#because is akechi grabbing a piece of his past

[theredcuyo]

We all know the "Akechi has feelings for Akira and it's in denial, and a homocidal tsundere about it the whole time" but i present to you something

The same but Akechi has moments here and there where he's actually clearly happy about spending time with Akira, he gets giggly, and his face is red and he smiles and-

Then he remembers he's supposedly this guys biggest hater, so he acts on how he's killing him but he still has the dumb smile of someone in lovetm

Because you know tsundere also has dere in it? For like a reason?

And I just want Akechi, angsty teen by protocol, to have a normal teen with a huge ass crush on someone moment

Which is angsty on it's own, because he knows he can't have it, he's not allowed by any means, and feeling this is only a short time thing that only will hurt more in the end of he allows it, but, can't he give himself this one thing?

This one piece of shameful normal, happy, life?

[akirameta84]

...imagine if part of the reason Aiura made it so Akechi would literally rip out Kuusuke's Rarefaction Cell if it came down to it, was because a part of her wondered if Saiki's collapse was intentional. Rationally she knows that isn't the case. Rationally she knows the only reason Saiki was unable to communicate with anyone was due to him prioritizing survival and a desperate attempt to negotiate via the creation of Aren over talking to anyone. But that doesn't stop a part of her, an overly emotional part of her that's full of anger and grief from wondering if Kuusuke used his seniority privilege to keep Saiki from asking for help. If he drained all the water to cause Saiki's eventual collapse.

Logically she knows otherwise, but that didn't stop her from letting her emotions bleed through in the creation of Akechi and ensuring that no matter what, he will be able to grab Kuusuke's Rarefaction Cell. And no matter what, Saiki will be better off. If it's given up without a fight she'll be happy.

But if there is a fight? She'll feel VINDICATED.

YES agh the emotions

Part of her is also viciously happy about how decayed the Rot has left kuusuke, when her overseers see the inside of his can while following akechi (for the first time in ages because kuusuke is no longer capable of maintaining a lockdown from overseers), simply because it means kuusuke will not be strong enough to stop even a weak slugcat from frolicking in his superstructure, let alone a powerful, purposed one

she feels horribly bad at the same time. but she stays focused on the goal. she knows he has at least one cell left, because zero gravity is still somewhat functional inside of his structure. she just doesn't know if its the only one he has left

when scug akechi gets to it and rips it out, and all anti gravity shuts off...its clear that it actually was his last one. but kuusuke caused the literal death of her closest iterator friend, and with this cell, kusuos communication arrays might become functional again. and besides...the Rot was just going to destroy this rarefaction cell like it had the rest of them.

a lot of her anger dissipates when she sees the sorry state of kuusukes chamber and puppet, but honestly? she mostly feels a sense of bitter revenge. because he got what was coming

shes glad her slugcat didnt stay in the chamber long regardless. she didnt want to see anymore. and he had a duty to do, one her overseers needed to be present to guide him through, because gills or not, the submerged superstructure was still horribly dangerous

also: when akechi enters kusuos chamber, the other slugcats visiting him that cycle nearly maul him on sight because hes holding a suspicious orb that radiates power that could be a bomb for all they know. but kusuo speaks before they can do anything.

"That's...a Mass Rarefaction Cell. The emergency power source of an iterator's superstructure. Even one of them is enough to keep one of us functional. Where...where did you get that?"

the others have marks of communication from their past visits to kuusuke, so they can understand that this is an important object that akechi is amazing for bringing to kusuo

even in his current sorry state, kusuo can piece together the situation. someone in his local group created a purposed organism to deliver a rarefaction cell to him. and he has a guess as to which iterator it was stolen from.

he tells the slugcat where he might find the access shaft to the submerged ruins of his structure anyways, because its already been stolen, so it might as well be delivered to where it needs to go, provided akechi can survive the dangers of the trip, which he does. being able to potentially communicate with his local group again, and access his overseers so he can see places other than his chamber, sounds so nice, too..

thank you for the ask it made me FEEL at 2 in the morning i adore your asks so much <3 at lesst im assuming all this iterator saiki au stuff is thr same person ahdhah maybe even the same person who sent a ton of my scug saiki au asks eheh

regardless tyty again <3

[cinnoasch]

I just had an idea, Akechi with an S/O (their not dating yet) and they have a toxic boyfriend and when Akechi meets him he just thinks, "guess i have one more target" and he tries the hardest to keep up the Detective Prince facade in front of this guy because he's just filled with so much rage at this one man.

A/N: Ohoho, I love this idea. I had an idea for a bad ending of sorts, but let me know if any one wants that ending as well. Thank you Anon and hope you enjoyed! And hopefully this turned out alright!

C/W: Toxic relationship on/off, slight cursing, angst(?)

Word Count: 1885

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Hostile Third-Wheel (Goro Akechi x Reader)

“You look upset Y/N. Did something happen?” Akechi asks, looking up from his paperwork when he notices your expression.

You let out an annoyed sigh, waving your phone in the air as you sit across from him. “My boyfriend. He accidentally reserved a table for 3 for our date tonight and being the stubborn lazy ass he is, refuses to call the restaurant to change it. He told me to invite a friend.”

“On your date?”

“Mhm, and he said...” You say as you hear your notification ring. “To preferably bring a girl... ‘Just kidding, winky face.’“

“He sounds like quite the charmer. And you can’t change the reservation yourself?”

“You know how the restaurants are, they rather have the person who did the reservation to change it.”

“You do make a valid point. Well then, how about inviting me?”

You look at Akechi in surprise. “You want to tag along on my date? Wouldn’t you just feel like a third wheel?”

Akechi smiles lightly, “Well, I guess I would feel like somewhat of a third wheel, but I have never met your boyfriend. I’d like to know what your taste in significant others is like.”

“Not funny. But I will say, it hasn’t been... the best. I think I really... got it this time.”

Akechi noticed the hesitation on your face and in your words but he didn’t mention it. He knew the many heartbreaks you had been through, although he never met any of your previous significant others. He was the one that you called during those nights, hearing your crying and hoarse voice as you explained how you recently were dumped. While it hurt more for you than him, Akechi could not help but feel upset. He may be the only one who harbored feelings between the two of you, but even if you did not return those feelings; he’d still be there for you no matter what.

“Anyways, I am allowed to join you two right? Your boyfriend won’t mind?”

“Not at all. He says he’s fine with it. So see you tonight at 7? It’s the one restaurant near Seaside Park in Odaiba.”

"Ah, I’ve been there on occasion. If I remember correctly, you often frequented the restaurant with your previous significant others. You know if you keep bringing them to the same restaurant for dates, it’s not as special as it seems.”

“I know, I know. I guess I just stick with what I’m comfortable with. Any who, see you tonight!” You say with a wave as you take your leave from Akechi’s apartment.

When you close the door behind you, your smile fades. You had been through this too many times before. You knew what was going to happen tonight. And after tonight, the cycle would repeat itself just like it always had for the past few months.

------------------------------

“So, this friend of yours, is Goro Akechi?” your boyfriend asks as you two walk the path heading to the restaurant.

“Yes, why do you ask?”

“No particular reason. I just hope you don’t think about leaving me for him. We’ve been through this enough times, so you know the drill. We always come back to each other.”

“I know... the thought never crossed my mind.”

“Not even once?” They ask, tilting your face towards them.

“Not even once.”

“Good.” Your boyfriend removes his hand and opens the door for you. “Let’s keep it that way then.”

You sigh quietly, straightening out your clothes as you walk through the door. You never knew why you always got your hopes up. Breaking things off and getting back together was what your relationship was. You knew from the start that the relationship wasn’t good, but you always found yourself drawn back. You always questioned why this was the way that things were. Were you just content with any type of love? Even if it was the worst kind? Or were you just denying the fact that you could never have anything better than this?

You feel your arm being tugged as you look up to see your boyfriend trying to move you along to the table.

“C’mon, your friend’s waiting.”

You give a nod as you walk to the table with your boyfriend. Akechi waves with a smile when he sees you two, and stands up from his seat.

“Hope you weren’t waiting long, Akechi.” You say with a small smile.

“Not at all. So this is your boyfriend? I’m Goro Akechi, pleased to meet you.” He says holding his hand out for a handshake.

Your boyfriend introduces himself, lightly shaking Akechi’s hand as he does. The three of you sit down at the table and decide what to order before starting a conversation.

“So, how long have you two been dating?” Akechi asks. A small smile graces his face, however he was staring intently at your boyfriend. You noticed that your boyfriend did whisper something to Akechi earlier while they were introducing themselves, so you were somewhat concerned.

You’re about to answer but your boyfriend slings an arm around you with a grin. “Y/N and I have been dating for a few months now.”

“A few months? Is that so? Y/N told me they’ve had a few other significant others within the past few months.”

“Ah, that’s them trying to save face. Y/N and I have a sort of on/off relationship. They just can’t get enough of me so they always come crawling back.”

Akechi glances at you but quickly turns his gaze back to your boyfriend. “Really now? How peculiar, you don’t see those quite often anymore.”

“I guess not, but guess we’re just made for each other.”

Akechi only nods in agreement, his fists were clenched underneath the table. Was he upset that you lied? Yes. But the thing that bothered him the most was your boyfriend. He could immediately tell that your boyfriend was bad news when he saw you two walking up to the restaurant. How he had that condescending look on his face when he talked to you, his words just now, implying that you couldn’t do any better than him. It made Akechi’s blood boil.

It seems that I have a new target to take care of.

Soon the waiter comes and takes your orders, silence filling the air for a few seconds until your boyfriend speaks up.

“So, Akechi. You’re that Detective Prince that’s always on TV right?”

“Yes. Why do you ask?”

You twirl your straw in your drink, already knowing the question that would pop up.

“You must have a lot of fans, right? All those girls surrounding you must be nice.”

“Well, fans are expected, although all of the attention can be a bit much at times.”

“Ya don’t have to lie, you must love the attention right? Though I’m surprised you aren’t dating someone yourself. You could get any girl.”

“I suppose. But I bet if you were in my shoes, you’d relish in the attention wouldn’t you? You strike me as the type of guy who... sleeps around I would say.”

You shoot Akechi a look, but he only dismisses it with a smile and laughs. “Aha, I apologize. What am I doing asking those sorts of questions with Y/N here?”

Your boyfriend chuckles, “Oh, Y/N doesn’t mind. Isn’t that right, babe?”

“Like hell I don’t.”

“Oh come on, Akechi’s just joking around.”

Akechi grins, “Well... it seems my deduction was correct. You are that type of guy. Truly despicable. Y/N deserves much better than you, don’t you think?”

Your boyfriend stands up angrily, “What the hell are you trying to say?”

“Other than you’re a piece of shit?”

You stand up next, “Alright, let’s all calm down now. Akechi, a word?”

Your boyfriend sits back down, crossing his arms as you take Akechi to the side to talk to him.

“What the hell is wrong with you?”

“What’s wrong with me? You’re the one who’s forcing yourself to be in a relationship with that dumbass over there.”

“Who I date is none of your business.”

“It is my business. Who’s the one who has called me every time crying because they got dumped? What’s even worse is that you do nothing to get yourself out of it.”

“Who says I haven’t tried?”

“Y/N. Look me in the eyes and tell me you’ve actually tried to get out of your relationship.”

You clench your hands, unable to look Akechi in the eye. Who were you kidding? You had simply accepted how things were going to be between you and your boyfriend. An on and off relationship that only hurt you.

Akechi sighs. “Look, I’m only saying these things because I care about you. And if you won’t break it off, I’ll do it for you.”

The look in Akechi’s eyes told you that he was dead serious. Yet, there was some hint of malicious intent behind his words. Would Akechi really turn to violence to break things off between you and your boyfriend? Well, that question wasn’t needed since you were made aware of Akechi’s hostile side.

“Fine. I’ll break it off. Just give me some time.”

“Hmmm, no. Do it now.”

You glare at Akechi. “Now? Are you crazy?”

“Like I said if you don’t, I will. And my methods are much worse than a simple ‘I’m breaking up with you’.”

You only nod, not wanting to barter with Akechi any longer, and walk back to the table where your boyfriend sat. When he sees you walking back, he stands up with a smile. “So, did you tell Akechi off? Ha, I bet the look on his face was priceless.”

“Actually no. I’m breaking up with you.”

“What?”

“You heard me. I’m tired of this, me staying loyal for some piece of shit boyfriend who sleeps around. I’m done with you.”

“You bitch!” He raises his hand to slap you but Akechi appears behind you and grabs his wrist forcefully.

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”

Your now, ex-boyfriend looks at Akechi in fear. You didn’t want to turn around because you were sure that the look Akechi was giving this guy was one that could kill.

“Now, if you would please lower your hand once I let go.”

Your ex-boyfriend only nods and once Akechi lets go of his wrist he bolts out of the restaurant.

You let out a sigh of relief as you turn to face Akechi. “Thank you for that. I guess a push was all I needed.”

“Not a problem. But if I may ask Y/N, why did you put up with it? The Y/N I know would normally break it off immediately when it became that type of relationship.”

You chuckle a bit sadly as you seat yourself back in your chair. “You know, I thought so too. But eventually, it just became a cycle. My thoughts started to invade my mind, telling me that that type of relationship was the best that I could handle. That it couldn’t and wouldn’t get any better. I’m pathetic aren’t I?”

“Your taste in S/O’s could be considered pathetic I suppose.”

“Low blow, but I’ll take it.”

“Well you did need to hear it. Anyways, I think we can salvage this failed date somewhat. What do you say Y/N?”

“Sure, why not.”

[ikeromantic]

Uncomfortable Questions

A Mitsuhide Akechi fanfiction occurring after the events of the romantic epilogue! Approx. 3000 words of fluff and stuff.

First: Mitsuhide and the Maiden

Previous: Friends and Frenemies

Miyake was nervous. He did his best to hide it. His job today was to stay with Lady Akechi, to keep her safe and happy. Normally, he’d consider it an easy task. A pretty girl, a new place to explore . . . but this was his Lord’s wife! And . . . other complications.

He swallowed.

“Do you want to go shopping too, Miyake? I see you’re wearing another of Sasuke’s t-shirts.” The lady smiled back at him as she asked.

“Nope! I’m good. I like this shirt. And the ninja took me out for some pants that fit too. I'm just here to keep you safe.” He glanced up at the tall tall buildings to their right and left. “Where, uh, do you want to go?”

Her shoulders sagged. “It’s not so much what I want to do as what I should. I need to stop by the clothing designer here - the place that hired me. To apologize for disappearing like I did.”

“Think they’ll be mad?”

“I hope not.” She mumbled something else, something Miyake didn’t catch.

“What was that?”

“Oh. Ah, just that I imagine they won’t be nearly as hard to apologize to as my family.”

Miyake nodded. Families were tough. He’d left his own to go serve Akechi, and never looked back. Not everyone could or would do that.

The lady stopped at a gift shop to pick up flowers for her former co-workers. Miyake didn’t let her lift a thing. Better safe than sorry. He even offered to carry her bag - her purse, she called it - but she wouldn’t let him.

Then they rode the train - which would have been fun if there’d been a seat for the lady. Standing, Miyake spent the whole time worried she might fall. Every little lurch made his jaw clench.

She seemed to notice his concern, and when they got off the train, stopped. “Miyake, I’m not that fragile. I don’t know what Mitsuhide threatened you with, but I promise, I’m perfectly capable of carrying things, walking, and standing on my own.” She laughed. “I’ve been doing it for years.”

“I know, my lady. But it just seemed like . . . in your uh, your state . . .” He gestured helplessly. Neither the lady nor his lord had said a word, and it seemed wrong to just put it out there before they did.

“My state?”

Miyake tried to hide behind the bouquets in his arms. “Ah, maybe it’s the wrong word. But hey! Isn’t that the shop you’re looking for?” It was a two-story building. A large sign hung above the double glass doors, with a spool of thread and a needle.

The lady turned. “Yep. That’s the place.” She squared her shoulders like a soldier going into battle. “Let’s do this.”

Grateful for the topic change, Miyake followed her across the street and inside.

The woman at the front counter recognized her immediately. Rather than anger, her face lit up with a big smile. “You’re ok!” She called out, “Hey ladies, our new hire just showed up six months late.”

Lady Akechi blushed deeply.

Three heads peered past the corner and then the other designers filed into the room. Besides the young lady at the counter that recognized Lady Akechi, there was an older woman with red cheeks and a round face, a short, thin girl with ponytails, and a tall woman that looked like she might arm-wrestle in her spare time.

There was a round of re-introductions between the five of them, hand shakes, and bows. Lady Akechi apologized several times, and then came the barrage of questions.

“Is this the guy you left us for,” one asked, coming over to inspect Miyake.

“N-no, he works for him though. Oh! And those flowers are for you.” She gestured for Miyake to hand them out.

He dutifully gave out the bouquets under the speculative stairs of four strange women.

“Huh,” said another. “So you found some rich guy and now you don’t need to work? Lucky!”

“This one’s pretty cute though,” the older lady said.

The short one with her ponytails smiled bashfully. She hid her smile behind her hand.

Lady Akechi stumbled over her words. “Oh - oh, I still work. I just do commissions now. And ah, ah, that’s Miyake.” She pointed to the older woman. “Miyake, this is Aiko.” She gestured to ponytail girl, “And Masako.” She nodded to the girl from the counter, “Takara,” and then to the tall woman, “And that’s Kei.”

“It’s a pleasure,” Miyake bowed. He felt himself blush under the weight of their gazes. He hoped this apology and leave-taking wouldn’t take too long, but that was a futile dream.

The women invited them out for tea, and promptly closed the shop. They walked, chattering together, to a cafe nearby.

Masako hung back to walk beside Miyake. She kept glancing up at him, shy but forward. After a block or so, she shoved a piece of paper into his hand and then hurried back up to join the other women.

