Chapter Text
The first time he realizes something is wrong with the world is when he sees himself on the news.
“Ace detective Goro Akechi confesses to be behind these so-called ‘Phantom Thieves’ as well as the recent breakdowns? Police can’t say much, but it seems the media’s infatuation with the boy was more sour than sweet in the end… Later, we talk about how this may have happened to a boy so young, and how the Phantom Thieves may be more than meets the eye. However, no matter what, this is a step in the right direction for the world.”
And there was a picture of his face. But not *his* face. Maybe only he would see it, but this was a recent picture. Him in handcuffs, staring at the camera with a wide-eyed expression. Not mad. Not surprised. ‘Confessed’… This Goro had hair slightly too thin, eyes just bright enough to give him pause, and a face that was slightly too boyish nowadays.
It was a familiar face. It was an old one.
Something must be very, very wrong.
[Shido’s Palace]
“Scream when I shoot. If you don’t, I’ll shoot for real.” The cognitive Akechi said, and then shot at the base of the wall. He screamed, then, both in pain from his actual wounds and to see where this was going. This him that wasn’t him, some shadow and meat puppet… the facsimile of what Shido idolized in him. The shadow, the meat, the puppet.
He stabilized himself as the cognitive Akechi paused with unnatural stillness after the shot before resuming a fluid stance as he too looked up to meet his eyes. “Why did Shido order you to do… this?” he asked. He most certainly could’ve asked a better question, but unfortunately the world didn’t exactly seem to want to set him up for one.
The cognitive Akechi seems to ignore his question, as he simply holstered his gun. “There,” he said, smiling once more. “Now only Shido and you know you're alive. And as such, I can explain things. I really don’t know why you accepted the fact that I was on some suicide mission, sent here to kill myself. How dumb do you think Shido is?”
He paused. What? Why was his own cognitive self lecturing him about Shido of all people. What right did it have to claim any aspect of his life?
“You know who Shido kills. You’re the one who kills them.” The cognitive Akechi took a step towards him. “Cmon, Goro. Do you really think, after all of this, you’re worthless enough to die? That you have nothing left to give? That you, alone, stood a chance against Shido? Are you having a psychotic breakdown? Let’s think for a moment.”
And he did understand. His mouth twisted into a frown. “He wants what he can’t have. A persona.” The cognitive Akechi clapped. “That’s why you’re letting the Phantom Thieves go. Because you can’t have a palace and a Persona…. Dammit.” He knew he couldn’t kill this cognitive version of him, not anymore. Stupid revenge plan… trying to kill Ren for some built up arrogance when he was the real pathetic one. And this is where it led him. Every time, back to Shido’s feet. But first… to his own. “So what am I now? I don’t know how you gain a Persona. If Wakaba’s research held that, he’d have one already.”
“Just because you don’t know, doesn’t mean no one can’t find out. You’re the only one with a Persona that he knows of who isn’t trying to kill him.” The cognitive Akechi tapped his head. “Think about it. You don’t just have a Persona, you awakened yours on your own. You are Shido’s most powerful resource. Which is why it’d be insane to kill you. Now you just won’t be allowed to gallivant around as a detective prince.”
He paused. Shido’s heart would be changed… but Shido with a Persona, after everything… and everyone would still think he was dead… even Ren…
“Wait,” he said. “You’re me. Why are you doing this? Shido knows I’m a traitor. You’re how Shido sees me? Why are you willingly acting as his dog.” He stood up straighter, as the cognitive Akechi bowed.
“Of course,” he said. “I never said I planned to let any of that happen. Shido’s just as dumb as anyone. He thinks I too want his approval. But he doesn’t understand why you do anything. So all I have are these surface level desires, surface level memories. He doesn’t care about you, Goro. He doesn’t know who you are. All you are to him is a traitor. A rebel. He thinks a version of you he can directly make will be better, be the right one this time. But since you’ve never been good enough, how could I be anything but worse?” The cognitive Akechi laughed, and pulled his gun out again, leveling it across the room at his head. He stood still, waiting to see if his hand would move at all. “From now on, Goro Akechi,” the cognitive Akechi whispered, just loud enough to be heard. “You’re dead!” He yelled, and shot above him. “The traitor son just can’t kill himself. Go on! You’re saving yourself. No matter the cost. And you’ve done it. Shido will have his heart changed by the Phantom Thieves. They’ll disband. The world will forget about them. And you… who knows?”
