#Infinite being|In Character Akira Kurusu | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

xsparklingravenx · 5 years ago

Text

the broken mirror

Title: the broken mirror

Fandom: Persona 5 Royal

Characters: Goro Akechi, Akira Kurusu

Rating: T

Word Count: 5,582

Summary: “Get to the point, Akira,” Akechi said, his name dripping from his mouth like poison. “We both know that you didn’t blow up my phone with notifications for a simple outing.”

“No, I didn’t,” Akira replied, so slow to speak. It reminded him a little of himself, selecting words for the best possible outcome, wearing a thousand different masks to hide his true self. “But what I want to discuss, it’s not something we should do over text. Or phone.”

Major spoilers for the entirety of the third semester. Akechi and Akira, and the truth of the world through one set of eyes.

AO3

The first time Akechi’s phone rang that evening, he ignored it.

It buzzed through the wood on the table, shifting as it vibrated and lit up, casting a light on the cracked ceiling of his shitty rented apartment. The pi-pi-pi noise of its incessant ringtone made him wrinkle his nose in disgust, but it was an easy thing to forget. The laptop in front of him, containing all his notes on their current situation, commandeered the majority of his attention.

Reality was a mess. He was back from the dead through unknown means. A paltry conversation with a paltry human being was the last thing on his mind.

The second time his phone rang, he spared a careless glance its way. Careless, because he knew who was calling, and careless, because he knew it would destroy any of his focus. There was only one person who had his number who would actively call him, and unsurprisingly, it was his name that had flashed up.

KURUSU AKIRA.

Akechi stared at the phone until it stopped ringing again, the screen fading back to its usual, factory-set background image. Most other teenagers his age had images set there. Takamaki, he knew, had a picture of herself and that girl who had been involved in the Kamoshida case. Sakura had a group shot of the entire cast of Featherman R. Even Akira himself had a photo set there, a ridiculous picture of Morgana gorging himself on the largest plate of fatty tuna that Akechi had ever seen in all eighteen years of his life.

In the silence he tapped away at his keyboard, connecting theories and cross-checking intel. Takuto Maruki’s name was scattered about like a constellation across his document. As his phone screen switched off, he was left mostly in the darkness, only the light of his laptop screen left to illuminate the room.

The third time his phone rang, he blocked the number.

It was an easy thing to do. He reached over, unlocked the screen, and with a few taps Akira Kurusu was barred from contacting him. It wasn’t the first time he’d done it, and it wouldn’t be the last. Sometimes, when he left too many messages on read in the Phantom Thieves’ group chat, the members would individually leak into his private messages. Never Sakura or Okumura, but sometimes Takamaki, or Yoshizawa, and always, always Akira.

It went in cycles. They’d contact him and he’d block them. Then he’d require them, and he’d unblock them, enter their group chat, and lurk in the shadows. They were not friends. They were not even teammates. They were colleagues at best, their relationship one based out of a mutual need to solve their current predicament, and nothing more.

That meant he didn’t need unnecessary distractions.

He returned to his work. Websites, tabs. The Phan-site’s question was stark against his backlit screen. WOULD YOU JOIN THE PHANTOM THIEVES?

He scoffed, scrolled down, and then slammed his laptop lid shut. In the darkness, he grabbed his phone, unlocking the screen again to stare at Akira’s name.

“Who’s more pathetic?” he asked. “You for continuing this ridiculous charade, or me for letting you?”

No answer, because Akira wasn’t a mind reader, as much as he seemed like one.

No answer, because Akechi had blocked his number.

No answer, because Akechi didn’t want to give him the opportunity to give one anyway.

Akechi didn’t have fond memories. Tolerable memories, yes, but fond memories pushed it. Fond memories suggested that he’d formed an attachment to them, which was an impossibility. He made sure to keep a healthy distance away from anything that might have tampered with his mission, or, anything that might have twisted his view of the world. He achieved that through cool detachment, masked by his cheery, ace-detective persona, his flawless disguise.

One of those tolerable memories happened to involve Akira Kurusu and a jazz bar, the songstress’s dulcet tones melting into the air as they both tended to their non-alcoholic beverages of choice. Akechi’s was sweet. It wasn’t that he favoured that particular taste over anything else on the menu, but multiple people at school had mentioned the flavour. He jumped on the trend like he did all others; quickly, and without thinking.

“Is it good?” Akira said. “Your drink, I mean.”

“I can certainly see why it’s popular,” Akechi lied. “All these flavours, exploding on my tongue…truly, a delectable experience. I suppose that’s what is needed to appeal to the masses, though. Something that is universal, that can be really enjoyed.”

“You’re funny, you know,” Akira said, swishing the little cocktail umbrella that the waiter had put in his drink. He had that smirk on his face, the one that screamed that he was trouble. Hell in a handbasket. A devil wearing human skin.

“Oh? Certainly the people who chat about me online seem to think so.”

“No, not like that.” Akira leant back in his chair, sipping his drink slowly, savouring each drop. “It’s the way you use words. You fire them off like they’re infinite ammo in a video game.”

It was easy to figure out a response for something like that. Inwardly, Akechi thought that Akira was a fool. Outwardly, he grinned, several blocks of laughter falling from his lips. To the trained ear, it might have sounded artificial, but Akechi could blame that on the TV studios, on the fact that he needed that laugh to appeal to the millions who watched him from afar. “Are you trying to tell me that I’m babbling, Kurusu-kun?”

Akira watched him over the top of that tiny umbrella, the low-light of the jazz bar reflected off his glasses. Fake, of course, much like his honest high-schooler act, but then, who was Akechi to judge based on appearances? “No, I’m just saying that maybe you could do with being more honest.”

It was more difficult to formulate a response for a statement like that. In the half-second he had to think one up, Akechi ran through a thousand potential reactions. More laughter? Stare in shock? A question in response? A joking answer? There was no way that Akira could know the truth behind him, behind his actions or his words or his façade. There was no need to be worried, but selecting the perfect comeback was vital. He needed to keep him in his pocket, or everything would be over.

In the end, joking answer won out. With a grin, Akechi said, “Why, I don’t know what you mean. What would make you think I’m lying?”

“Just something I was thinking,” Akira said, giving the most subtle of shrugs. “All those words just makes what you’re saying difficult to follow, like you’re diverting. That, and you’re wrinkling your nose every time you take a sip. If you hate it that much, don’t drink it.”

Akechi put the glass down, his own paper umbrella bobbing in the liquid. Hate was too strong a word for such an innocuous thing. Hate was a word reserved for Shido, for the foster families who had made his life living hell, for the people who dared try and stand in his way as he did all he could to make his world manifest.

Hatred was what he felt towards Akira Kurusu. The drink? That had done nothing wrong other than being a little off for his tastes. Akira? Oh. He’d done everything.

“It would be a waste,” Akechi said. “And I’m certain that there must be something to like about it. My classmates often speak of this flavour.”

Akira laughed then, a genuine brand unlike Akechi’s bootlegged version. “And if your classmates said that the fall from Skytree was amazing, would you still take the leap?”

Akechi nearly scowled then, only just covering it up at the last moment. “Are you suggesting that I’d endanger my own life for the whims of others? I’m afraid not, Kurusu-kun. Still, what a drastic change in conversation, all over a simple drink. Tell me then, is yours any better?”

Leaning close, Akira offered his drink to Akechi, pressing the glass into his gloved hand as he snatched the sweet drink off the table. It was a simple exchange, one beverage for another, and yet Akira remained close. “Try it for yourself.”

He downed the rest of Akechi’s drink in one go. All of that sickly-sweet fizz, gone in a moment. Akechi looked at the drink he’d been handed, the one he hadn’t chosen for himself, and simply shook his head in an exasperated show. “Well, I never have been one to turn down a challenge.”

Putting the glass to his lips, he tipped his head back. The fruity mix washed away the saccharine flavour of what he’d had before, a refreshing, yet unexpected taste. When he was finished, he put the glass down on the table, meeting Akira’s expectant gaze.

“So,” Akira said. “What did you think of that one?”

Akechi leant his elbow on the table and rested his head in his hand. With his left hand, he plucked the umbrella from the now-empty glass, regarding it with disinterest as he said, “It was good.”

He couldn’t see Akira past his focus on the tiny, paper accessory. That meant he definitely didn’t see the self-assured smirk on his face.

It took him half an hour to unblock the number. Half an hour of opening and closing the lid of his laptop. Half an hour of getting up to check the window and then sitting back down. Half an hour of locking and unlocking his phone, checking social media idly instead of doing the work he knew should be taking priority.

It took another fifteen minutes for the first text to show up.

KURUSU AKIRA 9:33

Have you unblocked me yet?

Perceptive, but not a mind reader, Akechi reminded himself. He sat at the table, staring at the screen a while before finally resigning himself to a begrudging answer.

AKECHI GORO 9:37

I’d congratulate you on your clever insight, but we both know that’s bullshit. Regrettably, you’re just good at figuring out patterns. What were you doing for the last half hour? Sending that text every time I crossed your mind?

He set the phone on the table and tried to ignore it. There was no immediate reply. Back when he’d been a part of the Phantom Thieves the first time, there were often long swaths of time before anyone would get back to him when he offered up information in the group chat. Now he knew that they likely had a second one to scheme against him, to laugh at how he was such a fool for falling into their well laid trap. It wasn’t something that stung. He’d been the one who had set out to betray them, after all.

When his phone vibrated again, he sighed. There was Akira’s name once again, because he didn’t know how to leave things well alone. A blight on the background-less screen that Akechi was so used to.

KURUSU AKIRA 9:38

Something like that.

His responses were always infuriatingly short. It wasn’t something he reserved for Akechi, he seemingly treated everyone that way, group chat or not. Akechi deliberated on whether or not to send a follow-up, which turned out to be a mistake. In the time he spent trying to figure out what on earth to say, his phone started ringing again, buzzing through the wood.