Miyake looked at the paper. It had some numbers on it. Some sort of code? Was Masako a kunoichi? He studied the paper. Ten digits. Three numbers and a dash, three more numbers, a dash, and then four more numbers. The number 2 repeated. Huh.

He put it away when they got to the cafe. The place smelled strongly of coffee, a bitter beverage that people in this era seemed to enjoy. Miyake preferred tea. There were glass cabinets with sweets on display too. Things he didn’t even begin to recognize.

“What would you like,” lady Akechi asked. “I’m getting a cold coffee and some financiers.”

Aiko laughed at the expression on his face as he scrutinized the display. “You look like you’ve never been to a French bakery before.”

He nearly admitted he hadn’t, but he knew better than to give information away. Instead he just smiled. “It all looks so good. What do you recommend?”

Takara shrugged. “If you like sweets, the macarons are great. Otherwise, get a croissant or some brioche.”

“I like the crepes,” Mayako added.

He wound up getting the crepes and a tea. While the girls continued their chatter, now asking lady Akechi about her whirlwind romance and her future plans, he focused on his plate. Miyake prodded the food suspiciously. What was a crepe made of? What was in it and on it?

Miyake picked up the fork the way Sasuke taught him, cut off a piece of fluffy golden crepe and some of the fruit and poofy white stuff inside, and then stuck it in his mouth. The flavors hit him all at once. Sweet and buttery, the texture smooth as velvet, contrasting with the tart fruit.

“I think he likes it,” Aiko grinned.

“I know how to make crepes,” Mayako spoke up.

Takara elbowed her.

Kei laughed. “Men don’t usually order stuff like that here. Glad you’re not shy about what you like.”

Lady Akechi gave him a gentle pat on the arm. “He doesn’t go out for sweets often.”

Miyake nodded, feeling his cheeks flush again. Going into battle was easier than sitting through tea with a bunch of women, he thought.

When the ladies returned to their conversation, he felt safe enough to polish off the crepes, and order a second round. By that point, Aiko and Kei were giving lady Akechi tips on how to keep her man, and Miyake wished he could turn his ears off.

The conversation finally wound down, and the group returned to the clothier shop.

“You know,” Takara said, eyeing lady Akechi, “if you’re going to be around at least a few weeks, I have a commission or two you could pick up. Since you’re still working.”

“I’d love that!” The two of them headed to the back of the shop, and Miyake followed.

Masako gestured for him to stop. “That’s not for customers.”

“I’m not a customer.” He stopped though. From here, he could see lady Akechi and the other woman chatting beside some bundles of fabric.

The girl squinted up at him. She was, he thought, exceptionally short for a grown woman. “Are you some kind of mafia guy? Yakuza? Are you in a gang?”

“What?” Miyake’s eyes widened.

“I won’t tell anyone. Just me and Kei thought, the way you follow her around, you must be hired muscle.”

“I work for Lord Akechi,” he said slowly. “He is not . . . any of those things. I think.”

Masako frowned. “Fine. Don’t tell me. At least, don’t tell me yet.” She tugged at a ponytail, pulling it over one eye. “Maybe you can tell me when you . . . when you call me.”

From behind them, Kei snorted. “That is not how you flirt, Masako. You sound like a salesman.”

“I do not!” The shorter girl bristled. “Just because I’m not pushy like you!”

“Guys like pushy. Makes it easy for them to say yes.” She was standing pretty close, Miyake realized. She’d come up behind him and now he was trapped between the two women. He turned to look at Kei.

This was the wrong thing to do.

When he turned, she grabbed the back of his head and kissed him. It was . . . not a bad kiss. She was clearly experienced. Still, he gently pushed her away.

“See? Now if I gave him my number, you know he would call me.” Kei smiled smugly.

Masako looked furious. “I can’t believe you just did that!”

Mikaye understood now that he was the cause of this bizarre argument. A few days ago, he might have enjoyed being fought over by two attractive women. Not today. Today, he knew who he was going to marry and it surely wasn’t either of them. “I’m sorry ladies. I am already spoken for.”

“Oh sure! All the hot guys already have girlfriends.” Masako threw her hands up.

Kei chuckled. “What she doesn’t know, hm?”

“I ah, appreciate that, but -” He looked down the hall toward lady Akechi. She was lifting one of the cloth bundles. “My lady, no!” Miyake pushed past Masako. He lunged into range and grabbed the cloth out of her hands.

“What are you doing?” She looked stunned. A few bits of thread still stuck to her fingers.

Miyake grimaced. “You can’t be picking things like this up, my lady. It’s not safe for the baby.”

The four shop women all gasped at the same time. “You’re pregnant?” The question was a chorus of sharp disapproval to happy surprise.

Lady Akechi’s hands went to her hips. “No! Not, not as far as I know. Miyake?” One eye brow lifted and the expression was so like Mitsuhide’s that Miyake nearly handed back the bundle of cloth, certain he was wrong.

But he knew she had to be with child. Otherwise the dates wouldn't add up. “I - sorry my lady. I know you didn’t announce it yet.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

Miyake took a deep breath. “Well. Yesterday, you know how I got quizzed by those professors?”

“Mhmmm.”

“They said I’m going to marry your daughter. Lord Akechi’s daughter, I mean. So I assumed . . .”

The four women burst into a whole new round of excited questions and now Miyake was the focus.

Lady Akechi came to his rescue. “I think Miyake’s just being . . . metaphorical. Yes. Not literal. Because I’m not pregnant. And anyway, ah, it really is time for us to go! But I’ll be back in a few weeks with the evening gown you commissioned. Thanks for that!”

Saying goodbye still took half an hour more, but they did get out and back onto the street alone.

Miyake snuck a look at his lord’s woman. She looked angry. Or worried. Maybe both. She kept touching her belly as if to be sure there was nothing new there.

“I’m not pregnant,” she said after they’d walked a little way back toward the train station. “I think I’d be able to tell. I mean, Mitsuhide and I, we don’t . . . you know, we just . . . but it takes awhile to make a baby, right? Like, lots and lots of . . .”

He swallowed. “Uh, sure? I mean, I knew some girls that got babies after one night with a man, but, I don’t know?”

“But not me. I'd know,” she said more firmly. “But . . . let’s stop at a pharmacy before we go home.”

***

Mitsuhide was having a fantastic day. He and Sasuke were riding the train out to the university. He tried to memorize the map of train stations, and even took a snapshot of it on his phone before Sasuke showed him how to download the ‘app.’

“Are you planning on traveling places on your own? I wouldn’t recommend it.”

Mitsuhide smiled obliquely. “I don’t know yet. But that is the problem for me here. I don’t know many things.”

After a moment, the ninja nodded. “And that is also why you agreed to come with me today.”

“Yes.”

Sasuke bowed slightly. “It would be my honor to teach you whatever you want to learn in this modern day.”

“You have me at a disadvantage but do not seek to exploit it?” One white eyebrow lifted in a gesture his fiancee was mimicking half a city away.

“No. I wouldn’t do that to the man my modern era bestie loves.”

Mitsuhide pressed. “This, despite working for my sworn enemies, Takeda and Uesugi?”

Sasuke’s shoulders tensed. “Yes. And technically, they are Nobunaga’s sworn enemies, not yours. And in this day, they are dead.”

“I see. You are desperately balancing your allegiances and rationalizing your actions to suit the situation and your preferred outcome. Are you sure you aren’t interested in a job?”

“You aren’t in a position to hire me.” Sasuke’s mouth quirked into what Mitsuhide was realizing was his smile.

The warlord nodded. “True. Perhaps I will ask again when we return home. Which will be . . .”

Sasuke flushed. “I am not certain. Perhaps, three months? The magnetic device I put together to predict and to enhance the conditions surrounding the wormhole was destroyed when we were pulled through.”

“So we could be stranded here.”

“Yes.” Sasuke’s voice was very quiet as he agreed.

“You seem unusually disturbed by that. Yet, this is your home?”

The ninja shrugged. “It was. We should be going now. The professors will be waiting for you, and we still need their help.”

Mitsuhide knew he hadn’t gotten to the reason for Sasuke’s unhappiness at their current predicament. He needed to know why the ninja was perturbed, but good intel took time. Instead, he spent the rest of the trip to the university solving the mysteries of bank cards and how to operate a smart phone.

The university was a pleasant surprise. A vast complex of buildings dedicated to furthering knowledge and culture. There was one entire center given to poetry and literature. Another to medicine. One to agriculture. Walking through them made Mitsuhide miss his friends. He thought of Ieyasu and Mitsunari, of how they would enjoy the time to page through these endless shelves of books and scrolls.

He thought too, of his lord, and the oceans of blood they shed to reach this place. This time. Mitsuhide could not help but wonder if there was ever another way to get here, to this, or if war and sacrifice was the only way forward.

It was with these troubling thoughts in mind that he sat down across a desk from two aged men. One of them looked deeply distrustful, while the other seemed excited. The excitable one was Sasuke’s contact, and they greeted each other familiarly before the ninja introduced him.

“Professor Fukuda, this is Akechi Mitsuhide,” Sasuke bowed to his friend. “And this is Professor Sakai.”

The men greeted one another and then the questions began.

“So you claim to be the historical figure, Akechi Mitsuhide? The traitor of the Oda?”

“I do.” Mitsuhide smiled sharply.

The enthusiastic professor Fukuda nodded, interrupting. “No need to be hostile to the man. Just ask your questions. For verification.”

“Hmph. As if I can verify an impossibility. But . . . the other one, Hidemitsu, he was very convincing. Alright.” And he proceeded to ask about minutiae. Random details. The color of this, the material of that, the name of this or that scribe, and so on.

Mitsuhide wore his patient mask. The face of the eager servant, he called it. He answered the questions as fully as he could until finally, the skeptical Sakai ran out of steam.

“Are you satisfied, sir? Do you believe me now?” Sasuke waited for a reply.

“I suppose I have no choice. Besides, Professor Fukuda was showing me the formula for your time travel theorem. I’m no physicist, but it looks solid. And . . . Mister Akechi answered everything correctly. Down to the last detail!”

Mitsuhide took a breath. That was one obstacle down. “Now that I have your confidence, are you willing to make a deal with me?”

Fukuda took a breath. “Sasuke already gave us a list of your needs -”

“Yes. He provided the beginnings of our requirements. There is more.”

“Well? Go on then,” Sakai gestured.

Mitsuhide nodded. “I require unrestricted access to your libraries and data - databases. I will require an assistant to teach me how to navigate your net-work, and may also need to use your laboratories, which you will allow with proper safety measures in place.”

The two professors exchanged a glance and then nodded. “Done. Is that all?”

“No. I’ve one more request. I may at some time, need,” he glanced to Sasuke, fishing for the word from his new vocabulary. “Scholars. Scholars’ ships.”

“Scholarships. For special situation admittance,” the ninja added helpfully.

“Yes, that. Three of them.”

Fukuda leaned forward on his elbows. “Is it for more of you people from the past?”

“No. Let’s say, as a reward of sorts for some of those assisting us. I am not in a position here to offer them places in my retinue or at my castle. But I will provide for them.” Mitsuhide’s eyes were hard. This was not a negotiable point.

“Why not,” Sakai waved toward the window. “We have people drop out of programs all the time from the stress of studies. It shouldn’t be a problem to put three people in.”

Mitsuhide relaxed back into his chair. “Then we have a deal.”

*In IRL history, Miyake marries Mitsuhide's daughter and takes the name Akechi Hidemitsu so I decided to include that tidbit!

Next: In the Spotlight

[kushamikaitou]

A dusty attic

Akechi hadn't fully deduced what he hoped to accomplish by spending time with Akira Kurusu.  In truth, it was a puzzle he actively avoided because his train of thought tended to veer into uncomfortable territory when he examined it too closely. Certainly there were plenty of valid reasons to maintain a relationship with Kurusu - information gathering, enemy infiltration, calculated flirting as a means to distract. Sure, he never hesitated to let Kurusu know how much he enjoyed their little dates, but that was for Kurusu's benefit of course. And yet a niggling little voice at the back of his mind reminded him that those reasons were justification rather than cause, a bud of concern that there was too much truth to his words and the primary reason he chose to spend time with Kurusu was that he simply did enjoy the other boy's company.  

These were the thoughts Akechi tried to force out of his mind on the walk from Yongen-jaya station to Cafe Leblanc one cloudy Saturday afternoon in early November.  It had taken him all of twenty seconds to accept an invitation to join Kurusu in his bedroom for a horror movie marathon, and it wasn't until after he had agreed that he considered what he'd committed to, or why he'd been so eager.  It was something in the wording of the text he'd realized, as if there was an implication that the selected films might be too frightening for him to handle.  Akechi was no coward, and he made that perfectly clear in his response. "Cool, I'll make popcorn," Kurusu had replied.

He exhaled sharply and pushed open the door to the cafe.  Sakura gave him a curt nod from behind the counter.  "Kid's upstairs, waiting for you."

"Ah... thank you.  Excuse me."  He heard Sakura chuckle softly behind him and grumble something about youth as he headed to the back of the shop.

He knocked softly on the banister and Kurusu all but leapt from where he was lounging on the couch.  "Hey, you made it," he said with a cheeky grin.  On the table beside him was a large bowl of popcorn and two mugs of coffee.  "Ready for some nightmare fuel?"

"I hardly think a few blockbuster films will reduce me to nightmares, but I'm happy to indulge nonetheless. Will your cat not be joining us today?"

"Nah, he's not into horror and gore. I think he's off sneaking into a rom-com in Shibuya with Ann." Akira glanced over his shoulder as if expecting Morgana to yowl in protest and Akechi stifled a chuckle as he removed his coat and draped it neatly over the railing.

"So." Akira began casually, strolling toward the back of the room. "We can sit on the couch if you want, but... the bed might be more comfy.  I got some pillows I can prop up."  

"This is your home after all, so I will defer to you." He gave Kurusu a quick wink and didn't miss the dusting of pink on the other boy's cheeks.

"Right this way, then." He gestured toward the mattress laid atop several old milk crates.  

Akechi placed his coffee on the shelf next to the bed and sat down carefully, not wanting to crack the altogether precarious arrangement of the "bed." Akira fell beside him in a haphazard flop, and in his wake a cloud of dust billowed from the mattress. On an inhale, Akechi felt a sharp prickle in his sinuses. The room typically had a fair amount of dust floating through it, he had noticed the few times he'd joined the Phantom Thieves there for a meeting, but he'd never been quite so close to the source of it. He wondered for a moment how Kurusu was able to sleep at all in such conditions.

Not wanting to derail the plans or make things uncomfortable, he willed his nose to cease its itching and his eyes not to water.  Kurusu, meanwhile, grabbed the bowl of popcorn from where he'd set it on the chair next to the bed and sidled up next to him.  "Alrighty, we're starting with Pach Saw. Here we go, last chance to chicken out."

"Of course not. Unless that is what you desi-hh..." His eyes fluttered, the sneeze refused to be held back any longer and exploded with a grunt of breath into his arm. "My apologies. What you desire?"

"Um... bless you.  Nope, I'm good.  Popcorn?"  Akira pressed play on the remote and shifted the bowl a bit to his left but refused to look Akechi in the eye, flushed a bashful shade of red. Akechi gave him a discerning look, contemplating the curious reaction before returning his attention to the movie.

He grabbed a handful of popcorn and settled into Akira's side, toeing the line of flirtation as always. The exposition was nearly complete when he was overcome by three more desperate rapid-fire sneezes, each more violent than the last, his body curling in on itself in an attempt to absorb the shock.

"Wow, are you OK?" Akira touched his arm lightly, rigidly, his face now crimson. "Here, I'll grab you some tissues." He shifted off the bed and reached for the workbench to his right.

"Oh, don't mind me. Though... yes, actually tissues would be rather helpful." Akechi sniffed, arm still covering his nose, trying to ward off the next set until the tissues were in his hand. Kurusu certainly was acting strangely. They'd become bolder and bolder over the past few months with their lighthearted competitive flirting, and in each incident the boy had seemed nearly unflappable.  Yet he'd barely touched Kurusu today and here he was coming apart at the seams.  Why was his composure suddenly eluding him?

"Of course."  Akira handed him a customized tissue box with a black and white cat on the side that looked suspiciously like Morgana, still observing him with judgement even when miles away.

Akechi muttered a quick thanks and yanked one from the box just in time to double over with a renewed fit, breath hitching wildly in between violent bursts.  Tears prickled at the corners of his eyes and he finished the set with a loud blow as the first victim fell to a bloody chainsaw on the screen behind them. "Whew, excuse me for interrupting the movie you were looking forward to.  I believe this mattress is a bit dustier than what I'm ah-hh accustomed to. One moment." He held up the index finger of his right hand and sneezed once more into his left elbow. Through tears he eyed the cloud of dust in the air, which seemed to never settle but circled above them like fish in a tank, and then blew again sharply into the tissue and dabbed his eyes. He sensed the pressure of grey eyes staring in his direction, but when he turned his attention to Akira the other boy was turning his gaze toward the remote.

"No problem, we can rewind.  Sorry about the dust..." Akira's voice was barely above a mumble, eyes fixed on his hands in his lap and face flushed a deep shade of vermillion. Akechi's curiosity got the better of him. He narrowed his eyes toward the boy next to him and placed a delicate hand on his shoulder.

"Kurusu, are you alright? You seem to be quite troubled by the effect the dust is having on me. I assure you it's not a problem I can't manage." He scrubbed his crinkling nose with the back of his wrist and gave a wet sniff.

Akechi could barely see Akira's grey eyes turn toward him behind the light reflecting on his glasses, hand at the back of his neck, as Akechi held him in checkmate. Terrified, caught and with nowhere to run. The thrill of the upper hand thrummed through Akechi's spine, even if he wasn't sure why it belonged to him. "Uh... well... yeah. You're cute is all."

Akechi stared back, unsatisfied with the explanation. Certainly that much had been established already. In fact, Kurusu had told him explicitly that he was cute months ago when he fluffed his hair in public and forced him to wear those stupid fake glasses and plenty of times since. He moved the hand from Akira to his chin in contemplation.  This sheepishness was new and the reason for it remained a mystery.

