#and just the thought of those two with goro...NEW royal trio lmao

[cherubchoirs]

my take on Akechi in Strikers is admittedly, partially because it rubs me wrong for him to not at least tell Akiren he's alive at the end of Royal if he could,

so I'm partial to him being stuck in the metaverse after the engine room and EMMA finding him while rummaging through the mass unconscious for old mementos blueprints and what not lol

anyway I just like the thought of her being like '????' and deciding hell with it, another monarch for another jail with a keyword she seeds into online forums/sites about him

and then Sumire and/or Maruki find out about him and have to help him get out since the Phantom Thieves are obviously busy

(Maruki admittedly is mostly there because 1) Maruki probably feels guilty he couldn't help Akechi before 2) if they can have conversations through the trauma doors I just picture Akechi giving Maruki SO much grief while they're trying to figure out how to get it down lol)

OOH i like this!! first, i also agree that it would be...not great for goro to just decide to leave akira in the dark. i can see how that might happen for so many reasons, but if he could i think he would at least let him know he was still alive, even if he didn't give him any contact information or say anything further. but trapped in the metaverse is super interesting to me and obviously gives him the best excuse possible lol

additionally, i really like the inclusion of maruki here bc tbh....TBH....he really didn't do enough at the end of the story to make up for how much he truly messed with these kids. i don't believe maruki is at all a bad person; in fact, i think he's overly kind and a bleeding heart, but his grief twisted him immensely to the point that he did real harm to a group of kids that have already been through hell. i think he rationalized it by believing they would forget it all and achieve real happiness in his utopia...but as that utopia never came to pass, the damage he did was never undone and i would really like to see how he reckons with that since he actually hates to see suffering. and so just. the idea that goro's jail could showcase both of their characters, have growth for maruki and truly take a deeper dive into what goro's been through, sounds really interesting imo