Chapter 10 – Decompression


Some dialogue lifted + embellished from the corresponding scenes in the game. Every single person who reviews, comments, or is gracious enough to share their personal experiences is a treasure. Stay healthy.


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He drafted up nine separate strategies to confront Shinjiro and gave up when he realized most of them boiled down to belting Shinjiro across the face. For his part Shinjiro remained conspicuously absent overnight into the next morning, unresponsive to texts and generally staying well out of striking range, which did nothing to sweeten Akihiko's mood. "He can sense your malice, you know," Mitsuru reminded him dryly, after fifteen minutes of tolerating him parking his shoulder against her doorframe to bitch at her while she unwound her curlers from her hair. "Either you want him unharmed or you want revenge, Akihiko. It can't be both."

"I don't want revenge, I just want to beat the crap out of him for being born stupid." Her nonchalance rankled him nearly as much as Shinjiro's absence. "Look, he knows I just want to figure out what's going on. It's not like him to run from a fight."

"Then perhaps you should consider approaching him as a friend rather than a combatant. Talk to him," Mitsuru interrupted when he opened his mouth hotly. "Listen for once. If anyone can turn the screws in a way that produces answers, it's you. Be patient."

Akihiko entered a bizarre mental cosmos where every constellation was shaped like a middle finger. After school he navigated by feel more than anything, chasing hunches, checking local hotspots and occasionally running up against mental bastions that threw off reflections like an empty monitor. Whenever he started to feel conciliatory enough to apologize, the image of Shinjiro's persona bending over him and throttling the scream out of him blindsided him from off-screen. It'd be one thing if it were just fear, because fear was manageable in the same way a Shadow was manageable: put it in a tight enough box with enough mental weapons pointed at it, it exploded under pressure. Information wasn't an intangible concept in Tartarus. It took shapes and grew claws and teeth and bodily came between you and the things that wanted to hurt you. Safety that exploded from a barrel of a gun.

Akihiko could feel the defenses in him start to invert the longer Shinjiro was missing. He upturned the city as they warped, pressing against his underbelly and drawing slivers of blood he could taste in his throat. He repeatedly scoured Shinjiro's old haunts and wished the fear he felt was actually fear. It was thick, acrid anger that billowed like the smoke from the windows at the orphanage.

Leave him alone. Backalley Paulownia slow-burned like a cigarette. He sat on an abandoned stoop and shut his eyes as night settled around him, running his fingers through his hair so roughly his scalp stung. He wasn't sure if it was directed towards the cosmos or himself. Leave him alone leave him alone leave him alone.


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So here was the thing about Ken.

Akihiko had weighed himself after school out of habit, jotting it down into his dog-eared notebook. He was halfway into the heart of Paulownia before he realized that he hadn't even really paid attention to the number. There was noise in his head that vaguely translated to numbers and intentions and purpose, but there were bigger parts of him anymore that operated on tangentially-related stimuli. It was only when he came into the dorm and saw Ken expressionlessly cataloguing the attendance sheet that Akihiko realized that half his beef with Shinjiro had nothing to do with Shinjiro, because half of everything Shinjiro was came down to Ken.

Akihiko had made it his business over the past few years to be at least somewhat well-adjusted to bad luck. There were things he could control and things he couldn't. Food and weight, exercise, schoolwork – all things within his power to leverage. Mistakes he'd made as a newly-minted teenager thrust into the middle of a midnight war were lower down on the list.

Akihiko tended to operate on two levels of pretty strict extremes. He expected a lot out of himself because he knew he had a deep reservoir to meet those expectations, but on the other hand he'd just recently reached the age of prefectural majority and children made stupid mistakes. When it'd been just the three of them, they'd all had an equal share of the shit-sandwich. Akihiko had had to balance brain and brawn trying to direct the flow of battle while simultaneously putting his money where his mouth was. Mitsuru had taken all the executive blame behind the scenes for Akihiko's bad calls while juggling tech support and research analysis. Shinjiro, easily the strongest of them all, had had crippling headaches and frequent fractures in still-growing bones trying to rein in his power enough to use it constructively. It'd been hard but they'd done their best. They'd worked with what they had.

The problem with Ken was that he had a century's worth of hate packed inside a ten year-old's body and there was nowhere for it to go, and increasingly, Ken and his hatred were everywhere. Akihiko had started picking up on the trend when he and Mitsuru had started guard-dogging the hospital. More often than not since their shifts had begun, Ken was the last one in the lobby at night to greet them and often the first one down the next morning despite the scant hours in between. When Akihiko no longer took Ken's evasion as an answer, Ken had said something akin to someone needs to stand guard and protect this place. Telling him that Ikutsuki kept the dorm under pretty top-tech surveillance and would be alerted to a problem before it began, Ken had responded that there were some problems that only Persona-users could attend to, which… well. He wasn't wrong, but honestly, that's what a dog was for. Koromaru's ears were plenty sharp enough to negate the need for a watch rotation, and even if they weren't, Fuuka had her mental surveillance in place to catch any lapse in technology. It was fine.