Sensing his confusion, Akira explained further. "It's just... um... seeing you lose control. There's something really... nice about it."

The pieces started to fit into place. Akechi's expression clicked a few degrees toward mischief as he twirled a lock of hair around his index finger. "Pardon if I'm off base, but it seems you're the one who's lost control. Humor me in elaborating exactly what it is you enjoy?" he requested sweetly. Akira was practically malfunctioning at the request, and Akechi was practically giddy with how handily he was winning the exchange, still he wanted to make Kurusu say it out loud. He watched as the other boy located his resolve and pulled the shattered pieces of his composure together in an instant, effectively turning the tables with a hint of Joker's smirk. He removed his glasses and set them gently on the ledge behind him without breaking eye contact.

"I like watching you sneeze."

Akechi's eyes widened slightly as he processed the confession. The confidence was a stark shift from the sputtering from moments earlier, but not entirely unexpected. Now, though, Akechi needed to do something bold to stay ahead. He looked at the boy next to him and set his mind on his next move. "Hmm. A bit strange, but I can work with it."

In a swift motion, he leaned forward and pressed his lips firmly against Akira's, one hand to Akira's shoulder and the other reaching around the back of his neck, pulling him close. Akira took to the kiss like a duck to water, wrapping his arms around Akechi and threading his hands through the detective's soft tangle of hair, grabbing Akechi's lower lip with his teeth and then releasing it to slide their tongues together. Several soft moans escaped both of their lips, lost in the heat of one another as electricity surged between them.

Akechi felt an itch begin to blossom, tensed and barely broke the kiss in time with a mumbled "sorry" before quickly lifting his arm and muffling a pair of sneezes to the side.

"Mmm, don't apologize." Akira growled low, hunger in his eyes as they met Akechi's. "And don't break away next time."

Next time was nearly immediate, and Akechi heeded the command and only barely turned, this time directing his fit into the dip above Akira's collarbone.  Akira ran his hands up and down Akechi's back, feeling his muscles tense with every release as he shuddered against him.  As soon as Akechi had a moment to catch his breath, Akira lifted his face toward him and, despite the fact that he was now congested and sniffly, kissed him deeply and desperately, and then peppered the corners of his mouth and his cheeks and his nose with little nibbles.

He leaned backward, one arm still firmly holding Akechi, to snag a few tissues. "Bless you, honey."  His voice was too full of affection. It sent a shock of panic through Akechi's core and his mind flashed to the job he'd have to complete in a few short weeks.

A blood-curdling scream erupted in the room and both boys jumped. The latest chainsaw massacre victim collapsed in the screen behind them.  A shared laugh, and then Akechi blew into the tissue.  Akira leaned in and nuzzled his hair as he did.

Akechi didn't have time to analyze his concerns with this latest show of affection because an instant later they were on one another again. Akira shifted his weight and pushed Akechi's shoulders down, laying him flat on the dusty bed. Akechi slid his hands under Akira's tshirt and ran them along the smooth, taut muscle of his torso. Akira leaned down onto his forearms and worked both of his hands into Akechi's hair, dragging his nails along his scalp as their eyes locked.

The next sneeze snuck up on him and as he jerked forward, it tugged sharply at Akira's grip on his hair, forcing a sharp, keening noise from his throat. Kurusu looked shocked and apologetic for about half a second and made a move to extricate himself but a look at Akechi's face told him that the moan had been one of pleasure. A half smirk broke across his face and he silenced the sound from Akechi's lips with his own, lowered his body to press him hard into the mattress. Akira shifted his head and whispered mischief into Akechi's ear.

"Like that, huh? Maybe I can help."

His lips brushed feather light against the tip of Akechi's nose, then minty breath ghosted over his face, intensifying the tickle. Akira watched his nose as it scrunched and twitched, reacting to the attention, and once he was certain they were at the point of no return he turned his head to the side and kissed Akechi on the cheek as he bent forward, leashed by his hair. The release of the sneeze, the pin-prick on his scalp from the tug, his growing excitement rutting against Akira's hips. It was too much. Another. More pulling. More rutting. Akira's lips, warm and pressed to his own. Again and again.

Akira pulled his head back to look at him. "God, you're beautiful," he whispered and Akechi whined softly as he gazed into his rival's eyes, tears pricking the corners of his own, from the allergy or the pain or the affection - he wasn't sure.

Abruptly, Akira pulled away, carefully untangling his hands from Akechi's hair, and rolled himself into a seated position.  He leaned for the tissues and handed one over. Akechi felt a surge of frustration from the whiplash.

"Sorry. I realized where this is going, and the shop is open and Sojiro's right downstairs and..."

"It's fine. You're right, we shouldn't, it would complicate too much."

"Haha, it's not too complicated already?"

"I suppose it is."

A thick silence hung in the air for a moment, both burning to continue, but sobering to the reality. Akechi blew his nose again and then reached for the shelf and took a languid sip of his coffee, which was fully cooled but still bursting with nuanced flavors, just like every cup he'd had at Leblanc. If only his life could be as simple as this - room-temperature coffee, secretly ignoring stupid movies in the bedroom of his rival. If only their relationship's hurdles were limited to societal expectations and monotony. If only they'd met a few years earlier, before Akechi was whisked into a dangerous world of shadows and committed to a job that stripped him of his humanity.

Warm fingers threaded through his own and squeezed, and he looked up to see Akira's face contorted into a somber expression of concern. "Maybe it doesn't have to be so complicated. You don't have to do everything alone, you know."

A surge of hatred for Kurusu burned behind his eyes. Naive, trusting, hero-of-the-masses Kurusu who thinks that the power of friendship will solve all of life's problems. Whose rolodex is filled to the brim with a gaggle of adoring followers who he truly considers friends. Whose affection would evaporate in an instant if he knew what kind of a monster Akechi really was. What can he do, but do his best to win? He can't prove that he's deserving so he has to prove that he's better. He didn't need Kurusu, he'd never needed anyone's help to scrounge his way up from the dregs and come out on top, sparkling and polished.

Gently but swiftly, he freed his fingers from Kurusu's hold and flashed a muted media smile. "Not to worry, Kurusu. As I told you before, we can't simply deviate from the paths we follow, but as long as we're working together you'll have my strength." He combed and smoothed his fingers through his hair, feeling it return to its typical relaxed state.

"Hmm." Akira turned away and nodded, expression suddenly blank. Akechi understood that the rejection must sting, but he felt another thrum of pleasure from having regained control of his emotions and the upper hand. The rest of his body seemed to follow suit as well - he sniffled a bit, but the itch had settled into a dull, pounding headache. Preferable, he thought, pain was easier to mask, after all.

They sat in silence for the remainder of the movie, close but not touching, not bothering to rewind through the parts they'd missed. By the time Akechi had finished the last of his coffee and the murderer was brutally disemboweled with his own chainsaw he found himself relieved that it was only Kurusu who had witnessed his lapse in judgement. He felt confident that given his embarrassment over his kink, he wouldn't go sharing the events of the afternoon with all of his friends. No, this secret would die with Kurusu within the month.

The credits rolled, and Akechi smoothed the evidence of their earlier activities from his shirt.

"Well. Many thanks for the invitation, Kurusu. I must be getting back to the station now, a detective's work never ends I'm afraid."

Kurusu's face remained infuriatingly passive, no doubt retreated behind his own mask of indifference. He turned to gather the empty coffee mugs.

"I'm certain you understand why we can't continue. We are on opposite sides of the law after all."

"Sure." Kurusu nodded reasonably.

"Although."  Akechi tilted his head, searching Kurusu's still-bare face for the eagerness he'd seen earlier but came away empty. "It was rather enjoyable. One more for the road perhaps?" He leaned in and planted one last soft, chaste kiss on Kurusu's lips. The other boy kissed back, but made no other motion to pull Akechi in. Smart, he knows when to stop reaching.

"See you later, Akechi." Kurusu waved nonchalantly with the ghost of a smile and strolled back toward his workbench.

"Goodbye, Kurusu."

Akechi donned his jacket and as he descended the attic stairs, waving politely to Sakura before stepping back out into the November chill, he contemplated how utterly baffling Kurusu continued to be. The two of them had fallen into a pattern - revealing intimate pieces of themselves and disappearing into smoke and mirrors in turn.

No matter, no use in spending too much time and energy there. Perhaps Kurusu would be good for a few more battles, but Akechi had already won the war. His head still throbbed and he could still taste Kurusu on his lips, but he smirked to himself as he walked toward the station.

[salexectrian-heir]

the 2/2 time travel fic

happy 2/2! here is the first chapter of this fic idea i posted about a little while ago

First chapter below | ao3 link in notes

Akira had been dreading the conversation with Maruki.

Not because he was having second thoughts--no, Akira was steadfast in his resolve that this reality was a mistake. His resolution hadn’t come without a price, of course. His friends were being robbed of their dreams, their happiness no matter how false it was in nature...and Akira would have to bear the burden of knowing he was the one who ultimately was going to destroy it all. And even though the thieves and his rival were on board with its destruction, Akira knew that the decision had taken a piece of them with it. It had required a sacrifice from them all. And that ate Akira alive, knowing that they all had a taste of what could have--

No, Akira couldn't think like that. It would only make everything he had to do that much harder.

Somehow, out of all the betrayals he had experienced this year, Maruki’s was by far the most painful.

Maruki had held space for Akira when Akira had needed it most. Akira rarely entrusted others with his needs, having been burned too many times before this point to forge that kind of fragile, vulnerable, two-way connection with someone else. But Maruki had felt safe enough to confide in, and in turn made Akira feel seen, feel validated. Had respected Akira’s opinions and sought them out instead of admonishing him for sharing his perspective. Against his better judgement, Akira had opened his heart.

No adult in Akira’s life had ever done that for him before. So of course learning that Maruki had taken those secrets spoken in confidence, manipulated them, and thought he knew what would be best not only for him but the world…something snapped in Akira.

And now, sitting across from the former “counselor” turned Self-Appointed Savior, Akira battled his warring emotions into submission. Into the familiar blank mask he wore outside the Metaverse to hide his true disposition. The mask he thought he would never have had to wield against the one adult he thought he would have never needed to hide from.

From the only adult he thought he could finally trust.

The calling card tucked in the inner pocket of his jacket was burning a hole through its thin fabric. Each controlled breath Akira took as he listened to Maruki explain himself pressed the blistering deadweight a little closer to the skin of his chest. The frail, last line of defense he had that separated the world from that bleeding and bruised muscle.

And right now, if he didn’t get rid of the card within the next few seconds he was sure the scent of his burning flesh would suffocate them all.  

Maruki broke the lull that had settled between them first. His voice was gentle when he asked, “Are you sure you don't have any doubts, Kurusu-kun?”

Akira narrowed his eyes at the formality. They were past that. Way past that. “What do you mean, Maruki-sensei?” Akira responded sardonically.

The hand Maruki had wrapped around the mug of coffee Akira had made for him started a complicated beat against its porcelain surface as he studied Akira.  

“ Akira,” he amended and started again, his eyes softening into something almost sorrowful. “More accurately, I should really be be asking 'do you two gentlemen have any doubts',” Maurki paused and glanced over his shoulder towards the cafe entrance.

“You're there, aren't you Ake”--the door to Leblanc nearly shattered on its hinges with the force of which it was thrown open--“chi-kun!?” Maruki stuttered out, his face swiftly morphing from melancholic to bewildered in the span of a second as he openly gawked at the entryway.

Akira blinked once. Did a double take. Then blinked once more.

Because it wasn’t Akechi who had just stormed into Leblanc.

Or, it was but...

“You,” a man who looked like the splitting image of a twenty-something, utterly irate Goro Akechi spat, his face contorting into a feral grimace as he pointed directly at Maruki.

Akira had seen the younger version of Akechi make that exact expression only one time before in the bowels of Shido’s palace. It was not something anyone wanted to be on the receiving end of.

There was a beat of absolute silence.

And then chaos erupted.

This older version of Akechi with murderous intent seething in his eyes launched himself at Maruki, barreling full force into their booth like a bull after the counselor’s throat. Maruki made a very undignified squeak at the sudden assault and tried to put as much space between him and the rampaging Older Akechi by scrambling further into the seat. Kicking wildly at him to try and stop the halestorm of blows reigning down from the furious Akechi-lookalike. It did little to deter the older detective prince. If anything it made him even angrier.

Meanwhile Morgana, who had relocated from sitting next to Akira to perching behind him on top of the booth, was yowling at ear piercing decibels. His fur also was comically puffed up, making him appear two times his normal size as he whipped his head back and forth between the attempted murder happening before them and Akira.

Who was sitting there with his coffee mug halfway to his mouth, watching everything unfold in a sort of detached awe.

A moment later the door was ripped open a second time and everything got a whole lot weirder.

Because it still wasn’t Akechi.

Instead, a very frazzled looking twenty-something version of himself tumbled through the door. He was out of breath, as if he had sprinted all the way here from...where ever the fuck he had come from. This older version of himself took one panicked survey of the room and promptly leapt into the chaos, snagging the Older Akechi around the waist in an attempt to slow his assault.

This older version of Akechi was taller, and had a bit more mass than his older self, but his older doppelganger didn’t let that stop him. He braced one boot against the seat of the booth and dug his other heel in the floor, leveraging the angle and gravity, to yank the Older Akechi off of the therapist’s lower half.

At this point, Akira noted, Maruki had effectively shoved himself so far back that he was half on the table with his back pressed against the window, fingers clumsily looking for the latch that would open it. In his haste to avoid the older Akechi’s swiping gloved fists, he knocked over the potted plant on the window sill. Soil cascaded across the table along with the poor upended plant and broken fragments of its pot.

Sojiro was going to kill him.

I should really be more concerned about all of this, Akira idly thought, flicking away a tiny ceramic shard. But he found it was hard to feel anything right now, as what he was watching seemed so surreal. I wonder if this is what disassociating feels like.

For the third time that evening the door to Leblanc was forced open with an unforgiving smack that sounded off over the cries and screams from the fight. The wall was surely dented at this point from the abuse. Akira vaguely wondered if the door hinges were going to survive the night.

This time it was the Akechi he had been expecting. Eighteen year old Goro Akechi stood in the doorway, gaping in utter shock at the pandemonium unfolding before them. Akira could practically see the formulaic equations running through and swirling around Akechi’s head, as he processed what was happening.

The younger Akechi simply mouthed, “What the fuck.” And continued not to move.

Akira’s attention was drawn back to the weird three sided battle happening literally two feet in front of him when he heard a pained gasp.

“Goro--plea--,” the older version of Akira wheezed, collapsing onto the floor after a sharp elbow connected with his sternum, “p-please--stop.”

The older version of Goro Akechi did not, in fact, stop. He in fact, got worse.

“Get back here you PIECE OF SHIT,” he bellowed, successfully grabbing hold of Maruki’s leg just as the counselor had managed to get his head and shoulders out the window.

Another undignified squeak escaped Maruki as his body was forcefully pulled back into the booth with a very painful looking jerk.

“A-Akechi-ku--” Maruki started to plead, but his voice cut off in a gurgle when the older Akechi managed to get both of his gloved hands around his throat.

It was at that moment his older self resurfaced in the fight. Hooking his arms under the older Akechi’s armpits, he twisted Akechi’s arms back, breaking his hold around the counselor’s throat and heaved the detective off Maruki.

“No!” the pinned Akechi cried, scrambling for purchase on Maruki’s sweater as he was tipped backwards.

The sound of stitches ripping followed the men as they tumbled backwards out of the booth and into a couple of the barstools behind them, which crashed to the ground in their wake. Maruki braced himself with one hand on the table and his other on the back of the booth to prevent himself from tipping into the writhing body pile on the floor. His sweater was stretched out and torn, hanging loosely off his neck.

Akira’s phone, which had also been on the table, lit up and started to incessantly vibrate. A  stream of messages from Futaba were flooding in when Akira checked it. He elected to ignore those for now. Before flipping the screen down, Akira took note of the time.

23:58 PM.

Two more minutes until this shitshow of a day was over and the dawn of February Third would rise. Akira released a weary sigh and set his phone aside in favor of his now lukewarm coffee. God damn he wished he had something a little stronger than the Jamaican Blue Mountain brew he was sipping on to put up with all this bullshit.

Happy fucking Birthday to me, he thought as he raised his mug in mock cheers at the camera Futaba had installed in the corner of Leblanc’s seating area. Where he was one hundred percent certain she was watching in pure horror, given the messages he was still receiving making his phone vibrate and shimmy at his elbow.

Honestly after all this, Akira suspected nothing in this world could ever surprise him anymore.

“Aren’t you going to help?” Morgana’s voice cut through the static he hadn’t realized had been present in his ears.

From the floor, his older self was doing a much better job at dodging the older Akechi’s flying elbows with graceful dexterity, but Maruki somehow had strayed too close. He was now kneeling on the floor with his sweater once again in the older Akechi’s vice grip.

“He kind of deserves it,” Akira said flatly, setting down his mug.

Though Akira quickly changed his mind when Maruki started making gurgling noises again, which could only signify one thing.

The younger Akechi recovered from his stupefaction when he saw Akira move, and stepped in to assist. It required both Akira’s older self and the younger Akechi to hold back the raging older Akechi long enough for Akira to pull Maruki safely away. The older Akechi was then shoved against a wall, getting yelled at quite vehemently by his older self.

“Sorry about your sweater,” Akira said, after he turned away from the arguing dopplegangers.

Maurki plucked at the frayed neckline and chuckled a bit breathlessly. “It’s seen better days.”

Upon closer inspection, Maurki’s glasses were broken and sitting askew on his face. His lip also had been split at some point and was leaking a tiny trail of blood down his chin. Akira grabbed a bunch of napkins off the counter and held them out to Maruki, who accepted and thanked him with a slight bow of his head, pressing them to his mouth.