He hit the busy button immediately.

AKECHI GORO 9:40

I’m not picking up. Stop wasting your time.

Responding to him was defeating the point entirely, but Akechi was already a lost cause in that regard. He chuckled, low and bitter, his right hand brushing through his hair to grip at it as he leant over the phone, the little bubble indicating that Akira was typing popping up instantly. It felt like a game. An illicit game that he should have had no interest in playing.

KURUSU AKIRA 9:41

So you want to talk over text only?

AKECHI GORO 9:41

I’d rather not speak to you at all.

KURUSU AKIRA 9:42

Says the one who came to me when the world went to hell.

Akechi’s fingers ghosted over the keyboard, but he didn’t actually type anything. He wanted to snap at Akira, to tell him that he'd gone to him because he was the only one who’d retained his sanity. He didn’t, because raging at someone didn’t have quite the same effect when it was done via toneless messaging.

His fingers itched for his sword. How he wanted to call upon Loki and fight like a beast in the confines of the Meta-verse. He’d spent years venting that way. Blood spilled in his quest to feel like a human being, only it never worked. He only ever felt like more of a monster, a monster he enjoyed being.

The phone buzzed again. Akechi gazed at the message with resentment gnawing in his gut, at himself, at Akira, he wasn’t entirely sure. Discerning his true feelings wasn’t as easy as it used to be. Once, it had been clear-cut. Once, it had been the world against him, and there had only been one way to survive that; detach, shut-down, hate everything.

Morgana, in his whiny little voice, played on repeat in his ears. You don’t really hate Joker, do you?

He switched screens, finger hovering over the block button again. In the end, he switched back, the message still on the screen, plain-as-day.

KURUSU AKIRA 9:45

This is because of what happened today, isn’t it?

In movies, in shows, in fiction, the heroic sacrifice was big. It was showy. In the old reruns of Featherman, often out of order, it still managed to be righteous, to be tragic, to be justified.

For Goro Akechi, it was lonely.

Back to the wall, the one he’d just dropped to stop the Phantom Thieves getting in his way. Shadows and his own cognitive puppet ready to rip him apart, just before him. His own darkened garb a shroud around him, not a shield anymore, but just a shame. A testament to his true, undesirable self.

A toast, to Masayoshi Shido for having a child every bit as ugly as him. Both of them, murderers. Both of them, scum of the earth. Shido might have put the gun in Akechi’s hand, but Akechi had done the deeds. He’d been used, but oh, hadn’t he put himself in that position?

The truth was so; in those final moments, he wondered if he’d been wrong. To decry the Phantom Thieves for believing so strongly in their bonds, to turn on them as savagely as he had. All along, Akechi had hid his jealousy and envy of Akira behind sugared smiles and soft words. He was everything he wanted to be. He had everything he’d ever wanted.

Taking the bullet for them, letting them run, it was no selfless act. It was one last ditch attempt to be the hero in a story that he’d chosen to play the villain in, and even then, karma had to be a bitch about it. What was supposed to be a magnificent death in a blaze of glory was instead a lonely, bitter end for the ace-detective who had given his all to revenge.

(It was not, and never had been for Akira. Morgana’s words rang hollow. Crow and Joker, Akechi and Akira, they were each other’s antithesis, that was how it was supposed to be. To give his life for his after everything would have been laughable.)

Or at least, that was what he remembered. When he came to, it was Christmas Eve and Shido had been taken down. Sae Nijima was talking about getting Akira to turn himself in across the street, and Akechi, with no memory of how he’d gotten there or how he’d even survived the cruise ship, had marched straight over and taken the metaphorical bullet for him a second time.

It was what he thought about all those nights later, after he’d sought out Akira and Maruki had taken Yoshizawa hostage. As he laid in bed, phone on his pillow at his side, he knew it was that which had tipped him off that something was wrong.

His version of sacrifice meant that he was destined to be lonely, forgotten, discarded. And yet, in turning himself into Sae, he’d found a sense of satisfaction, like finally, finally, he’d done something right.

He’d turned himself in not for his own sick sense of righteousness, but he’d done it for Akira—and there was no way that life would be so kind as to grant him the opportunity to save him. Not in a way that would save them both.

His phone was ringing again.

The ringtone was an annoyance, something he needed to change before it grated too badly on his nerves and he threw the entire thing at the wall. Akira’s name flashed up once more like a curse. The block button was nearby. A single tap of it, and he could open his laptop and stare at the Phan-site’s question for another twenty minutes instead of working.

He answered the call.

“I didn’t expect you to pick up,” came Akira’s voice, crystal clear on the other end.

“Yeah, well,” Akechi said. “I didn’t expect you to try calling again. You’re a fool, Joker. It’s quite tiring.”

No energy to it. He didn’t have much to inject in his voice anymore, not unless they were in the midst of fighting Shadows, anyway. That kind of mania he couldn’t hope to reclaim in his day-to-day. There wasn’t any point in it anyway.

He heard Morgana’s voice in the background, asking if Akira was talking to Akechi, asking after him like he was part of their ridiculous little team, like his well-being mattered. Akira’s voice broke away from the receiver for a moment as he answered the first question, and then came close instead of answering the second.

“Don’t call me that when we’re not on a mission,” Akira said. Akechi laughed humourlessly. “We’re not Joker and Crow when we’re here.”

“Would you prefer Kurusu-kun then? Or, perhaps Akira, seeing as we’re on such amicable terms now? Why, I’ll even let you refer to me as my given name, if that’s what you wish.”

“Akechi—” Akira cut himself off, and Akechi felt him wince down the line. “Call me whatever you want, as long as it isn’t Joker.”

“The same to you,” Akechi replied, drumming his fingers against the table. It felt so real beneath his touch. Or was it that he felt real against it? “Come now, Akira. You didn’t call me up to make small talk. Get to the point.”

A hesitant moment. How odd. Akira wasn’t the type to think twice. “Are you free tonight?”

He had a date with the Phan-site, but that wasn’t going all that well. Lots of staring on his end, and no answers for it when it asked him questions. His document on Maruki was a lost cause. “That depends on what you’re about to ask me.”

“Penguin Sniper. There’s a billiards table with our name on it.”

His offer sounded too good to be true. There was a moment when he wondered, maybe it is. Maruki was offering them the world on a silver platter. But no. It wasn’t perfect just yet. There were still flaws in Akira’s reality, still flaws in his own. Akira hadn’t called him up with billiards in mind. There was something going unspoken in this simple back and forth.

“Get to the point, Akira,” Akechi said, his name dripping from his mouth like poison. “We both know that you didn’t blow up my phone with notifications for a simple outing.”

Akechi should have left the number blocked. He should never have turned to Akira for help. He should have died in the halls of the cruise ship, lonely and forgotten.

Gritting his teeth, he said, “You just don’t know when to give up, do you?”

“I can be there in half an hour. What about you?”

Back to the wall, only this time, it was Akira instead of the Shadows. There was a certain species of delight to be had in this game of cat and mouse. He could escape. He could run. All it would take would be a single tap of a button. End the call. Move on.

“I’ll be there,” Akechi said. “Don’t make me regret this, Akira.”

Tokyo felt distinctly unreal as he travelled through it. It was like he was passing through a bubble, everything distorted and swimmy, a film over Shibuya and the people within it. His head had felt much the same lately, his emotions filtered through that lens, Akira through that odd sheen.

The trains were bustling, yet not packed. Akechi tucked himself into the corner, arms crossed tight against his chest, and switched stations whenever needed. When the announcer’s voice rang out, telling the passengers that they’d arrived in Kichijoji, he got off and prayed he wouldn’t run into Akira until they’d both arrived at Penguin Sniper.

Fate was not so kind. As he headed up the steps and got his phone out to pass through the barriers, he saw a familiar head of black hair waiting on the other side, head dipped down towards his bag. No doubt speaking with Morgana. Of course the cat would be here, he never went more than three feet away from him.

Akechi considered turning around and just heading home. Akira lifted his head and locked eyes with him, and Akechi slammed his phone down harder than necessary on the barrier. There was a cut on his cheek, easily mistaken for a small nick, not quite healed even after all the spells his teammates had poured into him. Earlier, it had been a gash that had exposed the cheekbone.

The gate popped open with a ping.

Akira didn’t approach him. No, he kept his distance, but he didn’t look away. Akechi took his time approaching, arms crossed back against his chest, his teeth grinding together. He felt very much like a puppet on strings being marched to certain death, only death looked a lot like Akira Kurusu and his gleaming glasses.

“You actually came,” Akira said.

“I told you I’d be here.”

“We thought you might have just said that to get us off your back.” Akira led him out of the station. As soon as they were out in the night air, Morgana hopped out of the bag, stretching himself out. Akira said, “You’re heading off?”

“Yeah, just make sure you’re back before too late! And you,” Morgana steeled Akechi with those bright blue eyes of his, giving his tail an indignant shake. “You better not try anything. You hear me!”

“Your request has been duly noted.” Akechi said. He watched as the cat disappeared into the night. “Well, now we’re alone, you may as well say your piece. Though I don’t understand why I had to come all the way out here to hear it.”

“No, not yet.” Akira pushed his glasses up his nose and turned. “Penguin Sniper, like I said. I wasn’t joking about the billiards table.”

Akechi grimaced. Penguin Sniper was filled with tolerable memories, as was the majority of the joints here, but that made it all the worse. Beating Akira, being beaten by Akira, touches stolen here and there, a trading of drinks, a duel not quite to the death, an exchange of gloves—the last time they’d played nice before Akechi had betrayed them all, stormed into his interrogation room, and pressed the muzzle of a gun to Akira’s head.

Twisted by the thought of revenge, distorted by his hatred for his dear rival, Akechi had not regretted pulling that trigger. He hadn’t even hesitated. All that mattered was Shido’s downfall, and Akira’s blood was to paint the path that Akechi needed to take to get there.