Akihiko tried and ultimately failed to constructively deal with it. Ken being everywhere wasn't strictly the problem. Ken hating everywhere was what was steadily burrowing under Akihiko's skin. Shinjiro had been in chronic pain and up to his ears in inter-cranial distractions when he'd lost his grip and killed Ken's mother. He'd shattered when Ken's mother had shattered. Akihiko had dedicated years of his life to picking up the shards, and now here was Ken, sullen and innocent and hurting and hating, trying and succeeding to make more.

Akihiko risked Mitsuru's wrath by spending the next Dark Hour on the town. He smuggled himself into an abandoned apartment complex and cast himself out for Castor as far as Polydecues' arms could reach, searching for the left arm with the right, straining to make the dots connect between constellations. More than anything, this was really about paring down and finding just exactly what it took to keep him going. It was mastering base need and replacing it with… something. It sounded stupid to say 'enlightenment'. It felt like ancient monks subsisting off dew and rice, but this was something that went deeper than sustenance. It was chasing a means to an end. It was binding up the timeline before it stretched out of his reach.

Ken was the only one up after the Dark Hour settled and Akihiko returned home. There was a textbook across his knee and a sleeping Koromaru wrapped in front of his ankles to shield them from the chill. He looked up when Akihiko came through the door, finger pausing to mark the middle of the sentence he'd been reading.

Akihiko toed off his shoes, oxygen-starved and reeling, dripping sweat and fraying from every loose end, and stood there while shapes rotated like curious birds before finally settling in his periphery.

Ken watched him from the couch. There was no expression in his eyes.

Akihiko found his breath. "Go to bed," he said, and made his way upstairs to take a shower. Midway through he opened his mouth to the spray and let the heat flood him from the inside out, and even the burn in his stomach felt like avoidance.


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The text notification went off as he was rummaging around for clean pants. The screen read: Psst.

Akihiko wavered between an intense dislike of jeans and a greater dislike for mid-week after-school laundry. Mind already ahead on the search downtown and figuring anything at this point was better than his tattletale school uniform, he settled for the lesser of two immediate evils. He plopped himself on his bed and wormed his legs inside the stiff fabric, glancing over at his bedside table when the phone buzzed again.

Hey.

It took a moment for his eyes to adjust to the angle enough to see the sender. He crinkled his nose for a moment at a pair of used socks and decided they looked worse than they smelled. Once he'd gotten them on his feet, he hiked his ankle up over his knee and rested his phone across it to type, What.

Hey kid.

What, he typed back.

Got a proposition for ya, kid.

His incredulity bubbled out of him in an unexpected laugh. Surprised by himself, Akihiko stared at the screen a moment longer before standing. To his irritation, his jeans immediately pooled around his hips, slipping to his thighs as he tried to cross the room one-handed to fish up his shirt.

Freshly exasperated, Akihiko sat again and opened his top drawer in search of a belt.

The phone buzzed. Left you a clue. Don't tell the police if you know what's good for you. I'll be long gone before they get here.

How do I know you're telling the truth, Akihiko said, because some things in the world were too funny for him to always be a humorless gargoyle.

That's just a risk you'll have to take.

Was it now. Akihiko found a belt coiled in the corner. The holes didn't go far enough to respond effectively to the crisis, so he pulled out his pocket knife and dug the tip of the blade into the leather until he'd made a slit big enough for the buckle to go through.

The phone vibrated. Come alone. I'll know if you don't. You don't want to make me angry.

And if I do?

Clock's ticking.

"You gotta be kidding me," Akihiko said aloud. He adjusted the belt a final time, then heaved himself up with the help of the table to get his shirt.

It took his eyes a moment to adjust in the relative dimness of the hallway. Blinking to speed along the process, Akihiko took a step forward out his door before stopping again immediately at the sensation of something tugging on his toe. He stooped to untangle it. A single crocheted chain of red yarn stretched from the foot of his doorway to disappear up the stairs.

Freshly incredulous, he followed it, collecting it hand over hand until he'd walked it up the flight and into the girls' wing. Yukari's door was half-ajar, CD player tuned to some pop band Akihiko didn't recognize; Fuuka's door was as always shut, but the duck-shaped welcome sign on the nail was flipped to 'Knock' instead of 'Do Not Disturb'. Looping increasingly comical amounts of yarn over his forearm, Akihiko tracked the chain all the way to the end of the hallway. Arisato's door was firmly and conspicuously closed, but a stream of light shown underneath.

He worked the lassoed end from her doorknob and held the bundle of yarn in one arm as he knocked. Right away Arisato called, "Come in,", which he felt rather ruined the mood she was going for. "Hey," Arisato said cheerily, cross-legged atop her bed. She had an array of papers on the mattress beside her, a pencil tucked in her topknot and a second one wobbling precariously behind her ear. "Sorry, it's just me. The culprit fled. I tried to snap a picture, but they escaped with the bounty."