“Would someone kindly explain just what the fuck is going on,” the younger Akechi demanded in near hysterics (his Akechi, Akira’s mind unhelpfully supplied before Akira buried that thought deep down).

The older versions of themselves fell silent.

There was a deep sigh that sounded almost identical to the one Akira had made a few minutes ago.

“Let’s try this again,” Akira heard his voice say from across the room, “how about we all take a seat. Calmly.” There was a pregnant pause as his older self shot a pointed look at the Akechi who had been the source of the problems, and released him from the wall. “Like civil adults.”

“Fine,” the older Akechi said, adjusting the scarf around his neck and smoothing out the lapels of his rumpled grey peacoat before sliding into the booth, with his older self right behind.

Akira tugged on Maruki’s sleeve, gesturing to follow him into the seat across from their visitors. Akira went in first, sitting directly across from the older Akechi which left Maruki to sit opposite the other Akira.

It was probably safer for everyone this way.

The younger Akechi (his Akechi) elected to remain standing, leaning against the far counter with his arms crossed over his tan coat in an attempt to look imposing, but really he just looked uncomfortable in Akira’s opinion.

Once everyone had settled in, the older Akira turned to Maruki. A sad smile broke across his face as he said, softly, “Hello Takuto.”

Why hearing his voice say Maruki’s first name was the thing that finally made Akira realize just how absurd this whole situation was, that shocked Akira back into his body from the weird detached space he had been floating around in the past few minutes, Akira couldn’t tell you.

Panic clawed its way out of his chest and into his throat, making his breathing erratic and ragged. The calling card in his pocket now felt like molten metal encasing his chest. His mind was reeling, racing, splitting apart as it finally registered that the man sitting adjacent from him across the table looked Just. Like. Himself.

What the fuck? What the FUCK?? WHAT THE FUCK!?

Maruki looked between him and his older self. “Akira…can you please explain yourself?”

“Uhm, I have no idea what’s happening,” Akira managed to get out weakly, before realizing Maruki wasn’t speaking to him, but the older man sharing his face.

“I think it would make it easier if everyone referred to us by our surnames, and our younger selves by their given names, for clarity’s sake,” his older self said, glancing at Akira and then Goro standing by the counter. “Will that be a problem?”

“Yes,” Goro said testily.

“Get over it,” Akechi snapped at his younger self.

Goro’s eyes flared. “Why should I--”

“Because it's a trivial distinction and it doesn’t really matter,” Akechi spoke over him, flicking his eyes over to Maruki briefly, “not when we have more pressing issues to deal with. Stop being difficult.”

That’s kind of rich coming from you, Akira thought but did not say.

Goro huffed but didn’t push it any further, opting to glare balefully at himself. The tension rolling off of Goro was enough to make Akira squirm, even from the otherside of the room. Luckily Akechi remained unphased by the daggers being thrown in his direction.  

“To keep it simple and state the obvious, we are you. We travelled from the future of the reality this idiot,” Akechi gestured at Maruki, “ wants to impose upon the world. We’re here to make sure it never actualizes, as something evidently went very wrong when we attempted to do the same ten years ago.”

Morgana’s exclamation of “Ten years?!” overlapped with Akira’s yelp (Morgana had reflexively dug his claws into Akira) and Goro’s “What do you mean, ‘something went wrong’?”

“Yes ten years Mona, and I mean it exactly how it sounds,” Akechi said in a clipped tone, clearly not willing to explain himself further.

Akira sucked in a breath through his teeth as Morgana retracted the claws he embedded from his shoulder and mumbled an apology in his ear.

“Our memories of what happened on February Third are...not intact,” Kurusu offered, earning a scowl from Akechi. “The last thing I remember is entering the palace...then… waking up in the new reality. Same for him,” Kurusu nodded in the direction of his boothmate, whose scowl deepened.

Maruki cleared his throat. “How did you time tra--”

“We aren’t telling you shit, what we’ve said is all you needed to know,” Akechi snarled, “so shut up, read the damn calling card, and then get out.”

“If you lived in my reality for that long, surely you found it enjoyable Akechi-kun, you--”

“Don’t assume you know anything about me,” he growled, “and don’t make me repeat myself.”

“You are both aware of what will happen if this reality--your reality, is destroyed...,” Maruki said slowly, gaze switching between the older boys emphatically.

“It was never ours,” Akechi was quick to shoot back.

Kurusu nodded. “We are fully aware and...deemed travelling here to end it worth the consequence.”

“Kurusu…” Maruki said, a mortified expression dawning on his face. “I suspected Akechi-kun might have felt this way given the conditions of his existence...but you too?”

“Wait, I don’t follow,” Akira spoke up, unease settling heavily into his gut like lead stone as he watched the varying expressions on the faces before him. They all know something I don’t. “Conditions of his existence…?”

“He hasn’t told me yet,” Kurusu said, suddenly avoiding Akira’s eyes, instead turning to face Akechi. “That...complicates things.”

Both Akechi and Kurusu exchanged a look, then glanced at Goro.

“I take it you haven’t shared anything with Akira either,” Akechi asked Goro--who eyes darted over to Akira before shaking his ‘no’ . “I guess that answers our question if we landed in the right timeline,” Akechi muttered, then sat up straight, leveling a look directly at Akira.

Akira’s heart rate spiked under the weight of the familiar yet so foreign maroon tinted gaze, and he was struck once again by how breathtakingly beautiful Akechi Goro was. Taking the time to look at this older version of his rival, Akira noticed the years had been kind to him. His cheekbones had become more prominent, defining his face with sharper angles that his shorter hair style complimented. Even if it was still a little mussed from the earlier fight.

Akira swallowed thickly. Whatever Akechi was about to say, he had a feeling it wasn’t going to be good.

“What your esteemed counselor was most likely about to tell you before I”--he exhaled sharply--“lost my temper, was that in the true reality, we most likely died,” Akechi explained coolly, gesturing between himself and Goro on his right. “The only reason we’re here presumably is because it was your wish. And Maruki granted it.”

Something in Akira’s chest cracked painfully.

He desperately wanted Goro to meet his eyes, to look at him, to tell him it wasn’t true. That he escaped the night they fought in Shido’s palace . But he was still staring at his older self with an intensity that barred no distractions.

It couldn’t be true.

Akira had felt the warmth of Akechi’s body when they brushed shoulders on the subway, had watched as the clouds of his breath faded away into nothing in the cold January air when they loitered outside the Jazz Jin. Witnessed the blood rush to flush his face when Akira teased him over ridiculously sugary, overpriced drinks and soft music. Sensed the raw power in his presence when they would pull off a seamlessly synchronized attack in the metaverse together…

It couldn’t be… he couldn’t be...

Akira’s vision tunneled as he focused on his rival.

Goro brought his hand to his chin, falling into his typical thinking pose which Akira had always found endearing, but now was sending sharp pains through his chest. “I couldn’t find any conclusive evidence to support it, but given the gaps in my memory after my final fight with Akira, and Wakaba Isshiki and President Okumura’s suspicious reappearances…,” he trailed off with a shrug. “Occam’s razor.”

“The simplest explanation is often the correct one,” both Goro and Akechi said in tandem.

“Two of you.” Kurusu pinched the bridge of his nose, pushing his glasses up into his fringe as he did, and muttered under his breath, “I have to deal with two of you for the next twenty-four hours.”

Akechi pinched Kurusu (who flinched) without breaking eye contact with Akira and continued on, “And then Maruki was going to bait you, Akira, into accepting his false paradise by dangling our life before you. Holding us hostage, essentially.”

“I wouldn’t have explained like that!” Maruki said defensively. “I was devastated when I learned what happened to you--err the two of you? That night in December.  I don’t mean to make it seem like I am holding you both hostage--”

“But you are, and you did. ”

“Will, this Maruki hasn’t done it yet,” Kurusu quietly corrected Akechi.

Akechi plowed on, ignoring Kurusu’s comment, voice raising with each word he spoke, “You stripped us of our agency, forced us to play pretend in a world where you erased and repurposed parts of ourselves to fit your mold of perfection!”

Maruki winced.

Akechi trembled, barely able to contain anger, “I’ve spent enough of my life being manipulated by the will of men who think they own me, own the world. I refuse to live a moment longer in a reality concocted by someone else. I refuse.” His gloved fist slammed down on the table, causing the half-full mugs of forgotten coffee to rattle and send little splatters of dark liquid onto its surface.

Kurusu was quick to place his left hand over Akechi’s fist, who recoiled under the touch.

Akira stiffened at the sight of a thin band of silver on Kurusu’s finger, glinting under the soft lights overhead.

He’s married... I’m married?

Akechi started to pull away but then stopped, exhaling sharply. Kurusu ran his thumb over Akechi’s knuckles and his gloved fingers finally relaxed under Kurusu’s palm, splaying onto the table. He let Kurusu pull their hands off and out of sight.

“And.. you agree with this Kurusu?” Maruki asked after a few seconds of silence.

Kurusu took a steadying breath, and answered. “I do. And I understand that it means that I will also cease to exist.” A small smirk played on his lips. “At least this version of me.”

Maruki slumped back in defeat, staring unblinkingly at the droplets of coffee on the table. He swallowed, his jaw working for a moment before he nodded to himself. “Well then, I must accept that those are your decisions.” He looked up. “However, you don’t speak fo--”

“I also refuse to accept this farce of a life,” Goro interrupted, as if he had been waiting for Maruki to call on him. He turned his glare fully onto the former counselor and lifted his chin defiantly, “I’ve made my decision, and nothing you or anyone else says will change my mind.”

“Akira?” Maruki’s voice sounded so small and so far away, despite being right next to him. Akira turned in his seat, meeting Maruki’s pleading eyes. “Do you feel the same?”

Akira’s heart twisted in on itself.

Did he feel the same?

Before he couldn’t feel anything but now… it was as if his body was making up for the lost time. He was feeling too many things all at once.

If he rejected the reality Maruki was offering...it would mean…condemning them all to death.

From the corner of his eye, Akira took in the strange trio’s expressions. They all were mirrors of each other, all displaying their own versions of unwavering resolve and grim determination that Akira had walked into this conversation with--before everything had fallen apart.

A gentle nudge against the back of his head coupled with soothing purrs grounded Akira enough to stop his mind from spiraling any further. It also reminded him that it wasn’t just these lives who had a say in the fate of reality.

“I do,” he echoed his older self, and reached into his jacket pocket. Fire licked at his fingers as he peeled off the calling card that had melded into his skin and tossed it onto the table in front of Maruki.

Finally free of its oppressive, burning weight Akira took his first full breath since he came down the stairs from his room. Its phantom pain lingered, the skin too hot and tender where the card had laid over his heart. Akira flexed his fingers over the spot, hoping the friction would ease the discomfort. It didn’t. So he shoved his hand into his pants pocket and focused on regulating his breathing.

“I thought out of all people, you would understand,” Maruki said in the same small voice. Gently, he picked up the card and turned it over. “I’ve heard your calling. I’ll be waiting in the palace, as promised.”

When he stood up no one moved to stop him.

He met each of their eyes one last time and said, “If you don’t show, I’ll take that to mean you’ve accepted my reality.”

“We’ll be there,” Kurusu said with a conviction Akira had never heard himself use before. “See you tomorrow.”

“Ah, today, actually,” Maruki said, checking his watch. A heartbreaking smile formed on his face. “It’s probably not my place to say it, but Happ--.”

“Don’t you dare. Get. Out,” Akechi hissed venomously.

When the door clicked shut and the chimes ceased their ringing from Maruki’s exit, a collective sigh of relief seemed to ripple through the group. Akira let himself fall back against the booth, and was low key amused when he watched his older self do almost the exact same thing. Akechi gingerly leaned back as well, tension bleeding out from his tense shoulders as he eased himself down aside Kurusu. Kurusu reached out a hand and hesitated before tucking a short lock of hair behind Akechi's ear.

Akechi turned to him and whispered, “I can’t believe...that it worked."

“Believe it,” Kurusu matched his volume, and suddenly Akira felt like he was intruding on a private moment as their gazes lingered a little too long on each other.

“Are you, we...” Akira began uncertainly, “...friends then? In the future?”

Akira watched himself blush in real time.

“Ah. About that,” Kurusu said, fiddling with a piece of fringe as his cheeks continued to darken.

Akechi lifted his left hand and started tugging off his glove, one finger at a time. “In a manner of speaking.”

Akira’s heart kicked into high gear. Oh my god.

On Akechi’s ring finger was a thin silver band. Identical to the one on Kurusu’s hand--that he was now holding up beside Akechi’s.

Goro was the first to react. “You’ve got to be shitting me.”

“Oh get over yourself,” Akechi chided, “you can quit pretending like you never--ouch !”

A sudden violent exchange under the table had Akira heavily suspecting his older self had stomped on Akechi’s foot.

Akechi glared at Kurusu. Kurusu glared right back.

“Would it kill you to be nice to yourself?”

Akechi crossed his arms. “Yes.”

“Uh,” Akira croaked, drawing everyone’s attention, “can we talk about how this happened?”

“You both probably have lots of questions,” Kurusu said, “So let’s start at the beginning. Goro, you might want to sit down for this.”

[thepancakeboi]

60. “I’m not leaving until you tell me what’s wrong, and don’t try lying to me.”

Divergence AU Part III

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Fanfic under cut

11/16

“Hey, you okay?”

I glance up from the drink I’ve been staring at for the past five minutes, meeting Ren’s inquisitive gray eyes. “I’m fine. I was simply listening to the song.”

Ren doesn’t look convinced. “Akeppi-”

“I told you not to call me that in public,” I interrupt in a hushed whisper. Granted, we’re the only patrons currently in the jazz club, but still. I don’t even know why he calls me that. He just randomly said it after our fight in Mementos a couple of weeks ago and has continued to use it since.

“You’ve barely said anything since we left Penguin Sniper. Are you sure you’re fine?”

“I...have nothing to say.”

That’s a lie, of course, and Ren knows it. So much has been on my mind the past month. During our first foray into Sae’s Palace, I had hesitantly told them about the plan to kill Ren. I also told them about my identity as “the man in the black mask”, but only because Makoto and Morgana had figured it out and confronted me about it. I still can’t believe that I’m working with them like this. They...accept me, to some degree. I hadn’t expected them to completely trust me, but they’re all naive enough to not condemn me for what I’ve done. Even Haru and Futaba, the two people who should hate my guts, aren’t hostile to me. They should be, though.

I have so many things I want to say, but...

“Goro?” Ren sounds worried. “Is something wrong?”

“It’s nothing,” I say, dismissing his concerns with a wave of my hand.

“It isn’t ‘nothing’. You can tell me.”

“It is,” I snap, my friendly facade breaking for a brief moment. It’s become harder than ever to keep the mask on, to hide what lurks beneath the superficial nature I present to the world. “You needn’t concern yourself over the bastard son of a rotten father.”

“Who’s your father?” Ren immediately asks.

“What?”

“What’s your father’s name?”

A strangled laugh escapes my lips. He doesn’t even realize it yet. How would he, though? My father and the man we’re currently after are one and the same. “Why would you care? He’s not important to our current mission.”

“I want you to be happy. Isn’t that enough of a reason?”

“It’s a foolish reason.” I go back to staring intently at my drink as if it’ll give me all the answers I need. It won’t, but at least I won’t have to look Ren in the eye as he tries to get me to open up to him. I don’t need his help.

He hums as he continues to look for a clue to solve his own questions. “That’s not what’s bothering you, is it?”

“Of course not.”

“So there is something wrong.”

“I didn’t say that.”

“But you didn’t say nothing’s wrong.”

He’s right. I should have denied it. With a huff, I chug down the remainder of my drink and stand up, stalking out of the jazz club without a word. This was a waste of time. My thoughts are still there, like a tumultuous storm clouding my judgment. Maybe what I need is a solid blow to the head to knock me out for the next several days. Then I wouldn’t have to...

I stop, turning around. Ren stands a few feet away from me. He must have followed me out. “What are you doing?”

“We weren’t done talking.”

“Well, I am.” Of course, when I go to leave him behind yet again, Ren doesn’t seem to get the hint. I whirl around, nearly about to smack some sense into him as he grabs ahold of my wrist. “What the hell do you want?”

“I want you to tell me what’s the matter.”

He doesn’t even seem fazed by my reaction, a reaction so out of character for detective prince Goro Akechi. He still has that damn concerned look on his face. I try to pull the pieces of that fake personality back together, but my words ring hollow as I respond, “Look, all I need is some time to myself. Just leave me be.”

“That hasn’t been working for you, has it?” No, it hasn’t been. “I told you I’d always be there for you. I’m not leaving until you tell me what’s wrong, and don’t try lying to me.”

“Ren, I’m fi-”

“Do you trust me?”

The question is completely unexpected. “I...I want to.” But I don’t know how...when I barely even trust myself.

“Then let’s go to Leblanc and we can talk this over.”

I shake my head. “That would take too long.”

“It doesn’t have to be Leblanc. Wherever you need to go to feel comfortable talking to me.”

I can only think of one place other than Leblanc, but...would it be weird to...? “Would you be okay with coming with me to my apartment? It’s not too far from here.”

“Sure.” He nods, though why he’s smiling I have no idea. Maybe it’s because I’m confiding in him after all.

We walk to my apartment in comfortable silence. As we weave our way through the streets, Ren slowly slips his hand from my wrist into my hand. I side-eye him curiously. Why is he doing this? It’s not like I’m trying to actively lose him in a crowd. I don’t object to it, though. For some reason, I almost...welcome his hand in mine. Even when we arrive at my apartment and find ourselves sitting side by side on the futon, he’s still holding my hand.

And I...don’t want him to let go?

Damnit, I must be more emotionally compromised than I thought.

I don’t even know when I started giving a shit about Ren. I’ve been spending more and more time with him than I ever had during the summer. He never refuses me. He’s spent all of today with me after school ended for him. It doesn’t make any sense. Why would he ever want to spend any length of time with his future murderer?

