Chapter Text
“After this, you can consider my debt paid,” Tae Takemi huffs, tending to the unconscious and concussed Detective Prince, zip-tied at the wrists.
Akira should worry about how easily she accepted his rushed excuse, but he’s too dizzy and grateful to care. His tongue feels heavy, his head is spinning, and he doesn't have another explanation in him. He’s shocked he was able to keep it together long enough to get Sae to understand at least the basics of the situation so she can help him not die.
“How long until he wakes up?” Akira asks.
“No idea,” the doctor says. “Usually when people bash their head and black out, they’re back within a few seconds. Anything more and you’ve got a problem on your hands – you’re certain neither of you can go to the hospital?”
“Yeah,” Futaba mutters, curled up on the lumpy couch. “They’ll be looking there.”
“They…? Ugh, never mind." She shakes her head. "Your friend seems okay for now. From what I can tell from all the other signs, he’s just got a minor concussion.”
“But?” Futaba prompts.
“But he shouldn’t be out for this long. Like I said, for incidents like this, he’d be out for maybe a minute, max.” Takemi takes her gloves off and tosses them in the bin next to the futon, taking a deep breath and letting it out in a quiet groan. “There’s nothing else I can do here until he wakes up. I’ll be at my clinic.” She gives a pointed look to Akira, and he nods his thanks in place of trying to get his tongue to work. Akira watches her leave, her heels clicking on the dirty wooden planks.
Everyone is quiet after her departure. Akira's vision is still swimming, but he can tell half the group's eyes are on him, and the other half's on Akechi.
Akira knows he looks like hell—wrists burning, ribs aching, every breath a fight, every blink too heavy, but he doesn't care as much as he should. His concern is admittedly incredibly misplaced, as it's centered around the one who put him in that interrogation room in the first place. Sojiro notices his stare from his post at the banister; he looks ready to call Akira out, and Akira’s grateful his bruises spare him the lecture.
Akira can't get a good read on how Sojiro's taking any of this. They've explained the basics (Akira's death being faked, Akechi's betrayal, Sae being persuaded to their side), but they've admittedly left out quite a bit. Most importantly, Sojiro doesn't know the pitiful boy in his cafe's attic is his best friend's murderer.
Akira feels bad about that, even under the fog of the dissipating drugs.
"If he's out much longer, we're gonna stick him in a hospital," Sojiro grunts. "Or just put him on some poor bastard's doorstep to call an ambulance."
"And give Akechi back to whomever's giving him orders?" Sae growls.
"Better that than watching him die of brain trauma in my damn attic!" Sojiro shoots back.
"Guys," Futaba groans. "Just... wait a little."
"We don't know what to expect, either," Yusuke adds, crossing his legs delicately.
Akira tries clearing his sore, scratchy throat, but ends up making a pitiful choking sound that has every pair of worried eyes in the room fixed on him in an instant. "I'm not giving up on him," Akira manages.
Ryuji rubs the back of his neck, and opens his mouth to speak, only to be interrupted by a soft groan from the supine boy on the futon, shutting everyone up in an instant.
They watch Akechi's wine-dark eyes flutter open, waiting to see either a spark of life or a dead-eyed stare. Akira doesn't know what he expected when his rival awoke, but the hazy, tired confusion in Akechi's pretty face makes his chest ache for reasons he doesn't want to examine.
"Where...?"
"My room," Akira slurs, resisting the urge to go to him. "How are you feeling?"
Predictably, Akechi scoffs at the casual question, focusing his glassy eyes on Akira before they widen in shock at the sight of every Phantom Thief crowded into the room with them. "What's going on?" he demands.
"Dude, we should be askin' you!" Ryuji pipes up. "What the hell was that?!"
"Ryuji," Ann scolds beside him.
"What was what?" Akechi snarls. "You somehow figured me out and foiled my plans again, and you have the nerve to ask what that was? Shouldn't you already know?"
There's a beat of silence. "Um," Ann chimes. "I think he's more asking about... the other thing."
"What other thing?" Akechi scoffs.
"The thing where you were arguing with yourself aloud," Sae says, and Akechi startles at her voice.
"Sae-san..."
"Don't 'Sae-san' me right now," she snarls. "You have explaining to do."
"Akechi," Akira calls. "What's the last thing you remember?" He ignores Sae’s glare, fixing on Akechi instead.
“I... shot the guard.” Akechi’s voice falters, silence stretching a moment too long before he adds, “Then I aimed at you.” A brittle grin snaps into place, sharp and cruel. “I must say, those bruises suit you.”
"And...?" Akira prompts, ignoring the small growl Ryuji lets out.
