#d. the way gale reels him in the second he's close enough to grab

[meyerlansky]

guess who can hit their target at night!

[cant-icle]

:D Thank you for answering my question!!! Okay this prompt might be a little strange and a little spooky. But what if Akira could see ghosts and the phantom thieves were literal phantoms. Akira goes to tokyo and People r cruel. But on first day at Shujin he meets a blonde kid and befriends him. Rumors about the scary transfer happen but now people also say that he goes off into corners n talks to himself.He finds the only living person at shujin who likes him isnt really a living person at all..

He says his name is Ryuji.

No one else can see him; Akira’s barely able to some days,with how translucent and wavery he looks. He stands at the stairway leadingdown to the first floor most days, shoulders against the wall and cold fire inhis eyes until Akira’s out of class. It took him three days to realize thatRyuji, as much as he wears the uniform like everyone around, probably isn’t astudent of Shujin Academy anymore.

Honestly, Akira prefers his company, even more so when Ryujishows him how to break onto the school roof. It’s less breaking than it isRyuji stepping through and fussing with the lock—the perks of being a phantom,Akira guesses. Lunches and afternoons are much more bearable with a secretplace to retreat to and a new friend to talk to.

Ironic, isn’t it, that the only person in this fucking citythat isn’t afraid of him is already dead?

Ryuji’s pretty talkative for a dead boy. He walks with alimp, and sometimes out of the corner of his eye Akira sees splashes of blooddripping down from his temple to stain his shirt. He scowls fiercely when Akiraasks about it, though, and the music Akira has playing from his phone cracklesin time with his voice when he details how Kamoshida Suguru, the gym teacher,crippled him with a blow to the leg and then, when his back was turned, whenRyuji was trying to crawl away, another to the back of his head.

He was never charged; the school passed it off as“justifiable self-defense,” and Ryuji’s been stuck haunting these effin’ hallsever since.

“He treats this place like it’s an effin’ castle and he’sthe goddamn king,” Ryuji tells him seriously, pale and washed-out in thesunlight; he’s so much easier to see indoors, but he likes it out here on theroof with Akira; Akira gets the feeling that Ryuji’s been trapped in thosehallways for longer than he wants to think about.

Sometimes they’re joined by another pair of flickeringshadows, neither ever as clear as Ryuji or as talkative—in fact, he never hearsthe black-haired one speak, and the second blonde only glares when Akira triesto address her. Ryuji tells Akira not to take it to heart—Suzui Shiho is justanother one of Kamoshida’s victims, and Takamaki Ann is tied to her like aguideline—wherever one goes, so does the other, and Shiho is stuck here untileither she’s removed or Kamoshida gets his just desserts.

Akira aches to help them. He watches them shimmer in thelight like an oil streak, watches them pass through walls and doors; if hesquints, he can almost see the moment when they fold through reality to do it.

It’s stupid, but he wonders...

The next time Ryuji passes through a closed door, Akira putshis hand on it and shoves, just lightly. Of course it doesn’t move, but Ryujipokes his head through and laughs at his efforts, making a joking grab for hishand as if to—

it connects

Akira goes straight through, wispy and insubstantial as acloud, and suddenly it’s Shujin thatlooks like an oil slick smeared across the world and Ryuji who looks solid and real and as shocked as Akira.

But then he grins with a smile full of daggers, because thepossibilities here are endless.

They test it out again; another touch from Ryuji has himshivering back onto the physical plane. They can do it three or four timesbefore Akira starts getting nauseous, and while he’s intangible, while he’s aphantom, no one can see him.

He walks through the school in wonder—almost everything ismuted but for a few people, bright and sparkling in his vision; Kawakami-senseiis one, and when he passes by her he catches an uneasy aura around her, full ofgrief and guilt. Kamoshida, on the other hand, feels neither of those things,and flares red and angry in Akira’s sight.

He doesn’t like that. Not at all, not with Ryuji behind himwith blood on his face, not with Suzui behind Takamaki, their eyes blank whitevoids, their mouths gaping snarls. There’s a bright core to Kamoshida a samethrobbing red as his aura, and something in Akira yearns to reach out and touchit.

So he does.

Kamoshida shudders at the touch, shoulders hunching in as helooks around nervously, and something flares bright-hot-angry in Akira’s veins. It’s not right, what he did, what he’sstill doing. It’s not right.

He curls his fingers around that bright hot core , and he yanks.

For an instant he can see two Kamoshidas, one solid and real, one wavering and intangible,and in that moment the three ghosts behind him strike.