That’s the root of my problems, isn’t it? The counterplan the Phantom Thieves have come up with is daring, reckless, and honestly is one huge gamble. I don’t normally doubt myself, but it’s going to take a lot of luck for Ren to get out of this alive...

“Goro?”

The way he says my name, gently prying to find out what’s been occupying my thoughts, nearly breaks my composure.

But I can’t let him know my doubts...my fears.

Yes, I’m afraid. I’m afraid I’m going to shoot him in the head, for real. That Ren Amamiya, the second year at Shujin who so quickly enthralled me and became my antithesis, will die in an interrogation cell all because he got caught up in a plot where he can’t even begin to see the full picture.

“I don’t...want you to die.”

“I won’t die.”

“How can you be sure about that!? You’ll be completely defenseless, and I-” My words catch in my throat, but I force myself to say them regardless. “I have to pull the trigger. I won’t be able to prevent that. There won’t be a second chance if we fail.”

“We won’t fail.” He sticks his free hand in one of his pockets. When he pulls it out, he has my glove in his hand. “We still have a promise to keep.”

“I can’t believe you have that stupid thing.”

“Why wouldn’t I?”

I have no response to that. Instead, I respond with, “And you just so happen to have it with you.”

“I’ve had it with me since you gave it to me. And do you wanna know why? Because it’s from you.” He gently squeezes my hand, a lopsided grin spreading unbidden on his face. I had forgotten that he’s still holding my hand. “You’re my treasure.”

My eyes widen. “I’m your...what?”

“I mean it. I may be a Phantom Thief, but you’re the one who stole my heart.”

My stomach clenches. I try to ignore this feeling, for now. “Was that supposed to be a pickup line? If so, that’s the cheesiest one I’ve ever heard. And trust me, I’ve heard some extremely stupid ones.”

“What if it was?”

“I’d chastise you for your timing since you could be dead in four days.”

“I’m not going to die. I still have stuff I need to do.”

“Like what, fight a god?” I ask with just a touch of sarcasm.

He laughs at that. “No. But maybe I will just to prove to you that I can.”

I laugh as well, although mine is forced and devoid of any mirth. This time, I make sure he can hear my sarcasm as I reply, “Oh, that’s just brilliant. You’re going to fight god because you can.”

“And win, just for you,” he says with a wink, grinning at the prospect. My first thought is “what the hell is wrong with this boy”, followed immediately by “I think I love him”.

Oh.

So, that’s what this feeling is. How did I not realize sooner? It’s painfully obvious in hindsight. He’s the one person I’ve taken an actual interest in for a long time. Life always feels better when he’s around. But does he feel the same? No, he couldn’t. He can’t love someone as rotten as me. My heart refuses to listen to logic, though. Tentatively, I ask, “You’d really fight a god for me?”

“Yup!” Ren answers almost immediately. Yawning a little, he leans back against the futon and arcs his back for a moment. The motion almost reminds me of a cat. “Hey, Akeppi?”

There’s that dumb nickname again, though I can’t say we’re in public this time. “What?”

“It was a pickup line.”

I try to laugh it off as a joke. He cannot be serious. I don’t care if I hope that he means it; it’s not possible. “Surely you jest. I’m sure you have girls falling head-over-heels for you.”

“I may be Joker, but I’m not joking about my feelings towards you.”

“I lied. That is the cheesiest pickup line I’ve ever heard.”

“Is it working?”

I’m silent for a while, unsure of how to respond. I can’t deny that I feel something for the raven-haired boy sitting next to me. It’s complicated. Everything about him, from the way he looks at me with those beautiful gray eyes to the way he plays with his bangs when he’s lost in his thoughts to even the hum he makes when he’s thinking, it’s all so...perfect. I don’t deserve someone as special as him. I don’t. Yet here he is, willing to give me a chance. But, there’s no time for this silly romance cliche between us, not until Ren is decidedly not going to die at my hands. “Let’s just focus on surviving the rest of this week first.”

“Okay,” he replies. He doesn’t seem upset, which is a good sign. “Are you going to be okay tonight? If you want, I could stay the night.”

I shouldn’t even be surprised that he’s the one who suggests that first. “I...I suppose...but don’t you have school tomorrow?”

“Yeah, but I’m sure Kawakami’ll cover for me.”

“I wouldn’t want to inconvenience you-”

“Don’t worry, you aren’t,” he immediately interjects, taking the opportunity to lean against me.

We must have managed to fall asleep there, because the next thing I know, it’s morning. Ren is still resting comfortably against me. People say that seeing someone sleeping makes them look more adorable, and now I can see why. His hair gently falls into his eyes, his lips parted ever so slightly as he dreams. Hoping not to disturb him, I place a soft, little kiss on his forehead. He continues to blissfully sleep. I don’t know if I’m imagining it or not, but I swear his lips twitched into a smile for a brief moment. I can’t help but smile wistfully back, even if he doesn’t see it. My voice is barely a whisper as I give words to the thoughts in my head.

“I love you, Ren. Please...don’t die.”

[i-demand-a-hug]

Here’s chapter 7 of my shuake fic where Ren’s a shapeshifting cryptid mermaid and Goro’s something else entirely. This chapter’s posted both here and on AO3!

-

How many times had he thought, "I could stay here forever," while sitting in a hot bath? Now, as the hours trickle past, the idea feels horribly unbearable. Goro is flushed red like a cooked lobster, scowling down at his reflection in the water. The fact that Goro has no one to blame but himself only sours his mood further.

How stupid. Why didn't he just finish his homework like a normal teenager?

Thankfully, Goro doesn't have to contemplate whether he'll die from staying in the bath too long—though wouldn't that be rich, after everything he's done—because it’s then the mermaid decides to enter the room. Whether it's from relief or simply the heat making him delirious, Goro's smile feels genuine for once.

This time, Goro takes the opportunity to observe the mermaid, who sinks into the water at the other end of the bath. He seems plain, almost meek; most humans would barely look at him. But there's something more to the still waters of his face, an inscrutable depth that could be hiding anything. This mermaid could be nothing but a harmless slug—or he's the alluring light that would lead Goro straight into the maw of an angler fish. It's an exciting, dizzying thought, and Goro has to wrestle his grin into a more harmless shape.

Goro clears his throat. The way the mermaid's frizzy hair covers his eyes as he looks up is just a little irritating—hasn't this boy heard of a haircut?

"Good evening," Goro says with a polite smile. "It's quiet tonight, isn't it?"

The mermaid goes rigid for a moment, then turns his head away. Goro might as well have spoken to the wall. How rude.

Goro tries not to let his irritation show on his face.

"You look familiar..." Goro says, making a show of pondering and humming, then clapping his hands together as if a puzzle piece slid into place. "That's it! I saw you here last night, didn't I?"

"Mm," is the mermaid's only response.

“My name is Goro Akechi. And you are...?”

The mermaid actually mumbles something this time, a barely audible “...Amamiya.”

"Bumping into you two days in a row is quite a coincidence, huh? Perhaps it's fate."

Had he the chance to truly express himself, Goro would have sneered at his own saccharine voice.

It's all so repulsively fake.

The mermaid is unresponsive once again, and Goro nearly grits his teeth. The worthless adults who surround Shido ignore Goro, too, unless they need something from him. It's a matter of superiority, acting like they're better than him.

And yes, he's furious that the mermaid would act as though Goro's beneath him, and yes, he's taking it as a personal insult. And no, this has nothing to do with being starved of positive interactions with people his own age. It’s just curiosity. That's all. That's all!

He rises from the bath, an oddly empty feeling in his chest.

As he steps out of the water, however, an odd sensation hits him. It's as if someone turned his bones to jelly. He tries to wonder why, but his mind is slowly filling with cotton. He sways, and then the floor leaps up to attack him as his vision cuts to black.

His face is squished against the wet tiles when his senses return. A frigid hand grabs his shoulder—Goro relies on instinct and snarls something incomprehensible yet threatening.

Just as his eyes fall on the startled mermaid, who is crouched beside him, Goro remembers where he is. He also remembers that yelling at someone typically has consequences. While Goro collects the scraps of his composure, the mermaid speaks.

"You… You collapsed.” 

Goro can’t say he remembers fainting, but it would certainly explain why he’s on the floor. He meets the mermaid’s anxious eyes with a cobbled-together smile.

“Oh! I suppose I was in the bath a little too long.” An understatement. “I’m sorry for making you worry. Tell me, how long was I unconscious for?"

The mermaid twists a lock of his hair. "Um. 20 seconds?"

That’s not too bad, Goro thinks. The fact his towel stayed on is also a plus. However, the idea of fainting due to his own stupidity is infuriating, not to mention embarrassing. What if he’d hurt himself? What if he’d been alone? More importantly, what if his feathers appeared, even for a second?

Goro shivers, then remembers he’s naked and soaked and really needs his clothes.

“I should get dressed,” says Goro, trying to stand, but the static hasn’t quite left his limbs and he nearly falls again. The mermaid, however, steadies him, cold hands on Goro’s shoulders. Goddammit. Apparently the universe really wants to humiliate him tonight.

“Are you okay?” the mermaid asks softly, but the question feels like an insult. “I know a doctor… I could—”

“Oh, there’s no need!” says Goro in his best ‘good boy’ voice. His smile is tight against his skin. “I’ll be fine, but thank you for your concern. I just need to rest, cool down a bit.”

He peels the remaining glue from his brain and forces his legs to move. 

As Goro puts his clothes back on, he glances at the mermaid, who is turned away at the opposite end of the changing room. The mermaid was unresponsive up until Goro fainted. Does he now think Goro is some pathetic, unthreatening worm? Or is he simply a bleeding heart who hates to see someone in trouble? A mermaid with a hero complex is a strange thought: Goro breathes a laugh, then grimaces. 

He has to wonder if he should quit being a detective, because he's clearly an idiot. Was Goro really so eager to escape his role of shattering people’s minds that he let himself pass out? Maybe he should save himself the trouble next time and ram his head against a wall. 

“Here.”

Goro blinks away his thoughts. The mermaid is standing next to him (when did that happen?) and holding out a can of soda (where did he get that?).

“You might be dehydrated,” the mermaid says when Goro makes a bewildered face. And still it takes another five seconds for Goro to realise that, yes, this is genuine kindness. Something about the tiny gesture makes him feel a little better. He takes the soda can.

“It was, ah, Amamiya-kun, right?” says Goro.

Amamiya has fallen silent again, but he at least offers a nod. 

“I…” Goro is dangerously close to saying something sentimental. “I should be getting home. I have school in the morning, unfortunately.”

“Wait,” Amamiya says, suddenly. “Will you be okay? You won’t collapse again?”

The pity in Amamiya’s voice is a slap to the face. Goro sips at the drink to hide his failing smile.

“I’ll be fine.”

“Are you sure? I… I could walk you to the train station, at least.”

“Oh no, I couldn’t take up your time like that. It’s getting quite late; you should hurry home before your family worries.”

Amamiya stiffens, a detail Goro files away for later, but he still seems ready to argue.

“How about this, then?” says Goro, as though the idea only just hit him. “Why don’t we exchange contact information. I can let you know when I’ve safely made it home or if I run into trouble. Will that put your mind at ease?”

He sees Amamiya relent at this, albeit reluctantly. Goro’s plan to satiate his mermaid-related curiosity was a disaster, but a phone number is useful. Next time, he won’t have to rely on chance—now he can simply message Amamiya, and the buds of further conversation should sprout from there. 

Once Amamiya’s details are safely stored in his phone, Goro smiles with unfeigned cheer. He tells the mermaid goodbye, see you later, and begins his walk down the street. 

It’s when Goro turns at a corner that he tries to release his feathers and fly home. He can’t, however. A strange chill traps his wings beneath his skin, and Goro nearly shivers. 

Changing from one form to another is a difficult feat—Goro’s found he struggles to release his feathers unless protected by obscurity. Darkness helps, as well as enclosed spaces, but the most important factor is that no eyes can be on him. Goro twists around; the streets are empty. And yet, his feathers still won’t appear. 

...The train it is, then. Goro grits his teeth and marches down the road. Though the sensation of being watched leaves fairly quickly, the phrase, “curiosity killed the cat,” echoes in his mind. He doesn’t let himself relax until he’s behind his apartment door. 

[twilightknight17]

I could rant on about the interrogation room for a million years, so I will do my best to refrain.

Needless to say, the Plan happened.

Futaba keeps them all in her phone as their codenames. It’s cute.

I’m not even mad about the inconsistencies at this point. Most of them are unclear writing and not flaws in the actual plan. The ones that are flaws in the actual plan are major teenage stupidity, and everything else...

“I made sure they won’t check the morgue for his body.” That’s great, I dunno how you did that, but whatever. The thing I’m most upset about is always going to be how they treat Akira/the player during this section. It would be different if it felt like you were part of the plan, but from the glimpses of it that you get during the restored memories, it was Makoto and Futaba’s plan, and you were just the actor thrown to the wolves.

This could have been phrased differently, and it would have come off better. “Don’t you remember? You’re the one who said this was the best way to trick the traitor.” Anything to make it feel like he was part of the decisions, and not told his role once the plan was made. It’s one thing to sacrifice himself; it’s another to give the impression that his teammates made the decision that that’s what he needed to do.

And once you get back to Leblanc...

“How are you feeling?” “Well, I died...” “You must be fine if you’re joking like that!”

Maybe it’s not a joke, Ann. And my least favorite piece of dialogue:

He’s sitting right there. You could ask him. But sure, Yusuke. Beaten half to death, drugged up to his eyeballs, with his entire life riding on ridiculously narrow timing and hoping that Sae actually trusted him enough to stop Akechi and not walk right past him... The game might not show the damage, but it’s there. One of your dialogue options right after this line is “I’m just glad I didn’t die.” And no one responds. The conversation moves on with no reaction. :/

And they talk about the whole pancakes thing and Akechi hearing Morgana back in June, and Morgana says...

You ignored it for five months. Holy shit you guys. That’s overlooking it. You could have done something about Goro before things got this bad and there were no chances left.

Futaba explains the rest of things if you go talk to her in the attic, and talks about how hard it was for all of them, spending 48 hours pretending they didn’t know what was going on. Tragic. It’s not like that’s what we’ve all been doing all along anyway. Oh, and the part where they forgot about Cognitive Akechi until the last second and had to send someone in to grab him in the span of a few minutes before the whole plan unraveled.

Sis, I love you, but no. Keeping me alive and not blowing our cover was the bare minimum of what you should have been doing.

Anyway, I feel like there’s a lot more Shido in Shido’s ship. I don’t remember the statues in the lobby or the creepy posters wallpapering everything.

At the point where I stopped, I have one letter of recommendation. It’s been the same so far. But we’re going to ignore Shido for a moment in favor of my other little sister...

It’s been almost a week she’s probably been losing her shit and I feel so bad for her. She promised she was going to help me get away and then the Plan happened and she didn’t know anything. It probably wrecked her.

I’ve always found it a little annoying that you can’t really be physical with anyone except at the end of a romance rank-up. Like, if I can hug Ann after confessing my love, could I not put my hand on Futaba’s shoulder when she’s on the verge of a panic attack? Or put my arm around Ryuji to return affection? Or hug my tiny gymnast sibling when she’s clearly emotional, instead of staring at her from two inches away?

(Caveat: He looks...stiff, there. Could we instead address that her getting so close freaked him out because of interrogation room bullshit? Anything?)

Also, I’m giggling. Life imitates art. Thank you for the slight validation, Royal.

But yeah. I feel bad for scaring my confidants that already knew, but I feel the most bad for scaring Kasumi. She doesn’t need that kind of emotional blow.

...I notice that a certain someone didn’t call to see if I was okay. I guess it’s fine, since he’s gotten all he needed to know, huh? Fucker.

[crow-hearted-detective]

Goro was very, very good at looking like he was better off than he actually was. He had spent years learning what cues made people think "this person has it all together." Friendly smiles, crisp, clean clothes, hair that lay flat enough to convince people it was recently combed. Everything about his public image had been carefully crafted to make him seem perfectly fine, even on his worse mental health days.

He'd gotten more lax in his presentation over the past couple of years, but in a public setting like the law office he was still very particular about making himself look Presentable™️. No one needed to know about his anger issues, or his regular nightmares, or the paranoid thoughts that crept into his head at the worst possible times. And absolutely no one needed to know he was experiencing horrible visual hallucinations right now.

So he was understandably reluctant to mention them when Sae asked how he was doing.

"I told you I'm fine," he reassured her, grabbing some tuna off the belt.

"Some of my coworkers mentioned you were acting skittish around them," Sae pressed, sounding like she was going for a full-on interrogation. "You looked downright terrified to see me, even."

Goro sighed quietly and shoved a piece of sushi in his mouth to give him an excuse not to say anything. He refused to look at her, both because he didn't want to see whatever pitying look she might be giving him and because he didn't want to risk seeing that cracked Shadow-y mask again.

"Is there something going on again?" Sae lowered her voice. Goro finally glanced at her, his tired mind struggling to catch her meaning.

"You mean... that business?" Goro murmured back. Sae nodded. It clicked; she was asking if there were more Persona shenanigans going on. Goro laughed despite himself. "No, no. It's nothing like that."

Sae nodded, letting out a little huff. She sat up, her shoulders relaxing noticeably. "Good. The way you kids keep finding trouble had me worried for a while."

"I'm not sure if it's that we keep finding trouble or if trouble keeps finding us," Goro quipped, popping another bite into his mouth.

She chuckled and shook her head. "Still. These aren't things a bunch of children like you should have to deal with in the first place."

"I don't exactly disagree." Goro lifted a hand to his mouth and swallowed the piece of sushi before continuing. "But on the other hand, if we don't handle it, who will?"

Sae let out a thoughtful hum. "I wonder... there was research into this stuff before, wasn't there?"