"What was the bounty?" This was a lot of yarn. Akihiko cast about trying to figure out where to put it. He settled for draping it gingerly over her three-armed coat rack.

"As far as I can gather, at least half the produce and most of the poultry in the kitchen. Come to think of it, I'm not sure he was bipedal. He definitely hasn't shaved for at least six years. At least a little smelly."

"I didn't know Koromaru could text."

"How dare you impugn Koromaru with circumstantial evidence," Arisato said. "I could have easily just been describing Junpei. Would you close the door? I was hoping to talk with you a sec."

"What is all this?" He'd thought he'd unloaded the yarn without incident, only to find that his elbow had accidentally snagged a loop of it and half-pull it off the stand. He turned back to wind it back up again. "Tell me you didn't just do this for a comedy sketch."

"It's irresponsible of you to assume I have any sort of restraint selling my comedy, but no, not this time," Arisato said. "I've been trying to learn how to crochet with how-to videos. I can manage a chain, but as soon as I try to add anything on the side, the whole thing falls apart. I just finally gave up and stuck to a single chain. I think I've been working on that one for about two months now."

"How do you even have time for—" that was probably the wrong question. "Aren't there other videos that can show you how to make something else?"

"Yes, but they take too long," Arisato laughed, unabashed. "Crocheting to decompress is one thing – finding time for lessons is another. I like knitting too, but crochet hooks are better for things like animal ears on hats and good-luck pouches and tiny doggy socks. I can't actually make those things, but the potential is all there."

"You should've just asked me." Effectively distracted for the moment from weightier things, Akihiko managed to disentangle himself a second time and this time stepped away with hitchhikers. At her repeated prompt, he obliged her enough to close the door to a handsbreadth away from the doorframe. "I would've shown you how if I'd known you needed help."

"You crochet?"

"Sort of."

Arisato paused with her hand on her pencil. She lowered it, back straightening so she could regard him more fully.

Busy massaging the ache at the back of his neck, Akihiko turned enough to eyeball her, prepared to weather a few light-hearted jabs. Instead Arisato was quiet, waiting him out with genuine interest.

For some reason the unfamiliar sight of her so relaxed set Akihiko back on his heels. With all the attention on Chidori, Akihiko could be the first to admit that he and Mitsuru had been neglecting their roles as senior members of the dorm. The fact that the dorm itself was a front for the SEES operations didn't preclude them from doing actual resident-assist duties, like tutoring and supervising meals and making sure the others got to school on time.

For the first time, Akihiko wondered just how much weight from their absence had fallen on Arisato. Yukari's seniority had originally placed her in charge when Mitsuru was away, but months of heeding Arisato's command in Tartarus had slowly shifted the dynamic in the dorm to something a little less clear-cut. Arisato tended to be the common denominator. She was everywhere. She knew everyone and everything and could do anything. Somewhere along the line, without even fully realizing it, Akihiko had mentally begun to defer to her in places he hadn't even realized he'd yielded control.

When her eyebrows lifted higher on her forehead, he realized how long he'd been staring. "Sorry, I meant—" he kicked himself into gear. "I do, it's just, it's basic stuff."

"Basic stuff."

"You know. Hats, scarves, socks. Basic stuff."

"That doesn't sound so basic to me." Arisato cocked her chin a little as if to change her angle on him. "So you have hooks and yarn? All of that?"

"Somewhere. I haven't done it for a few years. Honestly, Shinjiro liked making the stuff more than I did, so after a while I just kind of let him take over. I still wear the scarf he made me. It's that red one."

He thought he'd done a pretty solid job throwing Shinjiro under the bus, but unlike every other red-blooded girl in Tatsumi Port Island who'd met Shinjiro, Arisato didn't obediently detour into the more interesting topic. "What did you make?"

"Hats mostly."

"What kind of hats?"

"Winter hats. And uh." Seeing as she clearly wasn't going to stop probing until she got exactly what she wanted, Akihiko flicked his fingers helplessly behind his head for a moment in ear shapes, feeling his neck heat. "For Miki, not me. And the others kids too I guess. Shinji, once, for a joke. Though I've caught him wearing it before when he thought nobody else was in the dorm."

Arisato's expression was hard to describe. She slid her pencil out from behind her ear but then didn't use it, curling her fingers around it gently and settling her chin atop the resultant fist. "It's not a big deal," Akihiko said, sensing trouble. "The people at the orphanage took care of us and everything, just… there were a lot of us. Ouka-san tried, but we were kids. We lost stuff. I just learned so I could step up and help her keep up with everything."

"I see," Arisato murmured. Her eyes were soft.

Disconcerted by the direct attention, really not sure at which point the spotlight had swung over to him, Akihiko cleared his throat. "What was it you needed to talk to me about?"

Arisato took a moment to react. Finally, as if physically prodded, she bestirred herself and glanced around herself on the bed. She slid one of the papers closer to her, setting it up on her knee. "Three things, actually," she said. "If you've got a second."

