Author's Notes: So, this was a 10 Songs Challenge I decided to write. In the beginning it was only going to be about Persona 5, and then it somehow became focused on Akira and Akechi. Happens. They are somehow my favorite characters. So, the names before the stories are the songs I used to write each part (and it's artist). The 8th is the only one I'm uncertain about, at least, so all things considered, I think I'm okay with Lunacy.

. . .

Angel with a shotgun (The Cab)

Akira sometimes had trouble identifying who was in the wrong. Some were pretty straight forward, easy targets. Kamoshida was a shitty person who took advantage of students. Madarame plagiarized and abused his mentees. Kaneshiro was a mobster. Shido was… Shido.

Others… others were harder. Blurrier. Difficult to keep in mind why he had a knife in his hands, a gun pointed at their heads. Sometimes he would face someone like Futaba, who asked to be Changed of her own free will, too afraid of herself; haunted by the memory of a mother who had been misunderstood. Others were million of people around Tokyo, crying for help, people just like him — just like Ryuji, Ann, any of his friends. Others were… others were like Akechi.

Sometimes, Akira couldn't separate enemy from friend.

Sometimes he loved both. (Sometimes he loathed everything)

Cat and mouse (The Red Jumpsuits Apparatus)

Goro hated Akira. It was simple. Easy. The boy was just so perfect, while everything he wanted… well. Everything came with a price. Of course his prices were just too high to pay for.

(Sometimes, the price was someone's life. Sometimes…)

Akira was just a bloody menace. Smiling, cheerful, just so friendly. He would be so happy to help. He would reach out a hand to anyone, he would offer them the world, he would…

He would offer his own life for everyone.

And Goro… Goro hated that. He hated that. Hated Akira, hated his self-sacrificing nature, his martyrdom, his…

His perfectedness.

He hated Akira, because — because this was just so different. He, he wanted love. He wanted family. He wanted revenge. He gave up his life, he gave up morals, he gave up everything…

And now, someone offered their own lives for him. Why couldn't Akira have offered to live?

Beautiful Liar (Shakira & Beyoncé)

Akira smiled, empty and polite. He was okay. No, he was fine. He could laugh, he could cheer his friends, he could hang out with Ryuji, he could.

He could do things. He could live.

There was nothing wrong here. There was no slow motion on his movements. He hadn't let go yet.

(He wouldn't. He wouldn't, he told himself, frowning fiercely before laughing to Ann, because, of course I'm fine, why are you asking?)

He couldn't understand why they stared at him worriedly. Was he not smiling enough? Maybe he should go out with Yusuke next. Yusuke was simple. He just wanted a model, an inspiration. Simple. Easy.

(He was fine. There was nothing breaking inside of him. None of his calls ended up in the voicemail. He never cried to the sound of his mother and father telling him to call them later.)

(He was fine.)

(He was not a liar.)

Cry Wolf (Bebe Rexha)

Sometimes, Akira wished he had been wrong. That they had been wrong. It was obvious, it had been agreed upon by the whole goddamn team.

It was so obvious, so clear, so…

So sickeningly irrefutable.

Akira wished it was all wrong. He wished it was a mistake, just a kid crying wolf, just a red herring, just another distraction or another. He wished there was another way out of it.

Yet.

Yet, Akechi had grinned at him, just like always, white teethed and empty eyed. He had waved, and laughed, and fought with them. And then.

And then he called the cops on them. He let Akira be taken into custody. He let Akira be tortured for information.

And he came, at last. Smiling emptily, hollowly, a gun in his hands.

Why hadn't Akira been wrong, just this once?

Listen (Beyoncé)

Akechi laughed, and it might have sounded half hysterical, or that might have been the burn in the back of his throat.

He, he understood what Akechi was feeling? Really? Really?

Make him laugh.

(Make him cry, the boy inside murmured, broken.)

No one, no one, knew what he was feeling. He was his own person, with his own feelings, and no one, no one, had ever, ever, tried to listen to him before. No one had ever bothered. No one had ever…

He came here prepared to kill a person. He had killed way too many people in the way here, he had stained his hands too much for it to ever be clean anymore, but. But he had come here to complete his mission. He came here ready. He came here… He came here to find himself. He came here to find his peace. He came here to find a voice to the boy inside.

And no one would stop him.

(Not even himself.)