"The Kirijo Group," Goro said, lowering his voice so only she could hear. "They were looking into the powers of Shadows specifically, and Personas by extension, about twenty years ago. As far as I'm aware, there aren't any direct connections between the two sets of research. And there's likely to be some overlap, especially since a lot of the Kirijo Group's research was lost in an explosion in 1999."

"You've been looking into this, I take it?"

Goro waved a hand. "Yes and no. I only know the exact date because... remember that other group of Persona users we've mentioned?"

"They're connected to that incident, aren't they?"

"Intimately. The current head of the Kirijo Group in our timeline is one of them."

Sae's eyes widened in shock. "Wait, really?"

"Yes. Kirijo Mitsuru. She was even... a test subject in their experiments with Personas."

Silence fell over the duo. Goro didn't need to look at Sae to know she was frowning. Goro shut his eyes for a moment, praying he didn't wind up dozing off. Images of a sterile, white environment flashed across his vision, stained with red and black. The sensation of something welling up inside him, threatening to burst out of his body hit him like a truck. He put a hand over his mouth and took a deep breath, trying to force the feeling back.

"I know I keep asking this, but are you sure you're feeling alright, Akechi-kun?"

He felt a hand on his back and opened his eyes in time to see Sae nudging his glass of water closer. He picked it up and took a long gulp, draining about half the glass before he set it back down. His thumb traced the outside of the glass as he got his thoughts in order.

"I've been... having trouble sleeping lately," he admitted, his voice very quiet. Sae was, perhaps, one of the vanishingly few adults he'd be willing to share this information with.

"Stress?"

Goro shrugged. "Most likely. It's not too surprising. Stuff like this happens around my birthday anyway."

"Your birthday?" Sae sounded surprised. "It's coming up soon, I take it?"

"Next Tuesday."

"Huh." He saw Sae lean against the counter out of the corner of his eye. "You'll be twenty, right? Finally an adult."

Goro let out a rueful chuckle. "It's a miracle I've even made it this far."

Sae fell silent for a moment. He glanced at her out of the corner of his eye and saw her glaring at the counter distractedly. Did he say something upsetting?

"I don't know if I'd have time for it on Tuesday, but..." She chewed her lip in thought. "Makoto's 20th birthday was last month, and I still owe her something special. If it's alright with you, I'd like to treat the both of you to something next week. To celebrate."

"Something special, huh?" Goro didn't really see his birthday as particularly worthy of celebration, though. "Would Makoto agree to sushi?"

Sae laughed. "You're really hellbent on that, aren't you? Fine, if she's alright with it, I'll splurge on proper sushi."

"Thank you, Sae-san!" The big grin Goro flashed her was surprisingly genuine, but it made Sae laugh harder.

"Don't get too excited. We're still not going anywhere fancy. I'm not made of money, you know."

"That's fine with me," Goro said, shrugging. "As long as it's not who-knows-how-old conveyor belt sushi, I don't care how 'nice' it is."

That was partly a lie. Goro would absolutely love to go to a fancy place to dine on high-quality sushi, like back when he was neck deep in Shido's conspiracy. If there was one thing he missed about those days, it was having the freedom to visit fancy eateries and partake in all that good food. Even if he found he hated half of it, and could barely remember the taste of most of the rest.

On the other hand, the thought of spending some quiet time with someone he liked and admired sounded a lot more appealing than any amount of fancy barely-edible sushi.

[shadowtarot]

(THieves in Inaba.) Are they still in their swimwear??? If so... I'd like for the boys to lure in Kashiwagi and ask for her to let them in. It's a bit of revenge for the girls XD (Kashiwagi was present in P3P and in P4 so a Cognition of her should exist as the dungeon is using their memories)

Thieves in Inaba Part 60

With the forest now a mesh of the Arc and the hollow woods, Joker goes over his plan with the others. 

“Okay so Shido’s Palace we needed to get key cards to get to the heart of the palace, right? Well with this place being made up of entirely our thoughts, this would mean we’d need to overcome this the same way.” Ren smirks, brushing some of his frizzy hair out of his face.

“Okay, that’s neat and all but what does this have to do with all of us being in swimsuits?” Yosuke asks, hand placed on his hip.

“Everything.” Ryuji smirks. “One of the guys we needed to grab a letter from was a total perv. We had Ann and the other girls put on swimsuits and talk to him. Got him off guard and everything. And to top it off? It was my plan.” He sounds so proud of himself as he talks.

“Yes, but we still had to fight him in the end….” Morgana sighs.

“So…you’re saying there’s going be a guy on the other side of these trees and we have to…seduce him?” Yukiko asks, before bursting out laughing. “I’m just…imagining Chie and I trying to do that and it’s just….ahahaha!”

Chie sighs, placing a hand on her head and shaking. “Give her a minute. But I’m so not down for this! What if he follows one of us out of this place? What then?” 

“It won’t be a real person, merely just a cognition.” Akechi explains, looking over at a now calmed down Yukiko before continuing. “Think of doing this as solely being a puzzle. Complete it and move on, there’s no need to get worked up about it.” 

Yusuke seemingly isn’t even paying attention to the conversation however, instead he’s more focused on Akihiko and Kanji. He has his fingers done in his typical picture frame work as he nods to himself. “It is a shame I left my sketch book at the hotel, so many of these experiences could make for wonderful pieces…”

Kanji crosses his arms in annoyance. “Well I sure hope you aren’t implyin’ I’m one of those ‘Experiences’.”

“Well one of should at least scout and see who we’re dealing with,” Ken suggests, hand in his pocket. “If we go in blindly it might not end well.” 

“Well who’d be the most willing to take a risk at being spotted?” Makoto looks among the group. 

Mishima sighs “I can go check, I need to contribute more to this team after all.” He walks around the corner and comes back fairly quickly.

“Well?” Yu asks, concerned as to why he came back so fast.

“It…it’s a woman!”

Ren and Ryuji look confused, the others all turning to them as to see if they have a new plan. 

“Yeah, it was a woman, with a black one piece swimsuit…and-” But as Mishima goes to describe her…Minato, Junpei and Akihiko’s faces go pale.

They know who’s around the corner.

“Yo, those three don’t look so good all of a sudden. What’s up?” Ryuji asks, leaning closer to them. 

Minato clears his throat. “Was she…well endowed?”

“I don’t know how relevant this question is but….yes.”

Akihiko sighs, shaking his head. “If this place is pulling from all of our memories, then some of ours must be in this mix as well. Back during our journey, we went to the beach…and Junpei suggested we go on a ‘Babe Hunt’.”

“Yeah..and one of the women we chose to flirt with was an older lady…she seemed pretty into it…like creeply into it…” Junpei lowers his head.

“H-Hold on…you didn’t…happen to get her name did you?” Yosuke starts to have a bad feeling himself. “Damnit! I-I have to check!”

He pokes his head around the corner, and comes back even faster then Mishima did. 

“Uh huh, I was right. It’s Kashiwagi.” Yosuke sounds defeated as he talks.

“You can’t be serious…” Yu sounds tired. “We’ll have to get past her..”

Chie laughs. “Hey Akechi did say it’s only a cognition thing, so don’t get cold feet boys! Ohhh I am so getting front row seats to this.”

Ann laughs as she starts to shove Ryuji, Ren, Yosuke and Akechi. “You four go as well~”

Yukari playfully winks. “You three might actually succeed this time. Good luuck~”

Ken starts to object. “Hey! Why am I being roped into this too?! I was too young to have been apart of it before!”

Teddie starts to slowly sneak away, only for Naoto to grab him by the hand.

“Morgana, Koromaru and Adachi each have an excuse, but you don’t. The better the numbers, the greater the chance of success. Go help.” 

Teddie lowers his head. “Why must I be cursed with good looks?”

Persona Training Center, TV World

Ai finally wakes up, her eyes fluttering open only to meet Kou’s again. She realizes she had fallen asleep on his shoulder and jolts up.

“Ah! I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to…”

Kou shakes his head, smiling. “It’s alright, you were tired from all of that excitement. No one would blame you.”

Ai smiles a bit, nodding slowly. “Thanks then…so, where did they go? It’s awfully quiet in here…” 

“They headed out to save the next victim, apparently.” Daisuke says, walking out from the restroom. 

“So…they really are out saving people. But those…freakish monsters! How are they dealing with them all?” The Moon holder looks to the floor. “They took so many people, and they’re just putting themselves in danger…”

“Well, I think it’s because of those powers they have.” Kou looks to the ceiling. “Persona..I think it’s called. All of them have it, and it makes fighting those freaks easy.”

“Per..sona? Sounds like some dumb fantasy mubo jumbo…” The curly haired girl shakes her head. “But all of them you say? That means…even Chie?” 

Kou and Daisuke both nod, and Ai seems a bit more hurt by that response. 

“Just another thing I have to compete with…if at all…” She mutters under her breath. 

Kou then sighs. “But yeah, who’d think that this is the big secret Yu and his pals were hiding this whole time. The whole group is out of our league…”

Hearing him say that, Ai has a bit more hope. She nods a bit, which Daisuke notices but says nothing to acknowledge it. 

“So you’re giving up on what you said before, man?” Daisuke asks casually. 

“Possibly..right now, I don’t know if I can compete with this kind of secret life…” The blue haired young man shakes his head. “No, I don’t think I can at all.”

“Well, there’s always more people out there for you.” Ai says quietly. If Kou heard or not, she’s unaware. 

Back in The Hollow Forest

The girls are having trouble trying to get the guys to go over to cognitive Kashiwagi. 

“Come on, don’t be such a baby! It’s basically a shadow!” Chie yells, trying her best to shove Yosuke. 

“I don’t care what the hell it is! I’m not dealing with this!” He barks back. 

“This is revenge for that swimsuit contest! Now you can see how we felt!” Yukiko states, trying to push Yu.

“Wasn’t the cross-dressing contest enough of a punishment? This is a straight up death sentence!” Yu responds.

Ryuji looks to Morgana for any form of assistance, but he’s greeted only by a shit eating grin. 

“Damnit Mona! This would be a good time to help us!” He pleads.

“Help? Last I checked, you had a second reason for that plan in the Palace in motion, so seeing this go through is good enough punishment.” The cat laughs.

The guys all sigh, seems they’re not getting out of this whatsoever.

[toloveawarlord]

The Art of Love and War (Chapter 3)

Mei Akechi (1 month before the incident)

                Everything is a secret.

              That’s the first lesson my sister and I had to master. Never let anyone see what your true intentions are. Be in control of the situation always, even if you must pretend like you aren’t. It had been a difficult lesson to learn, and only in the last year had we been able to put our skills to the test. Father had so many secrets, it would take a long time to uncover them all, but we were being allowed to see the darker side of being a Warlord.

              While I played the role of friend to Nadia and the other Warlords daughters, there was a part of me that couldn’t trust them. Father had a lot going on, both as a vassal to Nobunaga, and his own ventures that were secret. If things ever went south between our family and the Oda’s, we were to make it a point to always be able to cut ties with them easily. Being too emotionally involved would affect my acting. Mai, on the other hand, had made her connections with the Uesugai forces.

              “Mei, are you listening?” Father asked, turning his attention away from my twin. His calculating eyes found mine and they narrowed. It was apparent that I had not been listening. “You’d do well to pay attention, as I will need you to get as much information from Natsu and Hikaru when we arrive at Honno-ji.”

              That’s right. An assassination attempt would be made tonight on Nobunaga and Nadia. That’s why we were going, to see how it played out. One of Father’s informants had sent word to him about it and we’d been preparing to go there all day. I nodded my head. “I’ll do better,” I replied, twisting a piece of hair between my fingers. Oops.

              Pleased with my answer, Father returned his attention to the path ahead of us. “Mai, I would like for you to deliver a message to Shingen. It’s rumored that he is also in the area, with Kenshin and Yukimura. Mei will make an excuse for your absence.” He fell silent, awaiting my quick reply.

              “Lost in the woods.” The words tumbled out of my mouth without much thought.

              Father gave me a strange look, but Mai piped up just in time. “That’s right! I’m not too good with navigating alone.” She gave me a big smile, but it wasn’t real.

              A moment silence passed but Father nodded his head, approving of the excuse. “I’ll send someone to look for you, maybe that Toyotomi boy. If I were to send Mei, that would be much too suspicious. Well then, it seems we have our stage set for the night. Mei,” Father said, turning his gaze on me once more. “Do not mess this up for your sister.” To anyone listening, it sounded like a piece of advice, but I knew it was a threat. Mai had always been the favorite.

              Mai turned her horse to go off toward the location of where she believed Kenshin would be. To the Oda clan, Mai seemed like the scared one, nervous and honest. But I knew. She was cunning and smart, easily slipping into places and conversations and being completely natural. Mai is terrifyingly good at what she does, just like our father.

              I, on the other hand, had to work much harder to keep my act together. Though we were supposed to keep all our friends at arm’s length, I couldn’t keep that line clear. It’s hard not to care about people you were raised with, like Hikaru, Mari and Iri. The four of us had been together for years, except Iri had moved on to doing Natsu’s bidding, but she had her reasons. Still, out of all the kids, I felt closest to her.

              Arriving at Honno-ji, the monk’s temple had smoke rising from the ashes, but it seemed like all the flames had been extinguished. Those were Hideyoshi’s men around, but I don’t see him, or Hikaru, or Natsu, who had all been out campaigning together. Then that must mean… “Mistunari is here,” I mumbled slightly annoyed. Minori is never any help when it comes to information.

              “Yes, I agree with that deduction,” Father replied.

              Hopping off my horse, I followed silently behind him toward the makeshift tent. Assumingly, Nobunaga must be in there. Hadn’t Nadia been with him? The curtain whacked me in the face because I hadn’t been paying attention. Glad no one was around to see that. Surprise showed on Nobunaga’s face, clearly not expecting to see us. “Mitsuhide?”

              “I hurried here when I heard about the attack, but it seems there was nothing for me to worry about,” Father replied with a sly smile. Did we have something to do with this? I wouldn’t think so… but who knows? He never tells me anything.

              Nobunaga laughed and leaned back in the chair he was sitting in. “You, worry? Don’t make me laugh. I’ve never even seen you sweat.”

              The curtain fluttered as Hideyoshi rushed in, followed by his son, Hikaru, and Natsu. “Lord Nobunaga, are you injured?” Concern was written on his features.

              Nobunaga sighed. “The only injury I suffer is to my pride in letting my assailant escape.”

              Hikaru’s eyes narrowed at me and my father. “What are you doing here? I don’t remember you telling me you were going to Kyoto.” His question was directed at me, suspicious like his father.

              I shrugged my shoulders with a smile. “I don’t remember you being my keeper, Hikaru.” The comment got under his skin. I might not be as good as Mai but watching Hikaru react to my vague answer was quite entertaining and easy to accomplish.

              Natsu grabbed his arm, shaking his head. Shooting a glance at the adults who were arguing about the same topic, he lowered his voice. “Let’s talk somewhere else.” It was clear who was the more powerful boy right now. Hikaru listened to Natsu in the same way Hideyoshi listened to Nobunaga. It was kind of endearing, being that loyal to someone.

              The three of us left the tent and Natsu led us to a quiet place away from the adults. He folded his arms, turning his eyes on me. “Where’s Mai? It’s unusual for her not be around.”

              Here’s the part where I can’t screw up. Making my eyes wide, I turned to glance around the camp. “She isn’t back yet?” Spinning back around, I sighed. “She should be back by now. I’ll have to go look for her…”

              Hikaru’s anger melted away and he scanned the edge of the woods. “Don’t tell me she’s lost again? It’s still dark out!” Mother hen began to formulate a plan. He nodded his head to his own ideas that he wasn’t saying out loud. “Mai is probably terrified right now.”

              Holding back the laughter at how easily swayed he is to a damsel in distress, I nodded in agreement. “I know you’re mad at me for being here, but can you help me find her?” I asked, making myself look dejected. Scuffing my foot on the ground, I forced tears to my eyes by biting my tongue.

              “Hikaru is perfectly capable of finding her on his own. I need you to explain to me why you’re here,” Natsu said, clearly still suspicious. Damn this kid has changed in the last few months. Iri must be one hell of a prize if he’s changing his slacker attitude for even a chance at being with her.

              I shrugged again. “No idea. Father told us to come with him, so we did.”

              Hikaru narrowed his eyes again. “Do you know how suspicious you sound right now?”

              Turning my head away, I grinned. “I do know, but it’s funny watching you explode over things like this.” I twisted out of the way when he reached out to grab me. “So close, Hikaru,” I taunted, laughing at his angry expression. He reached for me again, barely missing the second time, too.

              “Come on, let’s not fight,” Minori’s soft voice broke the tension. She’s pretty clueless.

              Natsu nodded at her and asked, “Minori, how is Nadia?”

The smile never left her face. “She’s alright. A little shaken up, and her leg is injured, but overall, she’s alright.”

              Natsu nodded his head in thought. “I should go see her.”

              “That isn’t necessary, Natsu. We are leaving as soon as Masamune and Hideyoshi return with Nori. Ready your horse. Nadia will be riding with me,” Nobunaga ordered on his way past. He looked back at Hikaru. “Hikaru, accompany the in the search for Nori, I’ve been informed that Mai might be lost.”

              I nodded my head, again forcing tears to my eyes. “She is! It’s unlike her to be gone so long!”

              Hikaru turned to go to his horse. “I’ll find her, Mei. You don’t have to look so worried.” The way this boy switches emotions is unreal. It must give him a headache being so ridiculously stupid sometimes.

              Playing a game with him could be entertaining, but part of me knew that he only played along because my father was always watching. When we were alone, he was different, more brotherly and friendly. In moments like this, it was clear that he didn’t want us to be against them. Hikaru wanted to believe that Mai and I were good and allies that he could trust. Right now, I had no idea if that was even possible, because we played both sides. Would they forgive me if I betrayed them?