He stared over at the cognitive Akechi. “Thank you,” he said. “I don’t expect I’ll see you again, but… but…” he didn’t exactly know what to say to himself, in the end. “Well, if I do… we can both do the right thing, then. Now that I’m out from under his thumb.”
And then he left.
[Present day, January 1]
And now that same Akechi was in the real world, genuinely confessing to... Not even things he as Akechi had done. This was Ren’s crimes, the SUI director’s crimes... he was absolving them of guilt. Probably Sae or someone needed them to confess to prosecute Shido…. And then he’d been there. Somehow. God, how had he been there? How did some artifact of Shido’s cognition wind up in the real world? What was going on? On Christmas, he had noticed the Meta Nav app had disappeared (how the Phantom Thieves had done this he was unsure, but he had been holed up in his apartment treating his wounds for the past… whatever, so it’s not like he’d know), but now he was unsure about it.
And it was, in fact, back– with a new iridescent paint job. Something had shifted with it– something had obviously shifted, he was seeing double. Everyone had thought he was dead but… Ren would be seeing this same article. God, Shido would be seeing this same article. He hadn’t known what he was going to do after healing, but now that was out of his hands and… into his hands. He needed to talk to this version of himself as soon as possible— but that’d be absolutely impossible without Sae’s help, but Sae was the one who even BROUGHT him to prison, and…
He was almost certainly doomed to the life of a shut in, scared to show his face. Maybe he’d have to rough up his hair and buy fake glasses like Ren had done to him that one time, but if Rene ever saw him he’d notice immediately…
Something was horribly wrong with the world, and he was both the only person who realized and the only person who could do nothing about it.
… However, every prisoner could get mail…. His apartment was under a different name for security reasons already, so it wouldn’t tie back to him….
He got to drafting.
“Hey dog,” he wrote. “Why are you still on the floor? Where are your manners? It’s rude to not say hello to people.”
If he didn’t get that, it wasn’t worth it.
Since he was immensely popular within the media’s eyes, it wouldn’t be long before fangirls started to post about collecting things for him. Then, he would submit it, as well as a large enough sum to (hopefully) get in with the rich. The Metaverse surprisingly had a lot of money contained within it, which was almost certainly an issue with the economy, but it seemed neither Shido nor Kaneshiro had realized that one, so they must truly be fools.
Unfortunately, even just sitting up and moving around his room to sit and physically write was straining. Both Joker’s attacks and the cognitive him’s bullet were close to fatal (He was sure Ren wasn’t trying to kill him. Even from the start, he knew. And even still…. Ren won. He seemed to have a knack for it.)
Now it was a waiting game, and a hoping one– that ‘he’ wouldn’t do anything stupid, that Ren wouldn’t do anything stupid, and that Shido wouldn’t realize what had happened and spread something even worse on air. Stupid politicians. More good for nothing than him.
He doesn’t have to wait for a fangirl petition. Later in the day, there’s a knock on his door. He doesn’t say anything– he hasn’t ordered any food, and while he’s able to stand and walk for a little bit, he doesn’t want to talk to a confused stranger.
“Hey traitor,” a familiar voice calls out. “You told me to do the right thing. I tried to, but something's gone wrong.” He sighed, before going over and opening the door enough to see his own expressions looking back at him– slightly more wide eyes, but just as real, now. No longer a shadow. No longer a puppet. Just meat. But more than that… now.
He locked the door behind him before once more returning to sit down, stabilizing himself on his bed. The cognitive Akechi stood by it awkwardly before also sitting down and turning to him. “I saw you on the news, on Christmas.” he opened, and the cognitive– but he wasn’t cognitive, anymore. He was just… Akechi. And he would just be Goro, for now.
“I appeared outside the diet building in what is probably your usual winter clothes. Everything I know is just what Shido thought you would know, so I knew the city well enough to get to Shibuya. I thought you may have been there, but… I didn’t know what to do at first. I knew I wasn’t supposed to be…. Here, alive, anything, really. There I happened upon Sae telling Ren he should confess and go to jail. … I know you wouldn’t want that to happen, and…. Well, I needed something to do, right? It’d be the right thing for someone who isn’t supposed to exist to… exit the public consciousness. So I went there in his stead.”