"Sure, shoot."

"First request, shut the door."

"It's fine how it is. Next?"

Arisato wrinkled her nose up at him. "Quit it," Akihiko told her. "If it's so bad that you need to make sure nobody overhears, let me get Mitsuru on the phone so she can be in on it."

"Or," Arisato said, "or, you can close the door and assume I like private conversations."

"It's not a thing with doors."

"It's definitely a thing with doors. I close doors every day. Sometimes even twice a day if I'm feeling rebellious."

"It's not a thing with doors in this dorm," Akihiko said. "With girls and guys. Not here. And especially not with a senior. Not when you're… you're you."

The confused flutter of her lashes was almost innocent. Maybe it was. Maybe he was the jerk for automatically assuming she was always fucking with him. "You do it with Mitsuru," Arisato said.

"That's different."

"All right." And just as suddenly as she always did, eternally unaffected by awkwardness, Arisato moved on before he could chalk it up as a victory. "Number two: food. I have food questions."

"What kind of food questions?"

"I was hoping to see about getting some food."

Akihiko felt his heart sink. He'd been dreading the likelihood of this conversation since she'd called him in. He'd gone grocery shopping for general staples two weeks earlier, but his tendency to avoid the kitchen had likely led to a few unintentional deficits. Duties to the juniors notwithstanding, he owed it to their field leader to at least make sure she was fed properly. "I can go shopping today after I look for Shinjiro. You just have to tell me what you need."

Arisato paused again.

Akihiko was already making mental checklists. He cast about for a stray piece of paper he might be able to steal from her without too much fuss. "You don't have to be shy. It's okay, it's my bad for dropping it. I can get it – you just have to tell me what you need."

Her earlier expression was back in spades. She slowly settled her chin on her fist again, elbow atop her knee. "What," Akihiko said.

"I meant food for you," Arisato murmured, watching him.

A different thrill of dread broke through his distracted search. Caught utterly off-guard, Akihiko froze to stare at her. "I was thinking lunch," Arisato said. "I know you and Mitsuru have been busy with Chidori and all the business with Strega. I've been meaning to check out some of the diners in the center of town and wondered if you'd let me treat you. I already bought a pick-me-up for Mitsuru too. I gave it to her this morning."

It took a very long handful of seconds to come back down off his own windswept perch. She'd meant – wait. Akihiko sucked in a too-early breath and smothered the cough behind his elbow. She was – he was being asked out. Not asked out-out. That was something girls did with boys they liked. She was doing community service for the hungry strange hermit who shut his fingers in drawers because he was too tired half the time for spatial awareness.

Akihiko gave serious consideration to being embarrassed by the attention and decided he was mostly just inconvenienced. It was certainly a kinder gesture than Ken's gargoyling by the front door for the past two weeks. "I'm all right. I'm pretty tough."

"I know you're tough. I just want to occasionally make things less tough."

"You do," he told her sincerely. "You take the weight off us all the time. If you have extra hours in the day, you need to be using them to take care of yourself. You don't need to be running favors for everybody all the time."

Her hair was very bright under the angle of sunlight through her window. "Is that what you think I'm doing?"

"It's what I know you're doing. I can see your calendar from here. You have eight things on it for just tomorrow and that doesn't even count Tartarus. Mitsuru and I can take care of ourselves."

"Okay," Arisato said. She didn't seemed at all put off by his continued dismissals, which made him a little suspicious, but once again she moved on before he could fish into it. "Three, I wanted to check in with you about Shinjiro."

"Shinji?"

"You've been looking for him, right?"

He didn't bother to be impressed by her prescience. It was pretty much all he did in life besides 'workout' 'Tartarus' and 'boil eggs'. "What about it."

"Mitsuru told me what happened at the hospital," Arisato said. "I've been running the data Fuuka and Ikutsuki-san have given me. Mitsuru said his persona… turned on him. During the summon."

Akihiko shifted his weight. He actually hadn't intended to air this with the juniors until his suspicions were less in his head and more on the table. It made sense to tell Arisato, if only because she deserved to know if she had a loose cannon in her ranks, but right now there was just too much in the air to make an informed judgment. It wasn't as if the study of untamed personae itself were anything new: Kirijo Corp. had a bevy of researchers specifically assigned to study compatibility between hosts and summons. Aigis was one of the products of that research. There'd been experimental medications for years for the subjects whose personae rejected them, but the side-effects had been catastrophic. Memory loss, organ failure, schizophrenic breaks. He and Mitsuru had seen enough during their watches to know that Chidori's persona wasn't fully contained, but so far there had been no signs of outward rejection. Not to the same degree Castor had fought Shinjiro. "You can't tell me," Arisato said, reading into his silence.

"It's not that."

"What can I know?"