[randomhomosapiens]

Morning mental puzzles - part 2

Pairing : Mitsuhide × MC (is slightly different from the original MC)

Summary : MC got drunk the night before, as it happens sometimes, and one thing leading to another, she ended up finishing the night with Mitsuhisnake. Which is fine. Except. When she gets drunk, on the next day, she forgets everything, and I mean everything that has happened recently in her life. "Recently" going back to ... before she got in the Sengoku period, that is.

Words : 1 789

Tagging : @pseudofaux this took so long I'm so sorry haha

Read part 1

He smiled before calling some people (maids ?) to deliver the hot drink. She couldn't help but to secretly eye the man. His long features did nothing to tarnish the beautiful work of art that were his lashes, and while his demaneor left her a feeling of danger she couldn't quite place, he was most definitely perfect.

The most tiny tinge of pride swelled in her chest. Calm down, brain. Gotta retrieve those memories.

She shook her head and lightly tapped her cheeks, jumping up and down on the futon in a valiant attempt at a warm-up. She then turned her eyes to the bundle of clothes in the man's grip. She grabbed it with two fingers, eyeing it suspiciously until she noticed the peculiar seam on the lining of the sleeve.

Oh. She smiled. She usually didn't sew for herself, but that was unquestionably of her making. She brought it to her nose to inhale it.

Gun powder. Sake. It smelled just like him. But also ... spices ? Grilled meat ?

Pictures flashed in her mind at the scent. An unique blue-hued eye, a devastatingly inviting smile, a wet sketch of her doing, a pair of silver scissors cutting a piece of blue fabric, a sword hilt, the flash of an iron blade ... Yeah ... She wasn't sure she wanted to look more into those memories.

She shrugged it all off and slid into the kimono. The softness of the fabric made her shiver. I did a really good job with this one.

Meanwhile, he was still observing her with a smile.

She looked suspiciously at him and confirmed in the safety of her mind that he was no angel. Nope. Not an ounce of innocence leaked from him.

The gorgeously dangerous (or more like dangerously gorgeous) man still insisted to star at her with this thin, mischievously venomous smile, something that moved things in her belly for reasons she couldn't explain.

Dangerous men had always attracted her but that one, she felt, was on a whole new level of suspicious-aura-emission. And- well, she already attracted enough trouble on her own without dipping into crazy stuff like yakuza dating or god knew what else.

If she really had been living in the ... the past ... for two- two!- wholly full months ... which was hard to believe to begin with (yet she somehow felt it was true) ... then who knew what could happen to her ? She did a quick calculation and determined she had landed in the warring states period. Great. How very safe. As for the location ... he had mentioned a shrine ..?

Honno- Ji, huh ? ... Wait ... Honno-Ji ... burning shrine ... 1582 ... saving someone's life ... Lord and ruler...

"-Holy socks ! I didn't save Oda Nobunaga from that fire, didn't I ? He's dead, right ?" she practically begged.

"- Oh, did you get those memories back ? That went quicker than I expected.

- Nah, I still need caffeine for that. But ! Did I really saved him ?" she pleaded with puppy eyes.

"-I am afraid you did.

- Oh, great", she dropped, rolling her eyes and raising her arms in resignation. "Of all the people to stumble on in this time period I had to meet THAT ONE. I mean, there's got to be a good thousand souls just 3 miles around, right ? But noooooo, I had to go and save the one that wasn't meant to live. God, ain't I the lucky one, what did I do to deserve this ?”, she pestered. “Wait. I didn't alterate anything in the future, right ? Oh, good gracious, am I even real ?"

She scanned herself, turning around on the spot, seeking any traces of a starting disappearance. She mumbled something about “Marty" getting transparent after messing with his parents' meeting in the past.

"- All clear", she sighed in relief as she didn't noticed anything odd with her skin tone.

"- Are you done ? Tea is ready."

She pulled out her tongue but settled at the table by him, gathering expertly her hair in a loose high bun.

"-I guess tea's as good as coffee for bad mornings", she shrugged while taking a sip. "Oooh. It's good! I'm usually not a tea person but I could get used to that ! Thanks, mister whatever-your-name-may-be.

- My pleasure. Oh, but where are my manners ? My name is Akechi Mitsuhide, senior retainer of Oda Nobunaga. Honoured to make your acquaintance. Again."

He chuckled lightly. She got the weird impression the joke was on her. But she knew that name. Not only had she heard it from Taikutsu-sensei's mouth, her late history teacher, but she was familiar with it. His face, voice, demeanor and now, she realised, his name.

"- ... M-mi-tsu ..?"

The nickname escaped her lips as she squinted her eyes, lost into her thoughts. She lightly moved her head to the side while observing his figure.

"- So", she went on, gathering herself again, "you're nobility. Isn't it comfy” she snickered. “And how, in the seven hells, did I end up with you ? Not only are you the shadiest guy I've met (also the hottest but that's a whole other story all together), and I've met my bunch of shady guys, you're Akechi Mitsuhide, someone who, if I have to believe my old history books, isn't the most reliable individual of the time period", she said, raising an accusing index. "Someone. I. Should. Avoid. I know, I'm not good at avoiding bad guys, but I must admit I disappoint myself on this one.

- How rude."

Mitsuhide's smile was still on, but his eyes had frozen. At this sight, something in her head, a voice, shrieked that she was wrong, wrong, wrong, he wasn't bad, he had a beautiful soul.

She found it hard to believe in, even considering it was her own thoughts. But there again, she had never been the most liable person on Earth. So why should she trust herself ?

Yet, she felt, in the distant haze of her mind, a soft laugh more affectionate than she had ever heard, a brush of lips lighter than a feather, words of love warmer than the brightest star.

She stole a sideways glance at his face resting in his palm. The smirk. Ugh. Ugh. She had sighed two times inside the privacy of her head and that was no good. She was also pretty sure the second was italicized. Why was she like this when she was drunk ? What had she done ? Why was she like this on the mornings ? Though it usually wasn't as strange. But the feeling of being back at home but not quite hit her with more strength than she calculated. It was like being stripped between two worlds, but not belonging in any of them. Like adding melted chocolate to your milk but you don't like milk chocolate.

She took another sip of tea. The fog was still not dispersing.

And he didn't seem like initiating the conversation.

"Talk to me”, she let slip out of nowhere when she figured she couldn't handle the silence anymore.  

“- Why.

- Cold. But I actually have a reason beside the awkwardness of the silence, and which I am going to find before finishing this sentence and - … there it is : it will help me retrieve my lost memories with a shorter delay" she said without helping but taking a haughty butler’s voice.

The familiar headache was pointing in her forehead.

" - That seems like a fair and thoroughly thought reason enough. Um. Alright. If you promise to become my slave in exchange for your life, I could tell you about the latest plot to take Milord's life.

- Boring. I read about it in my middle school books.

- ... Which I am not involved in.

- Oh. By all means, carry on.

- No, I'll pass. Was it surprise in your voice ?

- No ... Yes."

~

He was too afraid to discover that she knew everything about the future attempts on his Lord's life to tell her, but also wise enough not to say it aloud. For some reasons, this morning, his teasing rebounded against her like flat rocks on water.

"- You could talk about you and me. Are we married ? That would be awesome, I always wanted to be some kind of Lady. Powerful, you know, but not too girly, because I wouldn't have time for it, I'd be like a stone cold ice statue of sarcasm. Haughty and sneery and salty. Sorry. I went too far." She was surprisingly open about herself. He didn't know she had ever been this outspoken. The shy yet strong woman he found in this burning building had more layers than expected. He couldn't help but be a bit shocked at this sudden change, and he was trying hard not to dwell on it. She had always been a different woman, that he knew. Still, he didn't recall her being so boldly and openly impudent before.

~

She was waiting for a clever answer that wasn't coming. She liked this aspect of him; he was like the embodiment of bitterness, a trait she had never seen as emphasized in a man before. She didn't dislike it. But he was silent. Almost thoughtful. With clouds swirling like a brewing storm behind his eyes.

"Oh, why, I can talk about this, Princess. In all honesty, your quite the little bundle of trouble. You're making it so easy to use you it's almost funny, really. At first, you were such a handful. Entertaining, certainly, but tiring in a way. Like a pet. Yet, I couldn't imagine being apart from you, by now. Though you'd benefit in staying away. Alas, I am a selfish man, with selfish desires. "

His lips fluttered in a sad smile, the gesture finally reaching his eyes. The look of fondness his golden gaze displayed caught her off guard.

Oh.

She remained silent, truly stunned for the first time since she woke up. He had managed to avoid speaking words of affection with precision and to brush the rest off with a light, joking tone but the global idea was very much clear.

That man was in love with her. That was slightly panicking. And also sweet. Like a warm bath. Soapy and foaming. Wrapping around her, sharing its warmth with her body.

She didn't know how to react.

"- Oh. Right."

That was the worst answer to a declaration of love, ever, even with the excuse of the vagueness of the said declaration.

She didn't really feel guilty. He didn't resent her. Hopefully.

But now, she didn't know what to do. She had never been good at dealing with emotions. Time travel was a pain, but romantic intrigues in the past may just revel to be the level above. The whole situation was getting out of control.

She feigned another gulp of tea but there was really nothing left in the cup.

Note : I have no idea where this is going. Either way, Part 3's coming up eventually (when and if I ever get through those damn final exams unscathed)

[ikeromantic]

Trust

A Mitsuhide Akechi fanfiction, approx. 2200 words. This scene takes place toward the end of Ch. 13 of the Romantic Route. SPOILERS!

First: Mitsuhide and the Maiden

Previous: Base Villains

Mitsuhide felt a surge of incoherent rage. His beloved little mouse stood beside the shogun, her arm in his iron-grip. Her face was bruised - and likely more of her that he couldn’t see. Her clothes were torn and bloody. If Ashikaga thought this would bring him mercy, he was badly mistaken.

She turned her eyes from the shogun to look at Mitsuhide. There was a world of hurt in that gaze, but strength too. Despite all she’d suffered, she was angry and determined. There was even a flare of joy in her at seeing him.

“You base villains,” Ashikaga shrieked. He waved the guards to attack, but the daimyo’s men didn’t move.

Motonari ignored the shogun completely. He gave the chatelaine a saucy grin. “Hey! Yer lookin’ pretty good fer a prisoner, m’lady!” He even dipped in a slight bow to her, though the effect was somewhat lacking given the blood spatter and gore on him.

“I’m sorry to keep you waiting, my love.” Mitsuhide took a step toward her.

She smiled, though the expression clearly caused her pain. “I knew you’d come.”

“I hoped you would say that, which is why I endeavored to come just as you needed me.” Mitsuhide couldn’t help the genuine affection that colored his voice when he spoke to her. He was still angry - still planning to tear the shogun’s body into pieces - but that rage burned right beside the fires of his love. One did not contradict the other. He knew he didn’t need to gentle himself for her. “I will have you free and in my arms in a moment.”

“Guards!” Ashikaga shrieked, his voice cutting through the nearby sounds of battle. He was not a man that liked being ignored.

The door of the side room burst open, spilling the shogun’s personal guards into the room. Where the daimyo’s men would not obey, these men were eager to do as ordered. There were only four of them, and at least one looked as if he was already half-dead.

“I expected more from you, Yoshiaki. It seems your popularity has taken a plunge.” Mitsuhide lifted his sword, ready to fight.

Motonari laughed. “Aww, if I’da known you were so hard-up fer help, I might not a’ betrayed ya so quick.”

The shogun’s face flushed crimson and he shook with anger. “You - you fools think to mock me? Know your position!” He jerked the chatelaine in front of him. “Besides, I have a hostage. You are mad to go against me!”

“I am quite sane, I assure you,” Mitsuhide’s eyes narrowed. The shogun clearly wasn’t. Mitsuhide was willing to kill a man for making his little one cry. For this . . . death was too easy. “Yoshiaki, this world has moved on. It has no more need for men like you. Because you fail to grasp this, I have come to assist you off the stage myself.”

The shogun’s eyes were wide, though with fear or anger, it was impossible to say. “Insolence! Make your jokes while you have breath for them.” Then he smiled and pulled a dagger from his belt. He pressed the sharp edge to the chatelaine’s throat.

She gasped and froze.

Behind them, one of the servants - no, Mitsuhide realized - Kyubei! - began to step forward. Mitsuhide gave the barest shake of his head. An attack now would mean death for his little mouse. The right moment would come.

“See they do not approach me,” Ashikaga ordered his men.

The half-dead looking guard bowed to the shogun. “As you command, majesty.” Then he turned his gaze to the intruders. Mitsuhide saw in them the fires of fanaticism, and the darkness of death approaching. This man had no fear, not anymore. He pulled a long sword and held it up. “I sentence you to death, kitsune. It is too light a punishment for turning on the shogun, but it is the best I can mete out.”

Motonari gave an excited shout. “Hell yes! Looks like one o’ yer men has got some backbone!”

Yoshiaki hissed something to the chatelaine and then pulled her to the corner of the room.

“I’ll take the room. You can have the shogun.” Motonari didn’t wait for a reply, just charged forward. He was immediately met by the half-dead fanatic, who despite his wounds, was clearly the best of the remaining fighters. “Let’s have us some fun!”

“This will be no game,” the fanatic’s expression was grim.

They exchanged blows, their blades screeching as they met again and again.

Mitsuhide shook his head. Mouri was mad, but at least that had its usefulness. At least this provided him an opening. He dodged past the remaining guards toward the shogun.

“You rush to your end,” Yoshiaki shouted. He pushed past the doors to a small balcony. It was a bare ledge with no railings. Below, the battle was slowing as men died or surrendered. Their cries were carried up to the tenshu on the cold night air.

The chatelaine went with him, the dagger still on her throat kept her still and compliant.

“If you so much as twitch, I’ll throw you to your death,” the shogun hissed at her.

Mitsuhide sheathed his sword and pulled the matchlock from his back. There wasn’t enough space on that narrow ledge to fight. In this, the tanegashima was a better choice. If his aim held true. He checked the load and primed it to fire. Then he pointed it at the shogun. “Do not move.”

The shogun pressed his knife hard against the chatelaine’s throat, drawing a thin line of blood. “It is you who should be careful of his movements.” He grinned, already feeling he’d won. “Now lower your rifle.”

“You can only kill her once, Yoshiaki.”

“Disarm yourself and kneel, kitsune! Do it, or I will kill her!”

Despite his words, Mitsuhide was terrified. Seeing the blood on her neck only drove home the very real possibility that she would die here, now. He would still finish his mission. The shogun would die. But his little one . . . The thought froze his limbs and stopped his heart. He told himself that Ashikaga would kill her anyway, even if he dropped the gun and knelt. Yet . . . if there was a chance that he would let her go . . .

Seeing Mitsuhide’s conflict, Yoshiaki’s smile widened. “Call off your troops and I will let the girl live. Do it, and I may even forgive you for turning against me.”

Mitsuhide didn’t move.

“Now, or must I say it louder?!”

He ignored the shogun and studied the face of his beloved little one. She saw the decision he had to make. And she understood. Without moving, she gifted him her trust. His little mouse knew the risk he was about to take and accepted it, as he must. Her bravery made his chest hurt and his throat close. But he could only honor it now by taking action.

As Mitsuhide took aim, the chatelaine lifted her hands and in a practiced motion, grabbed the shogun’s knife arm. “Now,” she shouted. She had only seconds that she could hold Ashikaga at bay.

Mitsuhide sent a prayer to whatever gods or devils may be listening, and he pulled the trigger.

The moment stretched. He saw the powder light, heard the explosion of the bullet as it left the barrel. Watched Ashikaga’s ribs buckle under the impact, and his blood stained the cloth around the wound.

“What?” The shogun looked down at himself in confusion. His grip on the knife loosened. The blade fell to the ground.

The messenger stopped fighting Motonari in the room behind them and flung himself toward Mitsuhide. There was death in his eyes. He knew he couldn’t survive this attack, but he was determined to avenge the shogun as his last living act.

Kyubei lunged forward, putting himself between Mitsuhide and the nearly dead warrior. His sword took the man in his gut, stopping him before he could so much as breathe on Akechi. The hate in the messenger’s eyes burned to emptiness as his life-blood spilled. Kyubei watched impassively until he was sure the man was really dead.

“Nice kill,” Motonari remarked. “Who’re you?”

“No one.” Kyubei gave a half smile and pulled his sword free.

Mitsuhide spared a moment to clap him on the shoulder. Their eyes met. There was much to discuss, of course, but it could wait. The shogun was dead, the chatelaine was alright, and there were yet plans to put in motion.

“Mouri, go make sure Kennyo isn’t overwhelmed. There is still fighting on the grounds below us. Everything must be calm before the shogun arrives.”

“Yer losin’ yer mind, kitsune. The shogun’s right there.” Mouri’s eyes narrowed as Yoshiaki staggered to the edge of the narrow ledge. His legs shook. His chest spasmed as he gasped for air. And then, Yoshiaki Ashikaga fell.

Mitsuhide closed the distance between him and his little mouse. He pulled her tight against him. “You are alright.”

“I know.” She snuggled closer.

“Guess I’ll leave ya two lovebirds and go see to Kennyo,” Motonari said gruffly. “Ya did good princess.”

She didn’t look up to watch him go, though Mitsuhide’s eyes followed the pirate until he was gone from sight. Then his attention was back on his little one. Her deep, shaking breaths slowed and steadied. “I hope one day, awful things like this don’t have to happen anymore.”

“As do I.” He stroked her back gently. He had wanted to insulate her from this. To protect her. But his little mouse was strong enough to see death and recover from it. She’d proven herself yet again to be his match. Here she was, injured and in shock, yet she still held strength. Though he hadn’t believed he could love her more, he felt a surge of affection for this strange, sweet woman.

A dry cough from the room behind them eventually broke their moment of peace. Kyubei, still dressed as one of the daimyo’s servants, stood beside . . . Ashikaga Yoshiaki. Or, his replacement.

“Sorry to interrupt. I was just wondering when you’d clear this place out. My room is a mess!” The shogun wrinkled his nose in distaste.

Kyubei nudged him. “The shogun would never apologize.”

