathetic having to have a guard between him and his friends to show emotion, but he’s so grateful to Ann for understanding and allowing him to trust her with his emotions. Especially now, with Ryuji in a condition that they can’t identify the severity of, he’s grateful that he has her by his side so that they can support each other.
She runs her hand through his wavy hair as he cries, soothing him while understanding that he needs solace from the chaos of the noise coming from the group around them. Even though he doubts that she's in much better shape than he is mentally right now, he appreciates her for understanding exactly what he needs.
Akira has never been much of a crier, and this time is no different, with his harsh sobs fading into an empty stare and a hollow chest rather quickly. As his sobs begin to slow, though, he hears frantic sirens approaching them.
Finally, for the first time since they made it out of Shido’s palace, Akira feels something akin to hope.
The next few minutes are frantic, and frankly blur together in Akira’s mind. He’s asked questions that he doesn’t remember giving the answer to, but he’s sure that he did because the paramedics nod and carefully take Ryuji out of his arm, transferring his limp body to a stretcher. The second Akira loses contact with Ryuji, he feels an overwhelming dread.
What if he dies while I’m not there? Akira thinks. His desperation must be apparent on his face, because one of the paramedics lags behind and offers to let him ride with Ryuji to the hospital.
Akira nods mutely without a second thought, standing up and rushing over to the ambulance doors that they had wheeled Ryuji into. As he stepped up into the vehicle, he cast a glance toward Ryuji’s unconscious face. He looked like he was peacefully resting, the illusion only broken by the burn on his face and the medical tubes running in and out of his body.
Akira slouched down into the chair one of the paramedics had pointed to, his confusion obviously evident enough to them, and prepared himself for a long night.