Some part of him seethed that this Akechi got to talk to Ren after Shido’s palace, this Akechi got to see him realize he wasn’t dead after all, this Akechi got to live… but this Akechi didn’t ask for it. Didn’t want it. And gave it up… for him. “But you’re here now. What happened?”
“They released me,” Akechi said. “No monitor. No probation or parole. I’m just free. More than just my existence is going wrong– something is happening here. The police would never free me, and no one wants me freed. I have a phone, now, but there’s no app. I don’t have a Persona, I don’t think. I don’t know if I could even hear… the cat… Talk.”
“Morgana,” he explained. “And you may be right…. The Metaverse disappeared after Christmas, but returned… different. Whatever controls it may have shifted, or maybe the Phantom Thieves stole the entire Metaverses heart, and it’s ‘good’ now. However, we need to figure out what exactly is wrong with it, and how to… Fix it, somehow. Has anything else happened that you noticed? I haven’t been able to leave.”
“Yes,” Akechi said. “I don’t know how to explain it, but… everyone’s happy.” They both paused. “I promise I’m still thinking close enough to you to not be dumb.” He clarified. “Nothing ever went wrong to anyone as I was walking. Nothing. Everyone seemed bored from being happy, even. And it seems more crowded than usual, but that may be a discrepancy between what Shido thinks you see crowded as and what it actually is.”
“People being happy could easily be attributed to that as well,” he said. “I think that’s the most likely explanation. However, I’m not inclined to trust likely explanations after a fraction of my fathers, now fully changed consciousness, is flesh and bone.” he paused. “You are flesh and bone, right? You bleed, and breathe, and everything?”
Akechi held up his hands. There were still faint bruises from the handcuffs, there, and he saw in his periphery him take a breath. “For better or worse, now we’re both alive. How is a matter of speculation. What’s your range of movement? If I knew this would happen, I… Well, I did have to hit you to get Shido’s shadow to stop focussing on you, even passively. If the security level never went up, he’d know I was conning him before I even did it. Still, there were better ways to do it…”
“I can walk for short distances and stand for longer,” he said. “I don’t think I can run or fight seriously, but while sitting I can probably shoot. I’ve still been eating and sleeping well, and taking care of my wounds, so I should be decent enough soon. Unsurprisingly, I've dealt with worse from palace rulers, but then I wasn’t already half dead from trying to… trying to both kill Joker and kill myself if I couldn’t kill Joker– I was trying to bring him down to my level. But it’d never… I’d never…” He sighed. “Even at the end, he tried to let me back in. But revenge was all I could think about then. That killing Shido myself would be some ultimate justice. I’m a stupid kid. If he was even a touch smarter, I’d be beat.”
“Your first and last victim was yourself,” Akechi said. “However, that’s good– about your wounds, that is. Back to the happiness. Is there any sad person you can call up and see if their life has suddenly changed for the better? Several sad someone’s, preferably?”
“Why would I need to call anyone up?” he asked. “The internet will give me what I need.” He reached for his phone, once more watching the Meta Nav pulse slightly. That was for when he healed. He quickly found a forum for recovering alcoholics. If anyone’s sad, it’d be them. But now…
[XXX000XXX: Finally found the spirit to get off spirits, haha! My brother reached back out to me and all, life is great!]
[Fridge123456: Didn’t your brother die a couple years back?]
[XXX0000XXX: What? No! I love the guy, how could you suggest that?]
[LevRage: Just reached 30 days sober :) was going through a rough spot around Christmas but after that it was smooth sailing. ]
[PR: ONE MONTH! ONE MONTH! So proud of everyone :DDDDDDD my mom and dad have really been here for me these past couple of months… they used to hate my drunk ass lololololol]
He turned his phone off. “So part of all of this is some… Happiness fad. Everyone's been given strength to go on. People are nice now.” He shifted his phone across his sheets. “But why? And is everyone just accepting this? Does no one feel off?”
“The dead brother bit makes me wonder a lot,” Akechi said. “Maybe it’s just coincidence, but… if someone can bring me to life, what’s stopping them from, well… reviving people?”