"You can know, it just…" He floundered as he tried to figure out what it just. It just what. Arisato really didn't need to give up any sleep over the remote possibility of her personae rebelling in her body. Whatever Chidori and Shinjiro were up to, Akihiko was fairly certain their shared predicament had come from bad decision-making somewhere along the line. It was one of the reasons he needed to medicinally beat answers out of Shinjiro before this whole situation got any more out of hand. "I just don't want to give you bad data."

"Shinjiro's not avoiding you because he's afraid of you, you know," Arisato said. "It's the opposite. He's afraid for you. He doesn't want to get you involved."

… there was something starting to clamor in the back of his head. Increasingly distracted by it, Akihiko slowly drew a shoulder up against the wall and tried to focus on her. "The bond Polydeuces has with Castor…" Arisato drew to a rare pause, touching the tip of her tongue to her upper lip for a moment. "It's like a roadmap in my head. I can't pinpoint targets across the city like Fuuka and Mitsuru can, but the personae in my head, they… speak to yours. All of yours, I mean. They make connections. The longer I interact with someone, the brighter those highways become."

Akihiko stared at her, disconcerted. "You know what we're thinking?"

"Oh, no no no," Arisato said, blurting out enough of a startled laugh that Akihiko knew she was being genuine. "It's patterns more than anything. The weaknesses and strengths Fuuka senses in a battle to protect us… it's like that, but with emotions. Like reading lips or body language. It's just another language of the heart."

"So are you reading us, or our personae?"

"It's the same thing. Personae echo what's in the heart. I'm just saying, some people's intentions are more clear-cut than others," Arisato said. "No matter how much he acts like he's not invested, or doesn't care… whenever we talk, his feelings are like that highway. No matter what direction everything else is going in, there's one thing he always focuses on more than anything else."

"What?"

"You," Arisato said.

The clamoring sensation in his head was growing louder. By the time his phone buzzed in his pocket, he'd torn his attention away and was already two steps ahead of the next thing. "Are you all right?"

"Can you come by the hospital?"

"What's wrong?"

"Penthesilea is picking up on a disturbance," Mitsuru said. He could hear compressed sounds around her and figured she'd probably found a nearby janitorial closet. "The signal is non-specific and there doesn't appear to be any immediate threat to the civilians here, but given my recent limitations, it shouldn't be something I should be able to pick up outside of Tartarus. Certainly not in the middle of the afternoon."

He could feel Arisato's eyes on his back. "Do you need me to bring the team?"

"I don't think that will be necessary. Whatever this is, it doesn't seem to have the strength to fully manifest without the Dark Hour. Regardless, I want to make sure we don't remove her guard until we pinpoint the anomaly."

"I'll be right there." It probably was for the best, Akihiko thought as he slipped his phone back into his pocket. Hunting down Shinjiro had been seeing pretty desultory results and there was no reason to think today would be any different. Between boxing, schoolwork, and his commitments to SEES, Akihiko didn't have the time to continue hunting ghosts. "Sorry, I have to duck out," he told Arisato. "If you need anything else, throw me a text. I can try to pick it up on the way home."

"I don't. I just wanted to catch up."

"You okay?" It seemed only fair to ask her, seeing as she had made a pretty big deal about getting him up here. In retrospect it seemed like nothing really had been said. "Is that really all you needed?"

"Well, now that I know a few things about you…" Arisato broke off with a laugh. "Let's just say I might have a few more craft requests in the future. If you're willing. But before you go, here."

Akihiko waited by the door as Arisato hopped off the bed, remorselessly spilling some of the loose papers over the side in her wake. She was definitely doing someone else's homework. Probably three someones. He could only hope she wasn't doing it for money, because that upcoming expulsion wasn't something he wanted to have to explain to Kirijo Corp. "I was hoping you'd accept this," Arisato said, extricating a red knitted band from the glut of wrapping paper on her desk. "I was going to send it down to you and leave it in front of your door, but since you're here I might as well spare you the packaging mess."

"What is it?" Akihiko took it from her. The yarn was cool and soft, running sleekly between his fingertips when he gave it an experimental tug. "Did you make this?"

"Like I said, I'm not a complete failure at knitting," Arisato laughed. "It's a sweatband for when you work out. Your hair is getting longer and I know it sometimes drips into your eyes. I figured you'd turn me down if I offered a haircut, so I made you this."

Oh. A little bemused, Akihiko turned it over in his hands a few times, examining the surprisingly complex pattern. It was the same shade of red as his sweater vest. He reached up to slip it down over his head, tugging at it until it fit firmly in place above his ears. The weight was comforting without being stifling. "Thanks," he said, then said again, once the surprise had worn off and manners made a return, "thanks. I really like it. You didn't have to."

"You give a lot." Arisato stooped to pick up the papers before hopping back on her bed, making the springs screech. "It's nice to be able to give back sometimes, even if it's something small."

"You give all the time," Akihiko said repressively. "Mitsuru sees it just as much as I do. You should take more for yourself."

Arisato picked up the pencil. She dragged a paper across her knee again and began to write, then stopped. She tapped the pencil rhythmically a moment, then abruptly said, "Fine."