What was one more death when Akechi’s hands were already so dirty? What was one more death when it was the only person Akechi had ever given a damn about other than Shido? It might have been hate, but hate was just a simple way to describe someone that appealed to your emotions in some form. Positive or not, Akira did just that.

Still, he followed Akira up the stairs to Penguin Sniper, and he didn’t fight back when Akira handed over the 800¥ fee to access the tables. In the end they stood at either end of the table, pool cues in hand, the balls all lined up perfectly, ready to be struck.

“Should I go first?” Akira said.

“Be my guest,” Akechi said. “I didn’t want to play anyway.”

Akira’s grip tightened on the cue. He leant over the table, the curve of his body a perfect silhouette, and Akechi hated himself a little more than Akira for thinking that.

A sharp strike against the ball. They struck one another and scattered across the table, a veritable destruction, and behind Akechi’s eyes, a memory flitted. Earlier that day, Shadows on every side, an ambush they’d been sloppy in the face of. Joker’s Wild Card failing him in the worst way possible, leaving him open to a weakness that he’d not accounted for when taking on that particular Persona. A strike of thunder sending him down like a house of cards in the wind.

“Something on your mind?” Akira said.

Akechi scowled. “Not in the slightest.”

“Same way you like sweet drinks, yeah?”

He could have snapped the pool cue in two. He restrained himself, barely. “If you want to talk about honesty, Akira, how about you start? Take off those glasses and look at me. No more masks, no more distractions. Me and you. Here. Now.”

Akira reached up and removed them. He was sharper without them, blazing, unmasked and brutal edged. His lips quirked upwards, the tiny cut pulling at the movement, and a single word came to mind. Trickster.

“I’m putting my cards on the table,” Akira said. “Your turn, Goro.”

Oh, how sick Akechi was, for his stomach to flip at his name on Akira’s lips. He leant over the table himself, picking the angle, striking the ball once more. Joker had gotten to his feet, swaying. The Shadow had swung its scythe and there wasn’t time to dodge it. Oracle screamed his name from her safe space within Al Azif, and Akechi, despite all his frenzy in a fight, couldn’t get there fast enough to stop it.

The ball hit the others. The Phantom Thieves lost themselves in the blood, panic running through their collective veins as the scythe struck more than once. Skull’s Persona rising above on its ship, Fox’s throwing ice while Queen and Mona’s tore through one healing spell after another. Fire blazed through the ice as Panther charged up, gunfire as Noir held off the ones fast approaching. Violet threw out spell after spell, bless magic crashing down through the Palace, and Akechi felt it sear his skin, felt Loki react.

Akira regarded the scattered balls. Akechi had downed a couple. “Your move, Akira.”

“Earlier,” Akira said. “What happened?”

It still hadn’t been enough. Surrounded as they were, even all those spells couldn’t get them the upper hand, and the one with the scythe was laughing, swinging its weapon like a toy. It was the kind of fight that Akechi lived for. It was the kind of fight Akechi would die for. Joker was on the floor, bleeding despite the magic that was being desperately thrown his way. He could see the flash of white at his cheek through all the red. His shirt was drenched with blood where it had gouged into his chest.

It wasn’t excitement. It wasn’t fun. Anger had flooded him, rage and fury and the desire to kill. That wasn’t unusual. His way of fighting scared the others, the way he took joy in spilling the blood of Shadows disturbed them, but in that moment, it had been different. It wasn’t his spells he called upon in that moment, even as Loki manifested above him.

“I got angry,” Akechi told him, putting the cue down.

His power had taken hundreds of lives, directly, indirectly. Never had it been used to save someone. His own ragged voice had screamed for Loki above the din of the Phantom Thieves’ panicked battle, and without a word, Loki changed his heart for him. Turning himself psychotic, it was a small price to pay. He tore through the scythe-wielding Shadow with a deranged cackle, throwing himself into the firing line of not only their enemies, but their allies also.

Fire and ice, lightning and wind, psychokinetics and nukes. All of it he took in his stride as he slashed and tore and cut, bladed edge erasing Shadows the second it touched them. For Joker? Loki laughed. Akechi laughed. What a joke. What a joke.

So lost in the rage, he took the blows like they were penance. They were not his friends, they were Joker’s friends. It didn’t hurt. It didn’t hurt.

Violet screamed, “Crow!”

He ran into the bless spell before he realised what he’d done. The blow of light struck him to the core, making even Loki screech. The world blacked out as the force of it took all of his energy, shaking up his ribcage and his lungs. He went down in an instant, all of the rage swept out of him in one moment.

It only made sense. Life wasn’t kind. There was no way for him to save Joker.

“That was more than anger,” Akira said, stalking across the floor towards him. The billiards had been a ploy, Akechi realised, just a catalyst. “You’re still lying to me.”

“Not lying,” Akechi said. “Do you hear any unnecessary words? Am I talking you in circles, Akira?”

Akira grabbed him by the lapels of his jacket. “You blocked my number, and yet here you are.”

Akechi had awoken in a safe room, sat against the wall with the Panther’s face peering curiously down at him. He looked up at her, watching her expression morph into shock. “You’re awake! Yeesh, you moron! Do you know what you did?”

He pressed a hand to his mask as he cackled. It was a low, broken sound. “Is he dead?” he asked.

“Do I look dead to you?”

Akechi looked up. Joker stood over him with his hands in his pockets, his mouth turned downwards, his gaze icy behind his mask. His cheek was still bleeding a fraction.

“You’re a fine looking ghost, Joker.”

Akira was a different creature in Joker’s skin. He moved like a cat, his emotions more pronounced. It wouldn’t have been incorrect to call the expression coating his face a type of fury with how his lips peeled back. “So are you. Why did you do that?”

For you, Akechi didn’t say. “Because I wanted to run wild.”

Akira said now, “I know that it was a lie, in the Palace.”

Nobody interrupted them. To the rest of Penguin Sniper, they may as well have not existed. Akira’s hands tightened in Akechi’s coat, their distorted reality theirs and theirs alone.

“Tell me something, Akira,” Akechi whispered. “What is it you truly wanted from the world? A companion who would play detective with you? Someone who would play hot-and-cold in this thing we call a friendship? Did you want someone who would give their life for you time and time again?”

“No—” Akira began.

“Someone who would deny it, because you don’t want to admit you’re that selfish?” Akechi grabbed Akira’s jacket in turn. “You have so many friends. So many talented, incredible friends. And yet here I am, back from the dead, not a memory of how I survived in sight.”

Akira, for once, had nothing to say, and Akechi, who was doubting his own memories, who was doubting his own feelings, who was doubting his own actions, knew he’d struck gold.

Wakaba Isshiki, Kunikazu Okumura, Makoto Nijima’s father. Was it any surprise he doubted his own existence too?

Reality pulsed and squirmed beneath them, a broken mirror of an existence, reflecting their cognition the way they wanted to see it. Akechi pulled Akira close, a brush of lips. Love and hate, two sides of the same coin, just like they were. It was what Akira had wanted all along. Maybe it had been what Akechi had wanted at some point, when he’d been real.

“I refuse to be a slave to a false world,” Akechi whispered in his ear. “I hope you feel the same, Akira.”

“I know,” Akira replied. “But, when all this is over, I just—you don’t have to leave. You can stay with us.”

Akechi laughed, genuine—or fake, depending on the perspective. Maruki really did have the right idea. Trap someone in despair and they’d do anything to escape. Trap them in their happiness, and they were putty to be played with, never wanting to leave.

“Tell me that again when we’re done,” Akechi said, picking up the pool cue. “Then we’ll see.”

#Persona 5 #Akechi Goro #Kurusu Akira #Amamiya Ren #Akeshu #P5R #My Writing

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c-is-for-circinate · 5 years ago

Note

A while ago you mentioned really hating the Persona 4 protagonist as Yu Narukami (from the crossover games and possibly the animation) but liking him as Souji Seta (from the manga, I think?), which is also the name you seem to use most regularly. If you don't mind, could you explain the difference and why you prefer one over the other?

FUCK YES I CAN

(there are Persona people on my dash, that’s so fucking exciting, I have many things to say about these video games and the fandom is small)

Okay so I have lots of thoughts and feelings about the protags from Personas 3, 4, and 5 in general, and about the various versions of them that show up in various media. It has to do with names and gender and how the very specific conventions of being the silent protag of a JRPG translate into creating character, and I could ramble about this forever, so it’s going behind a cut.

Step one: all Persona Wild Card protagonists are genderqueer and neurodivergent. Period.

A persona is, theoretically in game lore, a reflection of your soul–specifically, a reflection of the part of you that you choose to show the world, because it’s strong and powerful and keeps all the weak parts of you safe behind it. In early Persona games, every PC had a couple of different masks they could switch between, and that makes sense, but starting in P3 our party members each get one mask that eventually evolves into another one, and we-the-protag get more than a hundred.

We switch between masks constantly, at the drop of a hat. We learn to level these personas up, we figure out how to be these other people, by watching and learning to understand our friends. And there is something intensely queer about the fact that the masks we put on, with no pause or hesitation, can be male, can be female, can be both, can be neither. Sure, it’s possible to argue that the protag has any certain specific gender identity underneath/behind those masks, but then we’re heading straight towards a complicated discussion about what it means to pass as one gender, vs what it means to model yourself after individuals of one gender while passing or identifying s another, vs what it means to model your actions after a theoretical version of yourself that has a different gender than your own, and like, let us be honest, just having to get that deep into the weeds on that discussion is pretty inherently queer to begin with.