He blinked. His mom… no, wait. Wakaba, Kaneshiro, everyone he’s killed in Shido’s name. If revived, they’d all have one figure to blame– Him. “That’s not feasible, though, is it? Around 100 billion people have died. While Japan certainly doesn’t house a majority of the dead– though you noticed it was crowded, ‘crowded’ wouldn’t cover it. Think of those who died in the bombs alone. If everyone had been brought back to life… The economy would have collapsed by now, there… there aren’t enough houses for everyone.” He grabbed his phone again. “The economy is fine,” he said. “No news bulletins about any housing crisis… Maps are the exact same, so it’s not like the world has been rewritten where no one dies…” He pulled back up the forum. “Maybe its based on… wanting people back? This guy says he loves his brother, so maybe the… I guess way to make him truly happy was to bring him back. And to stop drinking.”
“Then who wanted ME back?” Akechi said. “You?”
“Question, Akechi,” he said. “Do I look like I’m in a brainwashed-to-be-happy state? I’m still shot, aren’t I?”
“Sorry,” Akechi said. “I really don’t know. Ren wanted you back, but I’m not you. I’m specifically your copy. Ren knows you better than that. Or at least I assume so, sorry.”
“No, you’re right,” he said. “However, I do think I know the answer. Even with his heart changed, Shido can still want a Persona. And he still thinks I’m dead. But he doesn’t want me. He wants you, again and again. So you’re back.”
Akechi frowned. “Makes sense,” he said, and sighed. “I should’ve guessed that. That also means… if you’re not affected… That your mom probably isn’t here.” He nods. “You need to heal. I need to gather more leads. I recommend the second we can attempting to explore… that’s strange. I know I’m supposed to go into the public unconscious and I of course know its name, but Shido doesn’t know it.”
“Mementos,” he said. “What else did I never tell him? A lot, probably. The cat is Morgana, he can turn into a car, Joker is Ren, Panther is Ann, Fox is Yusuke, Skull is Ryuji, Queen is Makoto, Oracle is Futaba, Noir is Haru… Things will probably come up naturally besides that. Now. If you don’t mind, I’d rather you stay here for the preceding nights. I’ll do my best to recover quickly, and in the day I’d like you to gather intel in my stead. Trying to define whatever is happening and… Well, what isn’t happening as well.”
“What do I do if I run into people I know? Or… people you know, sorry.”
He paused. “If it’s anyone but Ren, deflect. God, they may be affected by this as well. Do try to see if that’s true. If they aren’t, note it down but don’t do anything. If they are, they shouldn’t bother you for long. Ren…” he laughed. “Who am I kidding. He won’t be affected by this. He’s too special. Get him alone and tell him to come by in the evening when we’re both here. Then we can explain things to him. Out of everyone, he’s the only one I’d trust to figure it all out besides myself.”
“Got it,” Akechi said, and they existed in silence for a while, Akechi just staring at the wall as he noted down several things in shorthanded code within a text file.
“Do you also feel a bit dead, Goro?” Akechi eventually asked, as he was changing the bandages on his wounds for the day (or really, the night, but still). “Does Shido really think you’re… You’re me? Is- Am I really it?”
“That's how cognitive versions of real people work,” he said. “That’s how the Phantom Thieves tricked me. Sae saw Ren as he was, saw Joker as he was, so I couldn’t tell the difference. I heard from Ann that in Kamoshida’s palace she was just another erotic figure, because that’s all Kamoshida saw her as.” he paused, and tied the gauze off. “But… sure, yeah. If you’d call it that. I try not to think about it. It’s been there for a while. You only have it because I told Shido about it. …That was years ago, I think. Before I turned 14.”
“Right after Wakaba.”
“With me, who cared. But she had a daughter. I was someone's son. I had lost my mother. How could I not realize what I had done? But there was nothing to be done anymore. Shido said he was impressed. He had all the research they needed. The daughter wouldn’t be a problem. So it didn’t matter. I couldn’t care about it. I didn’t need help for it, because there wasn’t anything to help. Nothing to care about.”
“It’s easy to do anything if you don’t care.”
“I didn’t know Shido saw me as a person who says generic affirming statements.”
“Sorry, it’s just… Well, it just makes sense, is all. I’m probably going to find a spare blanket and hole up on your couch. I have to wake up early, after all.”
He nodded. This baffling world, this baffling existence… He could solve it. Just like every other case. No murder this time. Just being a detective. Just being Goro Akechi.