"And..." Akechi pauses, visibly confused. "I...?"
He doesn't get anything else out before his entire demeanor goes slack -- blank, Akira's mind supplies -- for just a split second before he blinks again.
"What other thing?" he scoffs, meeting Ann's bewildered eyes.
"It seems there's a gap in Akechi-kun's memory," Yusuke hums.
"What?" Akechi asks, caught fully off-guard.
"It's like he just... reset," Haru says.
"What are you talking about?" Akechi growls, his body tightening up like a cornered animal.
"From what I could gather, it has control over Akechi's perception and memories." Futaba adjusts her glasses, still typing into her laptop.
Akira watches Akechi's rage curdle into fear. "...What?"
Futaba looks up, making direct, calculating eye contact with the frightened boy. "You have another entity in your head. It took over in the interrogation room."
Again, a wave of blankness seems to wash over Akechi, this time taking a bit longer to dissipate, leaving Akechi blinking in confusion. "What... What are you talking about?" he says to Haru.
Futaba ignores the unnerved Thieves around her, instead nodding and going back to furiously typing. No one responds to Akechi's repeated question, the group instead electing to watch Akechi with fascinated horror. Akira can see panic creep its way into the bound detective; if he didn't know better, he'd say he could see Akechi's heart racing through his chest.
"Answer me!" Akechi barks.
"We've tried," Futaba says. "I'm pretty sure it just keeps erasing your memory whenever you start to think about it."
"It--...?!" Akechi manages before the process repeats. "A-Answer me," he stutters, shaking his head to try and dispel the haze that has settled over him.
Futaba adds another note, then looks back up, her expression detached but dissecting. "I said--"
"Futaba," Sojiro scolds.
Futaba blinks at him, seeming to come to her senses. "Oh," she says. "Sorry, Akechi. Got a little carried away there."
Akechi seems to have realized he's not getting answers, but the snippets of conversation he remembers seem to be enough to paint a frightening picture. He's curled up into himself on the futon, trying to get as far away from the group as he can while bound. Akira doesn't think about how badly he wants to go to him.
"Akechi..."
Frantic red eyes meet his own, but when the other boy opens his mouth to speak--
"Apologies, but you won't be -- wh-- getting answers out of --?!" Akechi gasps at the words he clearly didn't mean to say. "If you want to -- t-t- -- talk, you'll have to get him out of the way."
"H-How would we do that?" Morgana meows.
"I... I know how," Futaba mumbles. "But..."
Akira bites his lip. "We're not getting anywhere like this. If we can get answers out of it, we should." He meets Futaba's eyes, and the two share a grim nod.
"D-Do you wanna do it?" Futaba warbles.
No. "I can."
"Do what?!" Akechi barks. "Don't--"
"Sorry, Akechi," Akira says, putting as much steel in his voice as he can, ignoring the dead weight in his chest. "But the Captain would like a word."
He'd heard Futaba's recording of the phone call that clued them in to whatever's happening to Akechi, but hearing and seeing are very different. The frightened sound Akechi makes sends a pang into Akira's chest, but it's quickly overshadowed by the drastic shift in posture: with a punched-out breath, his shaking immediately ceases, replaced by every part of him going briefly lax. It takes a touch longer than Akira had expected; it had seemed to take a few seconds in the recording, but Akechi remains still for a truly unsettling half-minute.
Ryuji, predictably, is the first to comment. "Uh, what were we--"
"Did you get that new model, Oracle?"
Everyone in the room nearly jumps out of their skin, save Sae, who remains frozen in place. The thing that spoke is looking straight at Akira through dull, half-lidded eyes, something to the left of amusement barely curling its borrowed mouth. "Well? You wanted answers. Have at it."
"Y-Y-You're... Uh, who are you?" Ann squeaks.
The thing wearing Akechi's body huffs something it might have intended as a laugh. "Wrong question."
"What do you mean?" Yusuke asks, not looking up from where he's furiously scribbling in his sketchbook. Akira's suddenly very glad Yusuke is the way he is; it seems being artistically eccentric has its benefits when faced with insane but oddly symbolic circumstances.
"According to me, I'm Goro Akechi, but that's hardly what you're asking, is it?"
"Then what are you?" Yusuke probes, settling his eyes on Not-Akechi in fascination.
"There we go," it croons. "That's the right question." It shifts in place, settling back on the shitty futon like a throne. "But it won't be that easy."
"Ugh!" Futaba groans, shutting her laptop. "J-Just tell us what we wanna know!"
"I will," Not-Akechi says. "But what would be the fun in telling you the answer when I know you're smart enough to figure it out on your own?"