Add to that the essential nature of who Persona protags are as people, based on their reality as video game characters, and we get someone who really does not fit a ‘straight cis neurotypical’ frame. The entire scheduling system in Persona just speaks to every single part of my brain that understands executive dysfunction. You do exactly one thing per unit time. You can wander around town forever, but as soon as you stop to talk to another person, that’s it, that is your One Thing, that is all of the spoons you have for this time period, you can maybe do another thing later. This really hit home in Persona 5, where your protagonist has a goddamn talking service cat without whom he can’t remember how to start any task up to and including going to bed (and people bitched about Morgana so hard, but also #RELATABLE oh my god), but it’s there in 3 and 4 as well if you look. The P4 protag does favors for every single person in town. The P4 protag stands out in the rain fishing for hours. The P4 protag can accidentally spend an entire afternoon petting cats. The P4 protag tries to make tomorrow’s lunch and has to think for a while over whether to add soy sauce or sugar.

So: the video games give us these characters who are intended to be hollow so that we can fill them with our own self-projections (and maybe I am self-projecting here, why not, everybody else gets to do it), but that very hollowness is also a shape, do you see what I mean? You can extrapolate a person based on assuming the dialogue options the protagonists get are actual things that run through their minds, based on what choices are even available for them to make. You can ask questions about what it means to be so hollow in the first place, what it takes to be the sort of person who can switch masks in the blink of an eye when everybody else around you makes do with all of one. It’s really interesting to ask those questions.

Step two: the naming of Persona protags is complicated, and is as much a fandom question as it is a canon question.

In general, persona protags starting with P3 have gotten two names: one in the official manga that starts coming out right around the same time as the video game, and one in later animes and tie-in games. What this means, at least in Western fandom (I don’t know a ton about Japan-only fandom!) is that for the first year or more of having a protag, the only name we have for them is the manga name, and so that’s the name 99% of fandom jumps on in those first several months.

When we explore and extrapolate and do all of that extremely transformative fandom work, looking at the empty spaces around a protag and figuring out who he has to be to fill them (or she, the P3 FEMC is all of this dialed up to a hundred), we at least start doing that work under the manga name. To me–and, in my experience, to most of fandom, whether they think about it or not–the name has relatively little to do with the manga itself. It’s the name fandom had to hand when they first played the game and began to figure this person out. It’s the name for thousands of different interpretations that can fit inside the shell of a person the video game gives us.

I find that transformative labor, and those thousand different interpretations, wildly fascinating. I enjoy doing it myself. I like seeing what other people come up with. Figuring out how to fill the outline of a person who can be anyone (figuring out the difference between Minato Arisato, and Souji Seta, and Akira Kurusu, and learning who they are as individuals by picking out their contrasting spaces) is one of my favorite things about Persona.

The characters from the tie-in animes, then–and from P4 games like Arena and Dancing All Night, which are as much visual novel as video game, where the MC has an extremely distinct personal voice–each present one version of that infinitely-variable character. They’re a single interpretation. They’re a specific interpretation, separate from the many open options of the game itself, they just happen to come with a specific name.

Makoto Yuki, from the P3 anime, is a very different person than the character I played when I played P3, and they’re both very different than the person I write when I write Minato Arisato, the human I extrapolate when I look at all of canon and put my analysis goggles on. Now, I happen to love the P3 movies, and their interpretation of Makoto Yuki, who is a giant ball of severe depression and whom I consider an excellent exploration of the game’s themes of despair and mortality, but I love them like a really, really good fanfic. They don’t trump the ‘canon’ of the game for me; they’re an outgrowth of it. Likewise, I don’t know Ren Amamiya particularly well, but he’s a quiet guy with an inner well of sheer rage that really works for me in what I’ve seen of him. Not my Akira, but a cool dude.

In general, when I’m talking about Persona protags, I use the anime or tie-in game name to refer to the specific version of that character written in that game or anime, and the manga name to refer to that earlier, slightly hollow character of infinite possibilities and fandom interpretations. Which leads us to Souji and Yu.

Step 3: Yu Narukami is a fucking jackass

I think the big thing for me about Yu Narukami, the specific interpretation of P4 Protagonist as seen in the anime and tie-in games, is that he isn’t genderqueer or neurodivergent. Yu Narukami is perhaps the straightest character in all of Persona with the possible exception of Junpei Iori.

I don’t actually hate him in the anime all that much, but thinking about Arena-Yu…he’s a dude. He’s a fucking bro. He screws around with Yosuke over the suggestion of dirty magazines and he’s vaguely uncomfortable about Kanji. It’s been a while since I went through any game LP’s, but I remember the attitude Yu took towards his friends and Labrys, and it was authoritative. Certain. Of course Labrys can overcome her past, now that she has us here to be friends. Yukiko isn’t talking like I expect Yukiko to talk, so of course something is wrong with her.

Yu Narukami, as presented in the Arena games (and I’m pretty sure P4DAN, though it’s been even longer since I’ve seen that) is an In Charge kind of guy who Knows What’s Best for people, and doesn’t particularly need to listen to what they have to say to do it. He shows no sign of ever having molded himself around someone else; he does not present himself as a man (as a boy) who would or even could switch up who he is at a moment’s notice, because he doesn’t seem to be somebody who ever thinks there’s anything wrong with exactly who he is in the first place. Yu Narukami never had a shadow because he just thinks he’s Exactly That Cool all the way down. He pops the collar on his polo shirt not because he doesn’t know any better, but because he is actually that guy and always was.

Needless to say, that is not my Seta Souji, who spends hours petting cats, and rarely speaks up to bring order (let alone authority) to his rambunctious bickering friends in any discussion. It’s an interpretation, sure–and it’s even an interesting one!–but he is not a guy I particularly like.

So how do those two people, Yu and Souji, even fit together at all?

And this is where we go from me having opinions on various actual versions of characters as-written, and start diving into themes, theories, and mythological parallels. There is a way to tell the story where it all makes sense, where Souji (and even the Yu of the anime, who’s got more shades of asshole than my typical headcanon but still sits far closer to my personal version of the protag than any of the douchebro versions of Yu in the sequel games) ties into later-Yu and it’s a graceful, interesting, thematic choice.

I don’t think it was intentional on the part of the writers. But it does work. And here’s how.

Step 4: I go on a digression about persona protags and sacrifice

I have spent way too much time thinking about themes and parallels between Personas 3, 4, and 5 (someday I’ll watch some decent LPs of 1 and 2, but today is not yet that day, so we’ll stick to the Wild Card trilogy for now). One of the things that I love is the way each protag interacts with the big major theme thing of their game, losing it and gaining it and sacrificing it only to gain it yet again, and it happens in all three games.

In P3, the thing at the center of the game is life, in contrast to mortality. You’re in a car crash at age 6, your parents die, you carry Death Himself in the space behind your heart, you spend all game struggling to survive and also trying to figure out why you even care to bother. At the end you die so your friends can live, but also you’re not, quite, entirely dead–you are asleep, and at the end of all the world you’ll wake up and still be there, just you and Aigis and Elizabeth at the end of all things, alive and mortal. In P5 it’s freedom, and you start the game in chains, flash forward and flash back, breaking bonds and forging them right up to the point where you turn yourself into the police, only to eventually be found innocent of even the original crime that bound you to begin with. There are metaphors and angles to the whole thing, the way becoming Satanael is in its own way both a defiance of Yaldabaoth in front of you and a surrender, complying with the will of every furious desperate angry follower-believer-worshipper in the Tokyo streets, but what we care about most right now is how this shows up in Persona 4, where our thing is identity.

The Persona 4 protagonist, whoever he is, shows up in this small town with no identity at all. He had a life where people knew him, but the people in this small town don’t even have rumor and hearsay about dead parents or criminal charges to go on. And sure, every protagonist starts out on a train to a new town, but the P4 protagonist goes even farther than that. You show up in Inaba, and one of the very first things that happens to you, something that doesn’t happen to any Persona protag in any game I’ve ever seen, is that you lose your persona.

The starting persona in P4 is Izanagi. Based on the fact that Adachi’s persona is Izanagi, too, based on the fact that Izanami is the one who granted you access to the TV world and presumably a working persona to begin with, based on every theme and implication in the game–Izanami gives you your starting persona. She chooses who you are. She declares that you’re ‘hope’, and maybe you had some qualities that suited you for that role to begin with, but anyone you’ve ever been is gone now in service to your part in Izanami’s play.

One of the things I really liked in the P4 anime was the protag’s terror of being alone and empty. Now, I enjoy my Souji Seta as someone who’s a little bit hollow and empty–not in a bad way, but like a clear glass that can be filled with anything, and takes on the color and nature of whatever it holds–but right, in a story whose main theme is identity and accepting yourself, being infinitely transformable is both ideal and terrifying. If the P4 protag can be anyone, how can he be someone? In the end, the only identity that’s really his and not copied from one of his social links is the one that Izanami gave him. His final persona, Izanagi-no-Okami, has more to do with her than anything that comes from inside him.

Loss and gain, sacrifice and victory–the P4 protag goes back to his old life, sacrificing the person he’s created for himself here in Inaba to reclaim the person he theoretically used to be. Depending on how you read the ending, he gives up his infinite adaptability in order to fill himself with a final persona that is chosen for him, sacrificing his innate capacity to be anyone (which is in its own right a key characteristic of his self) in exchange for becoming someone, specifically a someone who was chosen for him.

(This is more my interpretation than anything I’d consider strictly canon, but–in my head, the P3 protag achieves that final moment of apotheosis, and the god-binding power that comes with it, from the sacrifice of his own life and also the fact that after Death lived in his heart for ten years straight he’s explicitly no longer entirely human to begin with. The P5 protag achieves it by sacrificing his own individual freedom to the collective belief and prayers of literal hordes of desperate people, which we know is full of power because that’s how cognition works. The P4 protag, I have always suspected just a little, gets it from the actual Izanagi–because if the actual Izanami is the source of all of this trouble, the actual Izanagi must exist too, and to trap a god you must be a god, in some small way. Our protag is given the tools of power to seal Izanami away, and in return he must become a tool of that power.)