“Ah, right. Interrupting you was an annoyance. How dare you embrace and not regard my entrance with the appropriate obeisance?” The shogun smiled.

Mitsuhide smiled back. “I see. My apologies to you then. Shall I kneel?”

The chatelaine looked down at the ground below for a moment as if to check that Ashikaga’s body was still there. Then she looked back up at his double. “You - who? No wait! You’re the scribe! We met you in Kyoto at the shogun’s estate.”

“Riku, at your service, princess.” The shogun bowed. “Ashikaga kept my service while he was in hiding here, and eventually brought me out to scribe for him. Just as Akechi suspected he would.”

“And you made contact with my spy as instructed, I see,” Mitsuhide smiled.

“I did. He told me your idea and, at first I wasn’t interested but -”

“I am very persuasive,” Kyubei grinned.

Riku, now the shogun’s double, nodded. “And the daimyo agreed to go along with it, provided his family was spared. So here we are.” He looked a little nervous.

“You will make an excellent shogun in exile,” Mitsuhide reassured him. “All you need do is enjoy the remaining wealth of the Ashikaga clan and stay out of Oda’s way.”

“I will,” Riku’s expression was determined, if a little pale. “It’s more than I ever could have hoped for as a mere scribe.”

Mitsuhide nodded. “I will leave you in Kyubei’s care for now. He will alert me if you need support.” His eyes fell to his little mouse. “I have more important tasks this day.”

He spared not a heartbeat more before lifting her into his arms. It felt like they’d been apart forever, though it was really only a few days. Mitsuhide carried her past the few lingering fights, and into one of the daimyo’s guest rooms. It was quieter here, though the smell of gunpowder and blood still hung on the air.

“I would take you to Kyoto, but first . . .” he brushed a finger along the edge of her jaw. Her cheek was swollen and bruised. “We must see to your injuries. What happened?”

She told him about her capture as he gently rubbed balm into her wounds. Mitsuhide could tell it stung - both the ointment and relating her capture. But he was proud of her for trying to outsmart Ashikaga’s man, and for fighting back.

“I am sorry I wasn’t there to protect you,” he said softly, and kissed her forehead.

She put her hand to his cheek and shook her head. “You can’t always be right beside me. I don’t expect you to be. I did my best to keep myself safe and . . . I knew if I couldn’t, that you would rescue me. And you did.”

Mitsuhide felt a sharp warmth in his eyes and realized he might cry. Her trust in him . . . he simply didn’t have words for the way it made him feel. “I love you, little one.”

“And I love you.”

Next: Tears of Joy

[ani-kiku]

Surface truths

Fandom: Persona 5 Rating: T Characters: Akechi Goro, Kurusu Akira Warnings: light swearing and some nudity but it's not graphic Words: ~1300 Summery: It's early morning at LeBlancs attic and Goro is missing his tie. Notes: This is for my friend rynpie who prompted me with "Akira fixing Goro's tie.”

Read on AO3

Socks. Pants. Shirt. Only his tie is still missing. Goro stumbles across the floor of LeBlanc's attic in search for his clothes. It's morning and sleeping here was a mistake. He's got school and although that isn't relevant for at least another two hours, it's still the only thing he tries to occupy his mind with.

Definitely not with what happened that did get him in this situation in the first place. The reason why all of his clothes got discarded and tangled up with Akira's – Kurusu-kun's he scolds himself – on this floor of an attic trash dump.

All of them it seems, besides that one item that wasn't in pile of clothes. His tie is missing and he can't find it anywhere.

Kurusu-kun seems unfazed by all of his attempts to find the missing piece. He's just sitting there on his bed with his blanket pooled around his waist and his upper body completely naked staring blankly at him. “You can stay if you like. It's still early.” He says it quietly and yet despite this the words still manage to ring way to loud in Goro's ears.

It's technically true, he has to admit and tries for a steady breath to calm himself. There is still enough time to easily make it home and then to school even if he were to stay for at least another half an hour longer but that isn't the point here.

The point is that he can't bear to stay here for even another half minute.

Kurusu-kun though must have misinterpreted his silence. “If you are worried about meeting Boss on the way out, you don't have to. He won't be here for quiet some time.”

That's not it.

“I'm sorry, Akira.” He all but smiles around the distaste that name brings to his mouth. It's not noticeable. Goro knows because no one ever did, so there really is no reason why Kurusu-kun should and he is proofed right when he finally takes a look at his face and doesn't see any signs doubt there. His smile falters a little as he continues on, trying to sound sheepish and apologetic. “As much as I want to stay with you a little longer, I can't and it's got nothing to do with Sakura-san. There is still a case file I got at home that I need to look though.”

Like always, it's all lies of cause but this time Kurusu-kun seems to have caught onto him and eyes him sceptically. “This early? Can't you do it later today?”

“I need it to be done for today. You see, I originally planed on doing it yesterday but ah... You know what happened.” Goro turns his face away and instead looks around the room. He's still missing his tie and it's the only thing he still needs before he can finally leave. So where the fuck was it? Not on the floor, not on the sofa or that sorry excuse of a desk.

“I won't say I'm sorry for that.”

“I'm not sorry for what happened either.” He starts and tries to sound reassuring as he's bracing himself for what he's about to say next. If this is what he needs to do to get out of here as fast as possible than so be it. “Say Akira, you were so eager to take my tie off of me yesterday. Do you perhaps have any idea where it might be?”

“Yeah, I might.” It earns him a smirk as Kurusu-kun throws the blanket to the side, gets up and stalks stark naked right past Goro to the stairs.

Despite all of his better attempts, Goro can feel the heat crawling onto his cheeks.

It doesn't take long for Kurusu-kun to come back with said item in hand. “I'm sorry it might have gotten a little dusty.”He says it like he really feels sorry for it, and to his credit he is trying to brush the dust off but Goro is still sure he isn't, not with that smirk still plastered all over his face.

“It's no problem. I'll make do until I get home,” and he tries to take the tie out of Kurusu-kun's hand but before he can get any chance to do so, Kurusu-kun takes a step back and holds it out of his reach.

“Wait a second. If I have to let you go now, at least let me do this,” and with that he puts it around his neck, pulling Goro close as he slowly ties it together.

Kurusu-kuns fingers are warm and his touches soft.

It makes Goro choke on his breath as much as it lets unwelcome memories enter his mind. Because this exactly is what had gotten him in this situation to begin with. Soft touches, sweet kisses that led to even more kisses and touches that weren't so soft or sweet anymore…

And in a way, it is also alright because this is exactly what he needs. He needs Akiras – Kurusu-kun's – trust, if he wants go through with what he's been planning for years. What he's made sacrifices for, killed people for...

“There. All done.” Abruptly he's woken out of his reverie by a voice that's way to close for comfort and a forehead that's pressed to his own. “Be careful on your way home, alright?”

Goro can feel his breath on lips, warm and alive, and steels himself. He clenches, then forcefully unclenches his fist before he puts his arms around Kurusu-kun and draws him in closer. “I'll make sure of that,” and then Goro closes the little distance that's still between them and kisses him.

It takes a moment for Kurusu-kun to kiss him back but when he does, there is that feeling of want and need again and it makes Goro moan and think of what could happen, if he were stay for even tiniest bit longer.

So he pushes him away and thinks about how heavy his own arms feel.

“I'm sorry Akira but I really have to go now.” He smiles, then turns away to the stairs as fast as the laws of politeness allow him to.

“You gotta wait for me though!”

Goro abruptly comes to a halt. “Why? What else could there be?”

“Ah, it's nothing..” Kurusu-kun laughs and Goro can hear footsteps and then the shuffling of clothes from across the room. “I need to unlock the door for you and I can't hardly go down there as I am now, can I? And besides Boss would roast me, if he knew...”

Goro just groans.

It's only when Goro is on the train on his ride home and he sees his own reflection in one of the windows that he notices it.

His tie doesn't look like it's supposed to.

There is still a little dust clinging to it's edges and although that alone is enough to make him tense up, it's not what actually caught his attention.

His tie isn't tied in way that he's used to. In fact, it's got a weird angle to the side and it's just so sloppily and poorly knit together, he would be embarrassed of himself if he were to ever set a foot outside looking like he does now.

Except this is what he just did.

I don't need this, he thinks as he squints his eyes shut and hastily grabs for the offending piece of clothing to pull it off. Better to be without one than with one tied together by an amateur.

He doesn't need any of this. Not wrongly knitted ties covered with attic dust, which he also currently tries to brush off as best as he can. Or said amateuers warm touches as he does his poor mans work.

He'll just have to live with feeling naked and incomplete without them.

For now.

Because he still needs to take down Shidou. And for that he needs Akira's trust. It's the only reason, really.

[ryntaia]

Is it bad I want to read a drabble about the headcanon where Goro and Futaba are half sibling and they find out about it? (Can I just say that I love your writing? ;w; )

Pfft anon I think about this headcanon non-stop, of course you can have Sibtaba and BroGoro drabbles. 

/cracks knuckles 

hooboy okay let’s break out the Oniichan. Also, I hope you guys don’t mind the name I gave Akechi’s mom. She needed some name and this was the placeholder one I’d been using for a while. 

EDIT: Fixed some issues with this one. I hadn’t realized that my strike outs had not transferred over when pasted, so Shido’s letter turned into a rambling mess. It still is (purposefully) but its a little closer to what I intended now. Sorry about that confusion. 

           She poked that box with her toe, she ran her hands across the cardboard surface, she even drew on it once or twice…but Futaba Sakura did not even think about opening it for what had to be a month.

           It was understandable. When the plain box had arrived as Leblanc, return address of Masayoshi Shido hastily scribbled on the side, Futaba and Sojiro were close to flipping a coin on whether or not to keep it. Her legal guardian had wanted to throw it out into the trash immediately—if it hadn’t of been for the last few months, the redhead hacker would’ve sided with him immediately. Instead the box had been stashed up where she didn’t have to look at it all time: Akira’s room in Leblanc.

           She couldn’t avoid it forever, though. Even if she didn’t want to face the man who had been responsible for her mother’s death, well, she had managed to face the teenager who had actually done the deed. She was nowhere near what could be called ‘close’ to Goro Akechi, but she had faced him head on when the brunette had been dragged back into the world of the living. They didn’t talk much and Akechi typically left the attic when Futaba or any of Akira’s friends were at Leblanc…Futaba didn’t know where the boy went at these times, and all Akira would tell her is that Akechi was taking a walk to clear his head.

           Which was why right now she sat on Akira’s bed with the bespectacled teen sitting across from her, and Akechi leaning against the far wall. He was like a lean cat, his figure pushed out slightly with his eyes always darting around yet never leaving his target—his prey. He kept his distance but his dark eyes always seemed circle the room right back to the box in the middle of Akira and Futaba.

           It was only fair, Akira had reasoned with her. It’s your mother, but its his father…and it’ll only be for an hour.

           God, Akira was a great guy, but sometimes he was SUCH a great guy that it drove Futaba up the wall. He would stick his neck out for anyone, even if that someone had literally pointed a gun at his head and pulled the trigger. Though she wasn’t really interested in going into the specifics of that, the looks they kept giving each other, the hours they spent alone, the…

           Lord, it was best to just not think about it.

           Instead she reached out and finally—finally—undid the string tying the box together. It was like as if each time a fold of the box fell away from its contents, the brunette seemed to slide closer behind them. Thankfully he seemed to be staying closer by Akira, but Futaba kept a watchful eye on him as she revealed Shido’s unexpected gift to them all. Which….

           …was a letter in an envelope stacked on top of a bunch of paper files.

           She groaned, slipping her fingers under the paper and ripping out the letter inside. It was a short letter, seeming like it had been written in a few minutes with no time to spare, but it had the familiar handwriting that Shido had boldly publically displayed. Here, it wasn’t so bold—despite the slapdash way it appeared to be written, there were numerous signs of eraser marks peppering the entire sheet of paper. Several bits of text were just plain crossed out. Even the signature was lopsided.

           Miss Sakura,

           Enclosed is the last of the files documents related to the use of research of acquirement of Wakaba Ishikii’s study on the cognitive psience of the Metaverse. I hope you can make use of I hope that it will benefit I’m sorry.

           Masayoshi Shido

           Futaba wrinkled her nose—she wanted to be disgusted but Akira had reminded her time and time again that before she opened the box that she would be seeing the sentiments of Shido after they had changed him. His actions before had been impure, but whether had made the choice to feel it now or not, what the letter had expressed WAS the truth the ex-politician was feeling. He was not lying, he was not trying to manipulate them, he wasn’t trying to gain anything. Even if it felt empty to Futaba…

           She shook her head and rifled through the files, throwing the letter to the side. Akira caught it and handed it up to Akechi—the brunette didn’t even bother with it, immediately tearing Shido’s words in half. Futaba absentmindedly listened as Akira admonished the detective, unwillingly to actively partake in whatever Akechi had to gain from this. Instead she tucked her red hair behind an ear, tilting one of the pictures in the box to the side curiously.

           It was a photo of her mother.

           Futaba didn’t have many photos of her mother. They had all been confiscated by the men in suits, she assumed because they thought any one of the pictures could hold a secret. The only picture she had managed to keep had been an old picture from when Futaba was first born, with her mother standing next to her crib with a tired smile on her face. She wore a lab coat in that picture, hanging heavily on her burdened shoulders and covering up her sleek black dress. Futaba couldn’t remember seeing her mother in that labcoat very often; Wakaba had not worn it at the house very much.

           Yet in the picture she held, her mother wore that exact same labcoat.

           She was standing in front of a nondescript clinical building with a smile on her face and a clipboard in hand. To her left stood a brunette woman who looked almost vaguely familiar, thick hair tied into a braid that ran over her shoulder. She had the same tired eyes that Futaba could remember her mother having, yet she worn no lab coat. Instead she wore what seemed to be a light green hospital gown. She stood against the far side of the picture, and from it she could see a hand resting on her shoulder. It wore an unmistakably garish gold ring on the pointer finger.

           She tossed it to the side; it was caught by Akira, who showed it to Akechi. The detective seemed thrown off, almost frazzled, for a moment. Futaba did not stop to ask why—the picture under it grabbed her attention far more. It was the same woman with the brown hair, only this time she was standing aside Masayoshi Shido—who was blocking his face from the camera with his hand. But his unmistakable scowl and goatee were still apparent through his fingers, the sheen of his orange lens reflecting off the camera lid. The woman still looked very tired.

           “Give me that.”

           Futaba shifted backwards as Akechi snapped up the photo from her, revealing the one underneath it—the brunette woman, eyes sad and smile barely managing to stay afloat as she sat on a chair. Wakaba was standing behind her with a similarly frazzled look on her face, trying to force a smile all the same as her painted nails gripped firmly as the back of the brunette woman’s chair. There was an unmistakable swell at the stomach of the unknown woman; her thin hand seemed to be lain across the green fabric.

           She let the photo fall out of her hands to the side; the only photo left was an oddly distinct photo of Masayoshi Shido on his own. It almost looked like a driver’s license photo. His mocha eyes stared straight ahead, and for a moment, it almost drew a feeling of fear out of Futaba. Quickly she shook her head and focused in on the photo—there had to be SOMETHING in it that would tell her something. But she couldn’t find it, couldn’t figure out what had possessed her mother to have this odd photo of Masayoshi Shido. It fell to the side as she ruffled through the papers—the only photo of the four that Akechi hadn’t taken to stare oddly at. The redhead wasn’t going to bother to ask. Instead she pulled out what looked to be a pair of hospital admittance papers.

           The top one was her mother’s admittance to deliver Futaba. The second…seemed to be the admittance of another pregnant woman, two years prior to Wakaba’s. She scanned the file, but her eyes caught on the name. Slowly, almost disbelieving, Futaba lowered the paper to stare blankly at the brunette detective gazing almost longingly at the photographs that she had thrown to the side.

           Akane Akechi.

           “Why are these files together…? Mom knew…?” She mused to herself, placing them each aside each other to study the documents thoroughly. While she examined them, Akira rifled through the box between them. Before she could think any further into it, a folded and yellowed piece of paper dropped on top of it. Futaba looked up at Akira questioningly; his hand laid on her shoulder immediately after giving her what he had found.

           “The only thing that matters is you. Not them.”

Birth Certificate – Futaba Isshiki

           Mother – Wakaba Isshiki

           Father – Masayoshi Shido

           Futaba’s head reeled as she tumbled backwards away from the box, legs furiously pushing her body against the wall. Her eyes stared out at figures she couldn’t truly see, her eyes blurred by confusion and distress and her ears blinded by the dull hiss of a scream bubbling in the back of her throat. Her hands couldn’t find a place to stay, couldn’t find a way to hold herself up as she sunk deeper towards the ground. She could only see the blurred shapes of Akira handing Akechi the paper and the both of them swooping down by her.

           It made her want to scream; instead, when she tried, she found herself with a mouthful of water. The hacker coughed loudly, realizing she had been hyperventilating as her mind screeched at her the implications of what Shido could’ve done to her mother, how this possibly could’ve happened, how even when she had been a product of the worst aspect of Wakaba’s life, Wakaba had still managed to love her so dearly despite her hard work masking it…

           She looked up from the glass in her hand to stare at the two boys hovering above her; Akechi immediately slid back away from her. But before he could get away, the hacker’s precise fingers shot out to grab him by the tie and dragged him back in, knocking the glass of water in his hands to the ground as he was brought face to face with the redhead. Akira watched carefully from a distance, one hand cautiously raised if he needed to intervene. Futaba already knew he didn’t have to; she just lifted her chin to meet her mocha brown eyes with Akechi’s dark brown ones.

           It was always in our eyes, wasn’t it.

           “I think I just might be starting to understand you a little more…” She whispered. Her throat felt like it had been clawed apart. “…brother.”

           And behind them both, scattered pictures of two women—one with short black hair and sharp eyes, another with long brown hair and a tired smile—stood alongside a menacing picture of Masayoshi Shido.