Lightning crackles up and down Ryuji’s arms as he leapsforward, his fist impacting straight into the phantom-Kamoshida; Suzui andTakamaki are barely a second behind, Takamaki little more than a pillar offlames, Suzui a form barely held together with wind. They strike withconcentrated force hard enough that the tangible Kamoshida rocks back and away,Akira losing his grip on the core of Kamoshida’s being, and the phantomflickers out of existence.

That’s okay. He knows what to do now.

With Ryuji’s help and Takamaki and Suzui’s encouragement (“Callme Shiho,” Suzui murmurs to him shyly, smiling a little when Akira grins ather) he writes a card, a calling card detailing each and every one of Kamoshida’scrimes and sliding it under his office door.

He signs it, “The Phantom Thief of Hearts.”

As soon as he’s read it Ryuji grabs onto Akira, and Akiragrabs onto the core and lets Ryuji, Shiho, and Takamaki (“Ann!” she says withvicious satisfaction after she lands another blow, “I think at this point wecan go to Ann.”) get to work.

The phantom-Kamoshida is reeling by the time they’re done;the tangible Kamoshida is in tears. They leave it at that, unwilling to makehim a ghost and tie him to the school as well.

There’s an assembly three days after that. Kamoshida confesseshis crimes in front of the entire school, and that afternoon when Akira leaves,Ryuji follows like an untethered balloon grinning wide and wild and free.

  They don’t stop there.

Shiho and Ann bring him rumors of a number of ghostsspiraling endlessly around an old ramshackle house; turns out it’s the abode ofone Madarame Ichiryusai, who (according to the ghosts, who to a one arecomprised of his old students) worked his students to literal death and stoletheir works for his own. The newest ghost, a tall, stick-thin boy whointroduces himself as Kitagawa, tries to make a case for his old sensei, butfaced with Ann, who is literally steaming, and Shiho, hair tossing in an unseenbreeze in her agitation, cuts himself short.

“He killed you,”Akira tells him, not ungently, not without sympathy. “I’m not here to getrevenge on him; I’m here to bring him to justice, for you and everyone else.”

Somehow he gains another ghost tethered to him, and Yusukebrings the north wind with him, an icy, howling gale that freezes the phantom-Madaramewhere he stands when all five Phantoms appear in front of him.

Madarame confesses his guilt on live television, andattributes his change of heart to the Phantom Thieves. Rumors spring up hereand there; eventually, Akira starts seeing more and more ghosts pop up at thecorners of his eyes, though it takes a long time for one to grow bold enough toapproach him on its own.

In his spare time now he flits through the metaphysicalreality with his new friends; the ghosts come to him, and he regains justice ontheir behalf. The rumors of the Phantom Thieves grow, and grow, and grow.

In June he meets the student council president of ShujinAcademy, one Niijima Makoto, who questions him fiercely; since she can’t proveanything, she lets him go, and he thinks nothing more of it until Shiho comesto him, frantic, and tells him that Niijima has gotten in way over her headwith an actual Mafioso.

It turns out that phantoms can do a hell of a number on aroom now; Ryuji shorts out the lights in delight, making them flickerominously, while Shiho flips cups and sends papers scattering everywhere.

It turns out that Akira can pass on his intangibility; hegrabs Niijima’s arm and drags her into the metaphysical with them. It turns outto be a fantastic move, as with her help the six of them bring Kaneshiro to hisknees.

He confesses everything to the police. The name of thePhantoms grow and grow, and this time Akira gains a friend that the rest of theworld can see.

He gains another not a month later; the ghost of one IsshikiWakaba materializes in front of him outside the café one day and all butdemands his help. It’s a bit of a struggle to break into his current guardian’shouse, but well worth it when he lays his hand on Sakura Futaba’s arm and letsher reunite with her mother, at least for a few moments. Isshiki-san had beenmurdered, it turns out, and Futaba had blamed herself and shut herself away inher guilt; this meeting goes a long way towards relieving her of it, enough sothat she shows up in the café later that evening to Sakura-san’s clearsurprise.

Between Futaba and Makoto, between Ryuji and Ann and Shihoand Yusuke, Akira’s days and nights are full; he’s content, if not happy, untilhe comes across a man that sends alarm bells blaring through his skull andmakes Isshiki-san howl in a way that sends chills up his spine.

Shido Masayoshi is surrounded by the ghosts of those he haskilled; Shido Masayoshi is the reason Akira is in Tokyo in the first place, renouncedby his parents and shunted into a city he doesn’t know for a crime he didn’tcommit.

Each and every one of Shido’s ghosts has heard of Akira’scoming. Each and every ghost cannot wait to see him fall.

Akira is so, so eager to oblige them.