There are a lot of ways to interpret the themes and echoes and actual events of P4 vs P4 Golden vs P3 and P5, and this isn’t necessarily Objective Truth, but this is very much where my head goes when I think about Souji Seta and Yu Narukami. Souji is the empty, unflappable chameleon boy who spends his time becoming whoever the people around him need him to be, whether that’s a silent confidant or a valiant hero. Yu is the bold, self-assured young man who has discovered or decided exactly who he is, and knows deep in his heart that he never has to hide or change for anyone, ever again.

Step 5: Yu is a dick because Izanagi is a dick, and okay, fine, I kind of love it that way

All of Persona 4 is about retelling the myth of Izanagi and Izanami, and changing the ending.

This is true for P3 and P5 too, of course. In P3 you walk into Tartarus with everyone you love already at your back, and you set them free to do their own thing (they make their own moves in battle, you don’t turn back to check on them, you trust them to follow or not follow on your own and every member in your team makes their greatest moments of personal growth without you there), but eventually one of you has to stay behind so the other can leave–so you fix Orpheus’s mistake, you stay in the underworld yourself so Eurydice and everyone else you love in the world can go home and live. In P5 you tell Satanael’s story backwards and forwards, the rise and the fall and the rise again; you start at the very bottom of your own pit (you start as the God of Control’s very own chosen one and don’t even know it), and eventually you climb so high that you’re the one who gets to cast God down into perdition instead. Start with one tale, end with another.

The story of Izanagi and Izanami is: once upon a time, through no fault of her own, Izanami was sent to the underworld, and Izanagi loved her so well he ventured down after her. But she was changed down there, her own darkness grown gross and rotten, and though she tried to hide her ugly parts Izanagi did see them. And then he didn’t love her any more; he fled, and trapped her there in darkness forever, to protect the whole world from her flaws, and never ever looked at his own.

You spend all of Persona 4 doing exactly the opposite: venturing down into another world to find people trapped there, and facing their ugliness, and embracing them and drawing them up into the light anyway. Namatame is Izanagi-who-dooms-them, though his intentions are good (Izanami died giving birth to Izanagi’s child in the first place). Adachi is Izanagi-corrupted, claimed and twisted by the darkness of the underworld and his own power, with no mercy in him. But the P4 protag gets to play the Izanagi of compassion, who tried to save his wife in the first place–and we get to fix it. We get to save people. We get to save everyone.

Until we get to Izanami herself, because Izanami can’t be saved. This all gets way more complicated in Golden when we add in Marie, but in the end, we’ve still got our protag standing in front of the goddess Izanami, sealing her away with Izanagi’s power for the sake of everyone else in the world, because she’s too dark and corrupted to bring back out into the light after all.

It’s really interesting coming at all of this from a Western perspective, because I…can’t actually tell if, playing through P4, we’re meant to like Izanagi? Are we meant to be on his side in the end? Are we meant to feel like we’re on this whole quest serving penance for his ancient mythological fuck-up? Are we meant to think that Yu Narukami, who’s embraced Izanagi in all his pride and self-righteousness as his own inner self, is the good guy?

Because yes, Izanami was trying to destroy the world. And yes, we saved it by trapping her, just like Izanagi did in ancient myth. But the Yu Narukami I see in the sequel games is so very much the guy who thinks he gets to decide who’s good enough to get saved and who isn’t. Labrys deserves to be saved, and because he’s decided to be her friend now, she will be, just like that, because of course he has that power.

By the time Arena happens, Yu has embraced and accepted Izanagi as his true self, flaws and all. (Let me not forget to point out the sister-complex kingpin title, for the man whose persona is a god that married his own sister. Let us literally never discuss Nanako as Izanami, because that gets really uncomfortable so fucking quick.)

And Izanagi is a dick. Which means that Yu isn’t, can’t be the quiet, gentle person I see when I try to extrapolate a most-probable Souji out of P4 canon alone. Yu is an asshole because that’s the person he’s chosen to be, the identity he’s claimed to replace the one he sacrificed, and I am on reflection kind of into that.

But also he’s still a dick, and therefore I kind of hate him for it.

#acelania #persona 4 #driveby meta attack #yu narukami #souji seta #gosh I should rewatch some of the anime or the later tie-in games #if I can stand to #I do love this series

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askmissjoker · 6 years ago

Photo

AKIRA’S PALACE.

For the last several months, I had a palace campaign developed for a group of rp friends. Now that the campaign has long since reached its completion, I figure I can show people everything I did in regards to it!

The palace was focused on Akira’s guilt for her friends deaths during her first timeline, as you saw from this ask. In the roleplay, Akira tried to take care of everyone in her group of ragtag friends but they kept getting into trouble and got hurt over and over again. She felt immense despair, slowly blaming herself for things not going right-- and eventually, gave birth to a palace where she was the prisoner, locked away by her own choice to protect everyone else.

Keywords:

Target: Akira Kurusu

Place of distortion: Cafe Leblanc

Distortion: Prison

Player characters:

Mona

Crow

Panther

Arsene

Oracle

Megiddo (a different male akira)

Map designs, original persona, and details under the cut

Entrance

The players found themselves standing on the street outside of Leblanc, everything looking pretty normal and standard-- expect for the building. In its place stood a blue building the colour of the velvet room and a tall metal fence that prevented them from progressing. Speaking to Lavaneza, who stood outside the real Velvet room’s door, told those who asked: "I do not have any methods nor information to assist you with, young trickster, for those who enter are already dead.”

Through some investigation, the players were able to find a broken piece in the surrounding fence. Someone clearly had been there before them, taking a literal sledge hammer to the metal and bending it upwards so the thieves can slip underneath and get inside. Two security towers loomed over the area, however one seemed to be damaged-- another indicator that they likely weren’t alone.

Floor 0-- The fool

After making their way into the palace and dodging out of the light of two search towers, they find themselves in a room that holds a strong resemblance to the velvet room. 3 cells each line the walls, labeled with a name plate and hand scanner: looking at them closely, the players can see that they hold the names of the Phantom Thieves: Ann, Futaba, Haru, Makoto, Yusuke, Ryuji... Is there a name missing?

In the center of the room is a huge hole covered by thick glass that allows you to see downwards to all of the palace.

The cell doors only opened depending on who the players had in their party. Since they had an Ann and Futaba, they were allowed entry into their respective rooms and spoke to the cognitions there. It was revealed that the cognitions weren’t of themselves, but of the Phantom Thieves’ Akira lost in her own timeline.

After exploring the two cells, Shadow Akira showed herself to the group, asking them to leave. The group refused, and she gave one of the players (Akechi), a folder with a keycard to progress further into the palace before she allowed herself to fall through the glass, descending to the floors bellow.

Floor 1-- The Chariot

On the next floor was two smaller towers with spotlights on them, shadows manning each tower on the lookout for intruders. The players sneaked past and took out each shadow, Akechi causing a small blackout after shooting his gun at a electric socket. The group also stumbled upon a treasure chest, retrieving a special sword for Akechi.

Making their way past a puzzle, they overheard shadows speaking to someone called Miss Kurusu-- Akira’s mother. Tricking these shadows, the group got the keycards needed to move on to the next floor.

Floor 2-- The Lovers

The group was starting to get worn out from their leader’s constant need to fight every shadow, so they took a small break to recoup as they weighed their options. They ended up making it further through the floor and found a large screen and two doors. A cognitive Futaba of one of the muses hacked through the feed to talk to the players--and they promised to meet up to exchange notes as it’s revealed there was a cognitive group of phantom thieves trying to get into the palace--the same friends Akira was trying to protect.

The group manages to solve a puzzle and get through to the next room, which is divided in half by a wall of glass.

In each room, there was shards of glass with masks painted on them--masks of the phantom thieves. However, when two members of the group went into the opposite room to try and get the rest of the shards, both exits locked and the room on the left began filling with water. Fun! That’s when they first met the Lupeux--a shadowy being with sharp white teeth that could melt into shadow. It almost took out the leader of the party, but when the group on the other side figured out the puzzle, it escaped to the next floor.

This is where the group took a break and returned back to the entrance of the palace to talk to the cognitions of themselves. That was a time LOL

Floor 3-- The High Priestess

On this floor, the players were given two options. Go through the first door, or go through the second door. First door was a puzzle involving tarot cards that ended up being unused, and the second door was a logic puzzle. Only thing is, that logic puzzle was 500% hijacked by a certain persona that the group let escape...

Fight: Lupeux

To be honest, the Lupeux wasn’t supposed to be such a big deal. In my concept writing, it was just another shadow--but I ended up going all out with it! Here’s a little excerpt:

Bullets lace into the mirrors, easily shattering any surface that comes into contact with the barrel of a gun. The cracks of the mirrors extend the length of the hall, growing in intensity before giving out and sending thousands of sharp shards flying. Not to be one left out, Mona draws his slingshot and joins the fray, aiding in the shattering of more mirrors.

Laughter fills the hallways as gunfire threatens to drown it out, however Lupeux is loosing places to play it's game. Distorted images of the Phantom Thieves don't even remain anymore-- only showing the backing wall that held the mirrors up. Bullet holes lay scattered across its surface, growing the cracks in the very foundation of the walls and leaving very clear exit marks.

"Here! Here! Let me help you!" It giggles, voice of Crow melting and shifting until it became almost unrecognizable.

All at once, the walls cave and crumble, remaining mirror walls left in shambles as everything falls to the ground. The group is left standing on the thin pathway, now exposed to the open air. All around them is only darkness, and a giant pit that leads downwards that you cannot see the bottom of. You can see the exit, now clearly visible and lacking any tricks, and the walls of the other path you could have taken very far away from you.

Lupeux is nowhere to be seen for a short while, though the darkness around the group shifts and bubbles as if it's alive. A long leg of shadow climbs out from it's depths, familiar toothy grin spiraling and clicking as it reforms in front of the group's eyes. A red, beady iris flickers and hones in on the group as it pulls more and more darkness into its body, consuming shadow in seemingly infinite supply. It perches itself on the other path, growing in size as time goes on, and laughs silently. The only way you're able to separate it from the backdrop of nothingness is it's sharp teeth that it clicks, as if in challenge.