Pompeii (Bastille)

Akira looked up at the sky, and maybe there was a smile on his face. Maybe there was a tear on his eye.

(Maybe there was darkness in his soul. Maybe there were bones in the air. Maybe there was a voice in his mind, whispering of being one and many.)

Behind him, lost, unseen — behind him not in the physical sense, not anymore —, he left the only city he ever felt like having a home, like having a family.

Why did it feel like dying? Like he would never get it back?

He had been locked, way too many times. He was locked in his mind, in his soul, he was locked in his body. He was locked in reality. He had felt lost, before. He had felt familiarity in his prison. He did not feel familiarity here. Yet, here… here was familiar, at the same time. A hollow, familiar feeling of losing everything.

A hollow feeling of emptiness.

It felt like nothing. It felt like starting again.

It felt like he needed to go back.

Everybody wants to rule the world (Lorde)

Akechi laughed madly. Yes, yes, yes, Loki laughed in his mind with him, insane and lost and berserking. This was good. This was fine. This was him.

(Robin Hood despaired, Robin Hood reached out, Robin Hood cried.)

(Loki laughed harder, mad. Loki was everything, Loki was him. He was Loki. Who was who?)

Everything would end soon.

He would win.

He would lose.

He would rule…

(His world.)

The world, Loki murmured, high on adrenaline, and laughed.

(Death.)

Mad Hatter (Melanie Martinez)

Akira sighed, dropping his head back. They were talking. Again. They would drive him insane.

We will, one agreed, lost in the Sea of Souls, just one of the many voices in his mind, and he couldn't even differentiate them anymore. It wasn't Arsene. Who cared beyond that.

You already are, baby, another one added, giggling, and yeah, that sounded like a Pixie. Or a Succubus. Who knew.

Whatcha talking abou'? He's just perfect, another grumbled.

Yeaaaah, perfectly bunkers, the Pixie/Succubus giggled again, because she was a pain in the ass. Or. Yeah. No, not going there.

Akira rolled his eyes. Sometimes he just wished for a mute button, really. They were completely annoying. How… how troublesome.

Just, shut up, you guys, he thought at them tiredly.

They laughed.

See? I told you.

Let me tell you a secret, Akira, Arsene chipped in, and Akira could feel the smirk on his face, We are all crazy. You? You already are, as well. Because, thou art I and I am thou. Remember?

Just be glad for it, hummed a new voice, soft and whispery, all the best people are.

Smells Like Teen Spirit (Nirvana — Cover by Postmodern Jukebox)

Akechi hummed to himself, glancing at Akira from the corner of his eyes. It was just so simple… It was so easy… He could have sided Akira at any moment, could have used one of his hidden blades, or maybe his gun, and Akira would be dead in a minute, no one the wiser. All his "friends" watching, without being able to do anything, despairing uselessly. Cut the head, and the team will fall.

So easy. It was so easy it was annoying. Didn't he have any suspicion? Yet, here they were, walking side by side, part of the same team, in the dark corners of Mementos. "Training," Akira had said. As if Akechi needed any training. As if Akira himself needed any, either.

Probably just his… followers, Akechi supposed. They sucked. They were terrible.

But then, Akira was a pain in the ass. He had managed to thwart all of Akechi's plans. If only he had never interfered, he wouldn't have to die. It was a shame. Akechi supposed that, had they met each other in a different situation… weren't Akira chasing, well, Akechi… Akechi could have befriended him.

Well. It wasn't to be. Akira had decided to be a Phantom Thief. He had interfered. And now, Akechi would have to kill him to keep to his plans. It happened.

Anyway, what mattered was that the way there would be just slightly more entertaining, he supposed.

Big Girls Cry (Sia)

Akira smiled. His mother would have snapped at him, once, if he had smiled at a stranger. She would have chided him for making a pass into a girl, because he had no time for romance. She would have complained that he was too soft, that he wasn't studying hard enough, that he was out when he should be in school, or when he could be at cram school, or…

Or anything. She didn't like to give him much freedom, back in the day.

Nowadays, he had too much freedom, he supposed.

Nowadays, he called her to tell her he had aced his test, and she just.

Never took up the phone.

Nowadays, he called her to brag about being with someone, and she…

She didn't even yell at him for being wasting his time.

Nowadays, he called her for support, because he had almost died, mom, I'm scared…

And.

And maybe he was crying.

But boys do not cry, do they?

(And maybe his heart does not break)