Akihiko had been halfway out the door. "Help me take," Arisato said. "I do want something after all."

He paused with a hand on the frame to turn back to her. "What?"

"Your time."

Akihiko frowned at her. "I'm really terrible at crocheting," Arisato said. "If you won't let me take you out for lunch, or pick you up something… it'd really mean a lot to me if you showed me how. Even if it was just a few minutes one day after dinner. Even just a pointer or two."

"Didn't you say you didn't have time to watch videos?" Akihiko said blankly. "What's the difference between time spent on those and time spent with me teaching you?"

Arisato's grin grew slanted. Almost melancholy. "Because then I'll know you're sitting down and decompressing for once too."

Oh. Akihiko thought, oh.

He let go of the door, hesitated, and curled his fingers back around it. Arisato was no longer looking at him. She was focusing her attention out the window. The same angle of light that had illuminated her hair now seemed to highlight contours of her face, casting deeper shadows along the angles.

Akihiko said, "All right. You win."

Arisato cut her eyes back to him. She dragged a book closer and propped the paper she was working on atop it. The smile she sent him was tired and rueful. "Thanks for letting me," she said.

Akihiko was halfway to the hospital before he remembered he was still wearing the sweatband. He paused by a bus stop and juggled his book bag and coat to free up his hands, wondering what he was supposed to do with it when he took it off. In the end he settled for looping the band around his wrist until it sat as snugly as his wrist weights, and for some reason the sensation gave him another pause. The yarn was a brighter shade under direct sunlight, strands of gold and orange buried inside the thick interwoven shades of red. It reminded him of the flare of her hair under her window.

There was something in his stomach he couldn't identify. He had a vague awareness of the bus arriving and departing, of passersby migrating around him with pointed elbows and briefcases and conversations he couldn't parse, and this distraction was different. It reached further into him, the way unwanted scents wafted to him from the bakeries he passed and the taste of soy had clung to his throat for hours after he'd tried to throw it up.

His phone buzzed in his pocket. The sun was blinding off the glass sides of the bus stop and dazzled him when he tore his eyes away from his wrist. He picked up the pace, slinging his jacket over his shoulder to move faster, and by the time he reached the hospital lot he barely remembered what had bothered him about it at all.


.

Mitsuru tripped over a broom climbing out of the janitor's closet at the same time he walked up the hallway towards Chidori's room, which was both the best and worst thing he'd experienced that month considering she'd freeze-dry his genitals if he actually gave into his urge to laugh about it. "Conference call?" he asked, steadying her elbow as she untangled her foot.

"I didn't want to leave the floor unattended until you arrived, but I thought it unwise to let her listen in." Mitsuru shook her hair out and slipped her phone back into her briefcase. She looked frazzled as she met his gaze. "I've let our research team and Ikutsuki know of the anomaly. Ikutsuki suggested I bring in Yamagishi again to try to pinpoint its origins, but if the disturbance I'm sensing is coming from her, I don't necessarily want to let on that we're able to sense it just yet."

"Let her think she's pulling one over on us," Akihiko agreed. He took her briefcase from her. "Go take a few off. I'll sit in there with her."

"Thank you." Mitsuru wasn't a martyr. "Junpei will be arriving soon. Apparently he needed to stop for supplies along the way."

"Great." He managed to sound sincere about it. "Seriously, go take a breather. I'll hold it down up here."

Mitsuru left for the elevator without further cajoling. Hoping she'd actually take the opportunity for some TLC instead of cramming in more conference calls, Akihiko carried both his coat and her briefcase inside Chidori's room. The blinds were hiked fully off the windowsill for the first time he could remember, allowing sunlight to spill unfettered into the room. There was a fresh vase of daisies on Chidori's bedside table and a small hospital-issue bear plush propped up beside them. Chidori was sitting against her pillows, sketchbook in her lap and pencil tucked behind her ear, attention fully out the window to her left.

Akihiko eyed her as he crossed the room, but as usual Chidori didn't outwardly react to the changing of guard. He draped his coat and book bag over the visitor's chair opposite her bed, then settled Mitsuru's briefcase down out of sight behind it. A long stretch prompted a cascade of pops down his back as he considered what to do with himself. Without Mitsuru – and by extension, Penthesilea – present, there wouldn't be a whole lot of point in trying to interrogate her. In the meantime the heat of the sunlight through the windows was warming the goosebumps from air-conditioning off his arms, and after a hectic day and a noisy commute, Akihiko really just kind of wanted to sit and not be someone else's problem for a while.

He dragged the chair over into the center of the closest sunbeam and pulled his books out to get a jump on his schoolwork. Once he'd managed to find a pencil hidden at the bottom of his bag, he occupied himself for the next quarter hour carving out clunky translations for his English homework, at one point forced to retreat to his pocket dictionary for help. The usual uptick in afternoon traffic felt muted through the opened door: the occasional rattle of a passing cart or murmur of conversation from the nurses. When the sunlight grew too warm on the side of his face, he shifted the chair around so it warmed the tops of his shoulders instead.