Check out Quire’s art from the scene! It was fun tormenting them :))

Floor 4-- Justice

This floor was a Bit of a Time(tm). Two player characters ended up in some of the jail cells due to them almost dying, and Akira’s mom and Sae ended up talking to them. After a terrible roll in trying to knock Sae out (it was eventually successful) the united group went to the main room where a trial was said to be held. There they fought the midboss of the campaign, Akira’s mother.

Midboss:

Maragarethe [Null Curse. Resist gun]

way too many moves ngl. she just wanted to brainwash the party though

Akira’s mother was probably one of the concepts of the palace that never really changed? Her design remained the same throughout all my concept art and at this point it’s quite clear i have a certain Aesthetic haha. Those eyes especially were my favourite...

After beating her up, there was only a couple floors left.

Just a pretty empty foor--a transition to the next. In order to get through you needed a Morgana and Akechi in the party. Which, this group happened to have :)

Leblanc

After going through the prison the players opened the final door and... found themselves right where they started--inside Leblanc. Only this was clearly still a cognitive version of Leblanc, and had a lot of things about it that felt ‘off’. For one there were doors on the side, for another the windows were replaced with mirrors. Oh, and when the whole group went inside the Akechi of the group had a gun pointed at his head by Akira’s original Akechi. The one that died in her first timeline.

I’ll keep what happened a secret unless people asked, but the group secured the infiltration route and sent the calling card (it was an emotional time).

Boss floor

After the calling card triggered and the group was inside, they made their way to the treasure room (Leblanc’s attic). The treasure however was gone, and Shadow Akira found them, this time with her mask on.

The whole room collapsed around them, revealing a room no one could escape. And so, the fight began.

Boss Phase 1: Lady

Lady’s first phase was more on the easy side to handle--all she had to work with was a mirror of the personas I had originally played with during other campaigns. This meant she had a limit to what she could do, especially since I nerfed her early on with her persona choices. After being knocked down to around half health, she shifted into phase 2.

Boss phase 2: A̮̯̙̬͎͓̥̦̕r̡̖̩̩̣̲̪͢s̪̳͘͠��̝̜̝ͅe҉͙̠̳͉̗̞̻̙n̡͉͘e̶̦̼̪͚?͏̪̭̀͞A͉̹̟͟k̶̟͖̟͈̩̼̰̞̯͟i̭͉̣r͔͓͠a̶̲͈̺͍͙

Phase 2 was rougher--I gave her a wide move pool with some original moves that if the group didn’t guard, they’d be automatically knocked down (and susceptible to an all out attack). Luckily that didn’t happen though! The group won, the treasure being Akira’s mask.

In the real world the treasure remained her mask, however in hindsight it should have been her original rounded glasses--since she only got her square ones in her second timeline, not the first.

Notes:

There were originally 7 floors planned, and I still have the designs for them! Each floor was based off of one of the PTs, but it turned out to be too long to reasonably go through in a campaign.

I have a book that is 30 pages of planning and plotting for this palace. I really wanted to make it personal to my players and to cater to their characters and give them content to allow them to explore sides of their muses they haven’t been able to do before. Because of this, I had several events planned just for each muse in mind. Not all of it got used in the end, but it was fun!

Some players had to duck out of the RP for their own health, so the palace was modified after their departure to accommodate such!

Original Shadows

Where would a Palace be without some exclusive shadows? Nowhere that’s what! All of these designs were inspired by french folklore and stories

Matagot [weak to bless, resist everything else ]

Inflict Fear (high odds) to 1 foe

Instantly kill all foes under Fear

Medium Physical damage to 1 foe 2x

Medium Physical damage and inflict Fear (medium odds) to 2 foe

Inflict confuse (medium odds) to all foes

Wolf [absorb curse, absorb gun]

Medium Physical damage to all foes.

Medium Physical damage and inflict Forget (low odds) to all foes.

Colossal Physical damage to 1 foe.

Red [Reflect Gun, Absorb Curse,]

17% HP

Severe Gun damage to 1 foe. High critical rate.

24% HP

Severe Gun damage to all foes.

12 SP

Heavy Curse damage to 1 foe

15 SP

Medium chance of instantly killing 1 foe

#persona 5 #p5 #akira kusuru #ren amamiya #persona #;Not this (not an ask)

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kairiofknives · 7 years ago

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Trading Hearts (Part 1)

Summary: It's been months since Akira won his freedom and saved the world. Now, back in his home town, separated from his friends and girlfriend, Futaba, Akira finds that the place he grew up doesn't necessarily feel like home anymore. Back in Tokyo, Futaba starts to piece together that Akira isn't exactly happy with his change in scenery. She resolves to do what she can for the man who changed her life, whether he is aware of this endeavor or not.

Warning: Spoilers for end of game

Read on AO3

Sometimes Futaba wondered why she or Kana-chan ever wanted to go back to the eternal prison of damnation and lack of intelligent thought that was high school. It was a societal norm that functioning members of society attended high school before acquiring more practical real life paths to take, but the longer she spent here, the more she was convinced that this was merely slow method of torture than a useful method of learning anything.

She'd seen much weirder things to be certain.

To: Kana Banana

The true meaning of survival of the fittest is he/she who can get through high school without offing themselves. I'm convinced.

To: Phantom Leaves (group)

What even is the point of first year biology? Almost none of this falls within the realm of actual science. I would know.

From: Kana Banana

Your school doesn't seem to do too well on that front then. No offense.

From: Skull Bash in Phantom Leaves (group)

Ur doin better than I did already Futaba. I didn't even know what subject I was in half the time.

From: Cafe Noir in Phantom Leaves (group)

Should you not all be paying attention? :) You wouldn't want me to tell Mako-chan, would you? :) :) :)

From: Skull Bash in Phantom Leaves (group)

!!!!

Suffice to say, Futaba was bored. Starting high school had seemed like a tremendous first step towards getting herself to be normal again. Sure, she'd be a grade behind, but at least she had a path to start moving down. It was almost laughable that she was managing to sit in a classroom full of students, after taking a crowded train to get here, and wasn't freaking out at all. A year ago, leaving her room was an impossibility. Now, she felt the smallest tinges of panic when people pressed on her too hard on the train, got a bit sweaty when strangers talked to her for too long, but neither feeling was enough to derail her day. She felt like a real life person most of the time now and it was all because of...

From: Key Item

As long as you're getting good test scores, it doesn't really matter if you pay attention in class. Word of advice though: beware of flying chalk. It's got a 90% chance of critical.

...a wonderful, adorable nerd who always knew how to make her day better.

To: Key Item

Gasp! I'll make sure I put my best armor on then. Thanks for the intel. Btw, aren't you supposed to be slaving over a midterm paper?

She couldn't help but grin to herself. One of her biggest worries starting this year had been that despite the massive amounts of support she knew she could get from the other members of the now disbanded Phantom Thieves, Akira Kurusu had moved back to Kyoto to finish out high school in his hometown. She would always credit her revival from the corpse of her previous self as a victory for the entire group, but it was truly Akira who had stayed with her every step of the way. His warm presence by her side made pushing herself out of her comfort zone not only less scary, but infinitely more rewarding. They'd spent countless hours cultivating their bond both between one another and with Sojiro. Sojiro, Akira and Morgana were her family. And the Phantom Thieves were the perfect extension to that family. She would have been more than content to stay in that perfect bubble of happiness forever.

Alas, after saving the world multiple times and nearly dying for the sake of doing so, Akira had finally been granted the freedom he so deserved and was finally free to resume the life that had been stolen from him by Shido. Futaba had been gutted to know Akira would be leaving, but no matter how much she wanted him to herself, she knew he deserved the chance to try to put his "normal" back together, the same way she was trying to fix her "normal".

Still, it sucked pretty bad to have to start one of the potentially scariest steps in her life without her combo best friend and boyfriend there to cheer her on.

As soon as concrete plans had been made with regards to Akira returning to Kyoto, Akira had insisted that if they intended to keep dating, they had to tell Sojiro. Futaba had suspected that perhaps her loving boyfriend had developed a death wish, but agreed anyway. She had envisioned having this conversation with her adoptive father many times, and each had ended in some sort of disaster.

Thus, she had been thoroughly shocked when Sojiro's reaction was to sigh and grumble "I don't like the idea of Futaba dating in general, but if it has to be anyone, I guess I couldn't have picked someone better." They had hashed out rules concerning their alone time and curfews while Akira was still in town, but Sojiro made it very clear that Akira was still a treasured part of their family and was still welcome at LeBlanc if he was ever in town. Needless to say, there was hardly a dry eye in the room.

So they had kept dating. The concern that they'd drift apart was a valid one, but luckily both of them were good about keeping up with Skype dates and keeping in contact via text and phone calls. High school had been going better than expected, the old Phantom Thieves group was still super close, having dinner at LeBlanc every Sunday, and her relationship with Akira still felt just as fun and relaxing as ever. All in all, Futaba really couldn't complain about her current life situation.

From: Key Item

Procrastination nation. Don't worry about it. It'll get done.

From: Key Item

How is that computer building project coming along?

...with one minor exception.

It hadn't seemed like such a big deal at first. She wasn't even really sure there was an issue in the beginning. But the more they talked, the more she started to realize that Akira did not want to talk about himself, at all. She could go on and on for days about every little detail of her own life, down to even absolutely insignificant things like that one time Sojiro bought almond milk, and Akira would always stay attentive. But anytime she directed these questions back at him, asking about his school or town or even what he did with his free time anymore, she was met with vague answers and then a swift redirection of conversation back to herself.

Fueled by the intrinsic desire to be connected to Akira's life in a more reciprocal fashion, Futaba began her newest mission: decode the life of Akira.