Futaba gapes a bit at the strange compliment from this thing, but sets her jaw. "If we can guess it, then you'll answer our other questions?"
"I'll answer any questions you can't get elsewhere."
"Like who you're working for?" Ann asks.
"That's assuming you couldn't find the identity of my originator by prying it from our dear detective. As I said, anything you can't get elsewhere, I'll tell."
"Why?" Makoto asks. "Why would you help us?"
It makes a strange choking sound. Akira charitably assumes it would've been a laugh if it knew how. "Help?" it echoes. "You're overestimating my importance. Learning more about me won't be of any use to you, so what's the harm?"
"But what--"
"Guess what I am, first," it chides. "If you can't piece it together on your own, then there's little point in explaining further."
Futaba takes off her glasses to rub the bridge of her nose in a remarkably Sojiro-like manner. "O-Okay. So, you think you're Akechi--" She cuts off as Not-Akechi tilts his head in a 'so-so' gesture. "...You know you're not Akechi, but you think of yourself as Akechi?"
"You're getting there," it hums.
"You said 'originator' before," Haru chimes, thoughtful. "You were created by someone else?"
"Be more specific."
"'Originator'..." Akira mutters.
"Meaning you were originally... from them," Futaba adds. "So you--" She cuts off in a gasp. "Oh my god. You're a cognition."
A chorus of 'what?!'s ring out from the group, but Not-Akechi -- Cognitive Akechi? -- merely pulls its lips into a smile. "See? Not so hard, was it?"
"Wh-- how?!" Morgana yowls. "Akechi can't have a cognition of himself!"
"He doesn't," Cognitive Akechi says. "Have you been listening?"
"Hey! Gimme a break here!"
"Okay, we guessed what you are," Makoto urges. "Can we move on to the questioning?"
"Ooh, eager for interrogation, I see," Cognitive Akechi drawls. “Still dreaming of the badge? How noble. Shame your idols nearly beat him to death simply because they could.”
"You--!" Makoto grits, before setting her jaw. "You're stalling."
"And you haven't asked anything yet."
"Wh-Why are you here?" Ann blurts out before Makoto can retort. "Like, uh... in Akechi. Outside of the Metaverse."
It tilts its head, the twist of its lips hinting at a sardonic smile. "Insurance," it says.
"Insurance against what?" Yusuke asks.
"That particular question could be answered by my gracious host, but just this once, I'll give you a pass: let's just say he's been a very naughty boy in need of a tighter leash."
Futaba mutters something under her breath. "And you're not gonna get more specific than that?" It simply smiles. Futaba blows a strand of hair out of her face. "Figures. Okay, moving on: how are you here?"
"By much the same process as taking loot into the real world from the Metaverse, really. Those trinkets you steal were also cognitions until you brought them to reality."
Futaba furrows her brow. "But those are standalone objects, and you're stuck in Akechi's head instead of having your own body."
Cognitive Akechi huffs. “Cognitions of people are far trickier than objects. Everyone understands a broken vase or a piggy bank, so they slip into reality without much effort, using the perception of those around it as an anchor.”
Futaba perks up. "Oooh, I'd never thought about that." She begins typing again, forgetting to be unnerved. "People all picture the same thing when you say ‘piggy bank,’ so it’s easy enough to keep it solid, even as cognitive matter.”
“But a person,” Haru murmurs, “is much harder to define.”
"Which makes the cognitions unstable," Cognitive Akechi confirms. "Unless, of course, they are personally hosted by either the one from whom they originate, or the person whom they emulate, assuming the fake is accurate enough to be recognizable. Both candidates have a firm grasp of the person in question, so the cognition is thus able to exist in reality while keeping its wits about it."
Ann shifts uncomfortably, twirling her hair. “So… that’s why you’re stuck inside Akechi?”
Its mouth twitches. "In so few words."
"Okay, cool," Ryuji says, clearly still confused, "but how does this help us?"
"I already told you it won't," Cognitive Akechi points out.
"Are we in danger right now?" Sojiro interjects. He visibly tenses when Cognitive Akechi's eyes turn to him.
"That depends on whether or not you let me speak to the Captain," Cognitive Akechi answers. "He's likely wondering why we've taken so long to confirm the job's completion. His patience wears thin very fast."
"No way we're letting you call him!" Ryuji barks.
An eerie, satisfied grin tries to curl onto its face, settling instead into a twisted sneer. "He knows where your mother lives."
Ryuji goes pale while everyone immediately freezes. "...What?"
"He has people watching her right now. Same with one Shiho Suzui." Ann screams, her mouth covered by shaking hands. "Would you rather risk one phone call, or the lives of the ones you love most? Clock's ticking, everyone."