It took a while, but he eventually fell into a peaceful rhythm, managing to tune out external stimuli as he absorbed himself fully in his work. He was finishing up a page and beginning to think about scaring up a pencil sharpener when Chidori abruptly said, apropos of nothing, "You."

Akihiko froze mid-word. He blinked down at his paper for a moment, incredulous, not sure if he'd imagined it. When he glanced up cautiously, Chidori was still a gargoyle oriented west, unblinking in the strong spill of light.

Akihiko stared at her. Chidori's pale, delicate hands were wrapped around the edges of the sketchbook. When she moved it was only to surrender a flurry of butterfly blinks, mouth tugging into a faint scowl.

He waited a while longer, but she didn't seem inclined to follow up. After a quick check to make sure she wasn't actively bleeding or planning to bleed, Akihiko dismissed the episode and returned his attention back down to his task. Hiking his ankle higher on his thigh, he reached over himself with a grunt to access his book bag on the floor, kind of wondering if he should just be an asshole and use his knife to chisel the pencil sharp again. He could always ask for a broom or something later to pick up the shavings.

He was in the process of shifting his weight to fish it out of his pocket when Chidori said, biting and soft and still unmoving, "You are a fool."

Okay, so she had spoken. Akihiko considered this. He finished extricating his knife but didn't unfold it, tapping it lightly against the sole of his shoe, wondering if he should call up Mitsuru. Chidori been objectively more responsive since Junpei's first visit, but she still tended to stay silent unless he was in the room. She'd yet to answer any of Mitsuru's good-cop questions or react to any of Akihiko's bad-cop questions. Initiating conversation with any of them, even Junpei, was unprecedented as far as Akihiko was aware.

He decided to play along. "Why do you say that?"

Chidori's scowl deepened: a child's sullen resentment. Her hands tightened around her book. She didn't answer.

His phone was in his other pocket. Instinct kept him from reaching for it. He instead watched her, taking in her flared nostrils, the tangled ribbons in her cherry hair. They'd yet to wash it for her even though it was going on two weeks. It'd been a nightmare getting even the most basic treatment green-lit without a guardian. Only the fact that the Kirijos had money enough to stonewall questions had gotten them this far.

Akihiko was about to speak again when Chidori's gaze slid over suddenly, quick as a blade. "You are a fool."

"Okay," he said. "Care to tell me why?"

"Dying is what you people fear most. Is it not?"

"Depends." Also, no, not really. He was off-guard but not enough to be stupid about it. He surreptitiously slid his phone out but refrained from dialing. "If you're feeling chatty, how about we swap a question for a question."

"You ran into an ambush." She ignored him. "Why."

It took an extra couple of seconds to realize she was talking about the night he'd tried to bottleneck the Shadow swarm on the ground floor of the hospital. "Because it was necessary."

"No it wasn't. You were told as such. Why, then, risk your life? Is losing it not what you people fear?"

Akihiko stared at her again. The question seemed genuine but was also from way the hell out of left field. "Why?" he echoed dubiously, not sure if he was understanding her problem. "Because I had things I wanted to protect."

"And yet you were the one who needed protecting." Her bitten lip curled slightly in contempt. "It was meaningless. If death is what you people fear most, what purpose did it have?"

"Like I said, it wasn't meaningless. I had people I wanted to protect. You included."

"Why." If he'd expected points for altruism he was disappointed. "Had I the means and opportunity, I would gladly kill you. You know this."

"That's your business. I've got mine."

Chidori looked at him for a long time.

Akihiko kept his finger near the speed-dial but didn't press it. All things said and done, with an Evoker in hand, he had no doubt Chidori had a half dozen tidy ways to kill him. It was a toss-up as to what Medea would see if she scanned him right now. Ways to strengthen him, ways to topple him. Ways to make him hurt and bleed and get back up and die again.

Would you do it? Remembering the soft looks he'd seen her direct to her sketchbook and the way those same eyes followed Junpei on his way out the door, Akihiko wondered if he and Mitsuru should be redrafting this threat. She'd said she had nothing to live for, but that just meant she had nothing to lose. With an Evoker in hand, nihilism was a loaded weapon. It manifested differently.

Footsteps in the hallway broke the contest. As though nothing at all had occurred, Chidori merely picked up her sketchbook and slid her pencil from behind her ear to begin sketching once more.

Chilled, strangely nauseated by the exchange, Akihiko tore his own gaze away in time to see Mitsuru stride through the door with a bottled water in hand. It was clear she'd freshened up in the bathroom, neatening her hair and reapplying the touches of makeup that had worn off during the school day. "Drink," she ordered quietly as she handed the bottle down to him, booking no argument. He didn't give her one. "Step out with me a moment, please."