To: Key Item

What are you doing after school today?

From: Key Item

Nothing. Why?

To: Key Item

That's weird. You did so much stuff here like every single day. You'd better not be holding back on having fun just so we could talk!!

From: Key Item

I promise I'm not doing that.

From: Key Item

I'm still free though.

To: Key Item

...alright. Do you wanna Skype? Usual time?

From: Key Item

Sounds great.

Futaba sighed. This was going to be slightly harder than she had originally anticipated. That was fine though. She'd grab some intel from the friend group and then prepare her counterattack.

~~~~

"Hey, Ryuji. How often do you and Akira talk?"

Ryuji paused in his desperate destruction of what might have been a sandwich at one point, chewed thoughtfully, then spat "rrvydy, hy?"

Ann scrunched up her nose in distaste, scooting away from the boy in mock offense. "Eww. Stop. Please be like a normal human being for like ten seconds?"

Ryuji gulped loudly, smacking his lips, "Whatever floats your boat, Ms. Princess." He received a warning glare. "Fine, fine. Anyway, yeah, we talk on and off basically every day, why?"

Futaba fidgeted a bit, playing with the leftover rice from the curry Sojiro sent with her to school for lunch today. "I don't know. Anything seem off about him to you?"

This got Ann's attention. "Off, how Futaba?"

Futaba shook her head a bit, "it may be nothing, but it feels like he's avoiding talking to me about his own life right now? And I was wondering if you guys noticed it too."

"Oh man, I think I know what you mean!" Ryuji exclaimed, gesticulating wildly with filthy hands. "Once, I asked him if Kyoto had any good arcades. And he sent me a Google search instead of telling me about it himself. Like, what?"

Ann nodded, "I've never noticed it myself, but it doesn't seem completely out of his character. I mean, he never really wanted to talk about himself, even when he was here."

Futaba considered this for a moment. "He definitely would talk about himself to me, maybe not...full life story all the time, but he would tell me who he had been hanging out with and what he'd been up to. Now I can't even get that out of him. I'm wondering if something isn't wrong..."

Ryuji scoffed, "Naw man, ya know, I bet he's just trying to not make us miss him too much. I know I'd feel like shit if he was constantly going on and on about how much better his home is than here."

"Why?" Futaba asked, a bit upset by Ryuji's response, though glad he'd be that honest. "He has to stay there for a year. Don't you want him to enjoy that year? If he wants his life to go back to normal, I want him to succeed in that quest, ya know? I mean, he's done so much for us. Doesn't he at least deserve that...?"

Ryuji leaned back, slightly surprised. "Alright, alright, calm down Futaba. Geez. Didn't you know you were Akira's number one defender..."

Futaba blushed. While both Sojiro and Morgana knew of her and Akira's relationship, they had not told the rest of the group as of yet. She often wished she could, but they had agreed that they wanted to see how things went before getting the group all excited about this. After all, it would seriously suck if they told everyone then broke up...

A comforting hand settled on her shoulder. "I agree, Futaba," Ann smiled, "Knowing Akira he probably wouldn't wanna risk burdening us too much whether it be with good or bad information. And honestly, it could just be that he has nothing to say. After all, life now compared to life 6 months ago is really boring."

Futaba nodded, sulking. She didn't care if he was having the best time ever in Kyoto or had nothing to talk about except the A tier naps he and Morgana had been taking. She just wanted to be able to share whatever their mutual lives were like equally since they couldn't be together living the same life anymore.

Ann sighed, then offered, "let's shoot a private message to Makoto. She was talking about bothering him about his college plans awhile back. Maybe she'll have an opinion for you."

Futaba glanced up at Ann, and smiled, thankful for such understanding friends. "That sounds awesome, thanks."

With that, the first warning bell signaled that lunch was basically over. Hopefully, Makoto would answer before she Skyped Akira tonight.

~~~

She had luckily managed to snag a seat on the train ride home and was settling in to read a book when her phone chimed. It was Makoto. Futaba praised the God that blessed their friend group with such a capable and efficient Mom Friend.

Actually, they may have killed that God....hmm...

From: Dream Queen

Hey, Futaba. In reference to what Ann asked me about, I have noticed that Akira is acting a bit strange. I did end up talking to him about college entrance exams and apparently he isn't currently planning to take any. He wouldn't give me a complete answer but what I pieces together is that the issue is a combination of not being in the right college prep classes at school, the school staff not taking his desire to go to college seriously, and his father not believing he could pass the exams and thus not wanting to pay for them. Now, keep in mind, he told me very little of this flat out, but from our conversation this was what I could draw conclusions about. Hope that helps.

Futaba's jaw fell open a bit. So, Akira was having troubles and not speaking to her about them. Again. Damnit. She shot a message back to Makoto quickly, needing to process this information before her conversation with Akira.

To: Dream Queen

Thank you so much for the info Makoto. God, he hasn't told me any of this. Not even a little bit of it. It's just like the prison thing...why does he do this?

Luckily, it seemed Makoto was still attached to her phone for the moment.

From: Dream Queen

It's likely a complex answer. I'm sure he thinks sharing this sort of information with us would bother us because we would try to fix it. Sadly, he's right. We will try to fix it. And he should probably just get used to that fact and let it happen.

That made her laugh. Their little group was quite infamous for being overly close and overly protective. Just because Akira was used to doing the protecting didn't mean he was exempt from the protection.

To: Dream Queen

I want to talk to him about this. See if there's anything we can do to help. But I don't want him to deflect me. Any ideas, Ms Prosecutor-Lite?

From: Dream Queen

Let's not call me that. In general, direct questions are more likely to get useable information. If he can purposefully side step a meaning of a question, he seems to do so.

She figured as much. Formulating the right questions might be hard though. She didn't want him to think the decision not to go to college was what she was upset with, so lingering on that topic might not help. Truthfully, she just wanted to know if he was happy and if not, why.

Huh. That might be a good one.

Her phone chimed again.

From: Dream Queen

But being frank, Futaba, I don't think you're going to get straight answers with a screen in between you. Skype may be slightly more effective but Akira is a face to face kind of person. We may not be able to address this until break. And that's perhaps a long shot if he doesn't plan to come to Tokyo for break.

The thought stuck in her head for a moment. Face to face. Midterms were this upcoming week. After Thursday, she wouldn't have class again until Tuesday. Hmmm...now if only...

To: Dream Queen

Do you happen to know Akira's home address?

From: Dream Queen

No, but shouldn't Boss? He did have mailed correspondence with Akira's family a bit over the last year.

Perfect.

To: Dream Queen

Thanks Makoto. You're the absolute best. I'll tell you what I'm thinking of doing tomorrow.

From: Dream Queen

Anytime dear. Hope it goes well :)

The train announced that her stop was next and she hopped up, energized and ready to move the plan forward.

~~~

She surveyed her desk space to ensure she had everything she needed. Drink? Check. Bag of chips just in case? Check. Blanket draped over her desk chair? Check. Computer open to Skype? Check. List of questions conveniently out of sight? Check.

She was a bit hesitant to write up the list of questions. Futaba knew there was no way in hell she could link all those questions together coherently without sounding scripted. That was Makoto's thing. But still, Akira was by far the superior conversationalist. She needed some sort of backup if this went south.

She tried to remind herself that this wasn't about only getting answers. Their Skype dates were sacred. It was the closest they got to each other on a regular basis. She needed to find a natural work in for that line of conversation or needed to drop it all together. And besides, she consoled herself, plan B could still work out without this conversation being... productive. No pressure.

She was so screwed.

The sound of Skype's ring tone started up then, and she jumped a bit. She ran her fingers through her hair, pausing to take one huge breath before hitting "answer".

"Hey, Akira."

Her screen slowly resolved into what was becoming a pretty familiar backdrop. The walls were painted a medium shade of blue. All along the back wall, were countless posters. Rock bands, video games, movies, you name it. She fondly remembered their first Skype date, where he explained where he got every single one of those posters. That was the most he had spoken to her about his past since he told her how he got arrested...

The bed was messy, plaid blue comforter thrown across the bed in a half assed attempt at making the bed. She knew for a fact the thin black sheets underneath were bundled up the same as when he first woke up. The only thing in the room messier than the bed was the mop of hair in her line of sight.

"You, my friend, need a haircut," Futaba giggled, earning herself an overly dramatic eye roll and a huff in response. She actually was a fan of the extremely puffy hair, but knew it was getting long enough that his bangs would be hanging in his eyes, which annoyed him greatly.

The lights in his room were off, the only light source being the blueish light from his laptop screen. Futaba didn't try to keep it a secret how much she liked the way his face looked illuminated so minimally like this. The angle of the light showed off features she hadn't paid attention to when they were physically together. Now, she couldn't stop staring at the well defined jawline, sharp cut of his nose, the way his bottom lip was a bit fuller than his top. Maybe there was some truth to the phrase "distance makes the heart grow fonder".

"What's up, hot stuff? You look a bit down."

Akira met her eyes, the ghost of a smile on his face. "I guess I'm kind of tired. Haven't been sleeping well lately."

This was good. Getting right into it. "Aww. How come?"

He paused, staring at something to the left of his screen. For a moment it looked like he was gearing up to say something, but then he simply shook his head. "I don't know. Happens sometimes."

The bags under his eyes told her that it wasn't as simple as a couple bad nights. Still, she knew he probably wouldn't give her an answer on this particular vein of thought just yet, so she moved on. "Speaking of sleep, where is the sleepiest cat in the history of history?"

That got Akira to smile. "My dad got him some catnip at the store the other day. Before I opened it, he swore over and over it wouldn't work on him because he is a human."

Futaba giggled, "let me guess: he went crazier than when he saw particularly nice looking treasures in the metaverse?"

The smile broadened into a smirk. "Babbled nonsense and ran around the house after 'ghosts' all night. It was a true sight to behold. That said: he denies the whole thing now."

"Not surprising. News headline: local cat does cat-like thing. Is disgusted."

Akira chortled, "Very accurate!"

They chatted back and forth for about half an hour about various things, mostly superficial. Still, it served its purpose as a recharge from all the social exhaustion of the week. She was content. But, she did want to ask him one thing.

"Hey, Akira...real quick before we hang up..."

Akira smiled at her, nodded, "What's up?"

"You've been in Kyoto for awhile now. And I guess I just wanted to know..." She paused, looking him straight in the eye, "are you happy?"

Lightning quick, his smile dropped away. For a bit, Akira's eyes darted between the screen, his hands, and the space just to the left side of his computer screen. This sort of frantic defense mechanism was new to Futaba. To her memory, she had never seen Akira cornered before. It only proved that this was a question she needed to have answered...but, an equal need to soothe him also sprung up.

It was a long pause before Akira finally plopped his head down onto his crossed arms and sighed. When he next revealed his face, it was with a soft, "I guess not."

Futaba's heart broke at the despair in his tone. Her voice was just as soft, "Is being back home not what you thought it would be?"

Akira shook his head. He didn't meet her eyes. "No, it's exactly how I thought it would be." He buried his face in his arms, fingers tapping out a rhythm on the desk. His next words were muffled so he couldn't make them out super well, but Futaba was absolutely positive she heard him mutter "It's me that's different now."

That was all she really needed to hear. "We don't have to talk about it anymore if you don't want to."

He removed his head from it's hiding spot and attempted a smile. "Thanks." The sound of a door opening in the background echoed through his room. He sighed and sat up. "I have to go."

Futaba's heart sank. She hated herself for saving this for last. Leaving conversations on a bad note was the absolute worst and yet...Well, she'd just have to make up for it.

"Ok. I love you."

Akira nodded, "Love you too." She smiled and reached for her mouse to cut the call, when he started, "Futaba?" She made a noise acknowledging him. "I miss you."

God, this kid really knew how to play her heart like a guitar. She smiled widely at him. "I miss you too, Akira. Good night!"

"Night."

The call ended, leaving her alone in her room with her thoughts. Akira had always been there for her when she was going through something awful. Even forced his way into helping her even when she said she didn't want his help. There was no way she was letting this go. She nodded to herself and started writing a message to Makoto.

Failure wasn't an option.

~~~

LeBlanc was deserted when Futaba got home from school that Friday. Sojiro was busy cooking, humming contently along with the radio. Considering what Futaba's goal was this evening, it was probably for the best that he was in a good mood to start.

"Hey Sojiro! I'm home. Need any help?"

Her father turned and raised an eyebrow, giving her a once over glance before nodding and beckoning her forth to help with dinner. Futaba winced to herself, realizing her huge tactical error. She never offers to help with dinner. Alas, the hint that she wanted something from him is perhaps better than springing it on him with no prior suspicion at all. She hurried to put on an apron and slice up the apples he placed before her.

They worked in companionable silence. And once the curry was done to perfection, they both sat down at a booth to enjoy their meal. The air was thick, pregnant with the anticipation of important conversation. Futaba hated this sort of unease, as it was exactly what she feared would occur. And she hadn't even said anything yet.

"So. You want to ask me something, Futaba?"

No surprises there. Futaba nodded, "Um. Yes. I. I do." God, this was harder than she thought. The words were there, right in her head, so why couldn't she get them out? It's just Sojiro! But that was the issue. It was Sojiro, the only father figure she'd ever really had. She could handle a lot of people rejecting her, but Sojiro was not among them.

He seemed to sense her rising panic, smiled at her gently, "Whatever it is, it's nothing to worry too hard over. If you're willing to talk, I'm willing to listen."

"Yeah I know." She took a deep breath, summoned her inner strength (whatever there was of it) and began, "I was talking with Akira earlier. He's...um, not feeling very well, I don't think. I don't know exactly what the problem is, but I really want to help him. He's done so much for me after all."

Sojiro nodded, showing he had heard her. She continued, "I've tried just talking to him about it, but he doesn't give me or any of our friends straight answers. And now he isn't sleeping well. I'm just really worried."

"And what exactly do you expect to do about this?" Sojiro questioned, luckily not looking mad at all. "You can't just force him to ask for help if he doesn't want it. Trust me. I've tried."

"Yeah," Futaba acknowledged glumly, "I doubt he will ever tell anyone what's really wrong over the phone. It's too easy for him to hide behind the screen and pretend he's protecting us. So...I want to go talk to him. In person."

Sojiro stopped eating. Placed his fork down and the folded his hands in front of him. Futaba gulped. "Who would be going with you, then?"

"No one. I don't think he would want to say anything if too many people came."

He sighed and shook his head a bit, sparking panic in Futaba instantly. "He'd probably talk to you and one other person, right? Why not that Makoto girl?"

"I...I already talked to her about it. She. Um. She said she can't take the time off and that he would probably not talk to someone who isn't me or her so it probably has to be just me."

"And I'm supposed to ignore the fact that my sixteen year old daughter with crippling social anxiety wants to travel over five hours to Kyoto by herself to see her boyfriend? On a whim because he seems upset? You're out of your mind."

Futaba's voice grew shaky, "The train there wouldn't be anywhere as crowded as the one I take to school! So what if it's more time, I'd be fine! And it is not just a whim."

Sojiro shook his head, glaring at her through with crossed arms. God she hated that look. "I don't think you realize how dangerous this could be for a young girl by herself. And what would you do when you got there? Talk really quickly and come back home? 11 hours of transit just for a conversation?"

"School will be off for awhile after midterms, Sojiro. I can probably just stay on their couch or something."

"Oh here we go. Probably isn't good enough when planning a trip like this, Futaba. You can't just show up at people's houses and expect them to let you stay with them. Are you insane?"

Tears jerked to her eyes. "N-no, I'm not! I was going to call Akira's dad a-after you and I talked and ask him. Why do you assume I don't think about things? You know I do!" The last thing Futaba had wanted was to cry, but sure enough the tears came rolling down her cheeks in rivers. Her nose was suddenly all stuffed too. Damnit.

"Do you even have his father's number? Their address?"

"Y-you do, Sojiro! I w-w-wasnt gonna go...go behind your b-back and ask when I already made all the arrangements! You h-hate it when people try to do that! And I know you d-do!"

"Yeah and I also hate it when you hatch schemes in private and then just expect other people to go along with them." Sojiro sighed, pressing his thumbs to his closed eyes. "Why does it have to be you who does this? Is this even necessary? You don't even know if something is actually wrong, Futaba."

"Yes. I. Do. You weren't talking to him, Sojiro. You didn't see how sad he looked. No, he doesn't absolutely need someone to go, but I want to now before it gets any worse." She paused to sniffle and wipe at her eyes, feeling a bit less frantic. "And would you please stop thinking about him as 'Futaba's boyfriend' and just think of him as Akira? Just because he is dating me doesn't make him any less a part of our family! Right? Right?? You were the one that said that! Well our family member is far away and something is wrong."

Sojiro was quiet then. He sat with his arms crossed over his chest and a deep frown for awhile while Futaba sniffled and dabbed at her eyes with her napkin. Her entire body was tense and felt gross, typical after crying. Still, it was a small price to pay if she could convince Sojiro. She had to at least try.

"Go home."

Her eyes shot up to meet her father's. "What?"

Sojiro leveled her with a stern stare. "It's getting late and you need to get a bath and get ready for bed. You have school tomorrow."

"B-but Sojiro...!"

"Enough. Futaba." Sojiro stood, collecting their plates and moving towards the sink. "No point discussing this any more tonight. You go calm down and get to bed. If there is anything left to discuss, we will talk about it after school tomorrow."

"Sojiro..."

"I haven't said no yet, have I?" Sojiro looked back at her with a soft look on his face. He hated it when she cried just as much as she hated crying. "Now get out of here so I can think, ok?"

The walk home was one of the most nerve wracking of her life. There was a snowball's chance in hell of her sleeping tonight, since her emotions felt like live wires all tangled together. But the less she fought him, the more likely he'd agree. That was all she could hope for at this point.

~~~

School on Saturday was the longest and worst experience of her life. She was bone tired from not sleeping even an hour the night before and somehow all the teachers seemed to know this because they kept asking her just about every single question they could. It was unbearable. She had zoned out through all of lunch too, far too tired to even register being hungry, so as she boarded the train to go home, she felt like she had had all of her stats lowered and inflicted with despair, dizzy and hunger all at the same time.

Her phone buzzed in her bag as she managed to snag a seat on the train (the only small miracle of the day).

From: Key Item

Hey. Ryuji and Ann both texted me and said you looked really out of it today. Everything alright?

Great. Now she had even managed to spread her bad day to Akira. Wonderful.

To: Key Item

Bad night. Didn't sleep. I'll go to bed early tonight, though.

From: Key Item

Alright. If you're sure. Get home safe. Get Sojiro to make you some curry with extra love in it!

To: Key Item

If his love is anything like yours, I'd prefer he keep the love to a minimum.

From: Key Item

Ouch. That hurt. Such betrayal.

She giggled, glad that even when she felt like death, talking to Akira could still make her smile.

Arriving at LeBlanc felt like a death march. There were five customers enjoying curry and coffee at the various booths, so Futaba place her bag down at the bar. Before she could sit down, Sojiro slid a pad of paper across the bar to her. She met his eyes first, then looked down at the paper. It contained a phone number and an address. Her heart sped up and she looked back at Sojiro, mouth wide open.

"You'd best try calling now. I could usually get ahold of his dad around this time. Go on."

Futaba grinned, kissed Sojiro on the cheek and then fled upstairs to call the number. Maybe things were going to work out after all.

#futaba sakura #akira kusuru #akira x futaba #persona 5 #my fics #fanfiction #persona 5 spoilers

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