Akihiko sent a glance over to Chidori as he stood to follow her. She didn't look up, wholly engrossed in her work, pencil skritching in the silence. "It is her," Mitsuru said without preamble the moment they were out of earshot. "The anomaly I sensed dissipated the more distance I put in. Out in the parking lot it disappears entirely. That said, its signature is self-masking. Only when I was able to remove myself from its influence was I able to pinpoint where it wasn't, and by process of elimination narrow down where it is."

"So what does that mean?" He considered taking her to task for not using the break to relax, but figured his pot was too dark to call her kettle black. At her pointed look, he uncapped the water and took exaggerated swigs until she rolled her eyes in surrender. "Do you think it'll escalate with the Dark Hour, or do you think it's benign?"

"As I said, the signature of the energy is erratic. I don't think she's in control of it as we originally suspected," Mitsuru said. "I believe that whatever… rebellion… her persona is fomenting under her skin is partly to blame for the dissociation we've seen in her."

"She's in her head," Akihiko said. "She spoke to me when you were gone. She may act like she doesn't, but she's got words in her head."

"I've no doubt that when she is in command of her faculties, yes: she is quite capable of choosing when – and to whom – she speaks," Mitsuru said. She didn't seem surprised by the pronouncement, and Akihiko wondered if Chidori had also spoken to Mitsuru in his absence. "I do not always believe, however, that that is the case."

"You think her persona is affecting her ability to communicate?"

"Either that, or her attempts to suppress her persona have been derailing that process of communication."

It took a second to parse that. "You think she's fighting to keep it under control, and that's when she spaces out?"

"It's conjecture," Mitsuru said. "It may also be the reason behind her initial psychotic breaks. What I know for certain is that while we haven't yet seen physical evidence of her persona's rejection of her, the energy signal Penthesilea is detecting is unmistakable. She is in active withdrawal from suppressants. At this point it's only a matter of time before the situation comes to its apex. We can't afford to leave her unguarded for even a moment until we're certain what will result from that apex."

"We can't stay here all night," Akihiko said. "We're already up to our ears. If we don't start our expeditions up in Tartarus again soon, we're all going to be slipping, not just the juniors. We can't be caught flat-footed on the next full moon."

"I'm aware of our scheduling predicament." Mitsuru's voice was tight. "Like it or not, we have to keep the Kirijo researchers' profiles low in such a public space. As her peers, we attract less attention. An adult, even one in plainclothes, will inevitably bring scrutiny we can't afford. We have to think of longer-term gains."

Akihiko had opened his mouth to argue when he heard Junpei's yell from down the hall. Giving Mitsuru a significant look to tell her he wasn't finished with her, Akihiko reluctantly turned on his heel to see Junpei jogging hastily up the hall, sketchbook in hand. "Yo, whaddup," Junpei panted, beaming from ear to ear. "Fancy seeing you two here."

"Iori," Mitsuru greeted wryly. She'd eased back into her usual authoritative posture: arms crossed and head tilted to better fix him with her scrutiny. "I believe we've already discussed what constitutes proper visitation etiquette in a hospital full of injured and ill patients."

"Oh." Junpei screeched to a hasty halt, still out of breath. He attempted to look chagrined but gave himself away as he rocked on his toes to peek around them. "She's not, ah… asleep or anything, is she? I mean, I get that other patients might be asleep, not just her, which is why I'm super stealthy. And quiet."

"Did you run here?" The receipt was still sticking out of the top of the new sketchbook. Akihiko couldn't remember where the nearest art supplies store was, but he was pretty sure it wasn't close on foot. "Why didn't you take the bus?"

"Too excited, man. You know me, I gotta be on my feet, ready to go, staying in shape, rocking the clock." Junpei rocked up onto his toes again and gave them a toothy smile. "And uh, super quiet, of course. For patients. The ones I'm sorry about waking up."

"Your remorse is duly noted, Iori." Mitsuru's tone was still everlastingly dry. "She's awake. And anticipating your visit, if I'm not mistaken. Not that she is particularly forthcoming on such matters."

"Really?" The flush of exertion on Junpei's cheeks darkened. "Well, uh, can't keep a lady waiting and all that, right? You cool if I go in?"

Akihiko stepped aside with an 'after you' gesture. "Thanks, man." Junpei bounded through the opening and disappeared into the room. A gleeful "Yo, Chidorita!" floated out after him.

Mitsuru's face was in her hand. "C'mon." Akihiko steered her around by the shoulder. "At least he hasn't brought a guitar to serenade her yet."

"If it comes to that, I expect you to do your duty to protect the innocents in this hospital," Mitsuru murmured on the way in. "And leave the disposal of the evidence to me."

Junpei was already chatting Chidori up in the visitor's chair beside her bed. Akihiko didn't plan to admit it, but Mitsuru's water had helped dispel some of the earlier haze in his head. Newly focused, he crossed the room to his chair in the corner, sliding his books back into his bag now that it was clear he wouldn't be getting any more work done. "You said my name," Junpei laughed. In contrast to his explosive entrance, he'd already softened to address Chidori with a much warmer tone. "I was worried I'd never hear that again."

"Don't be ridiculous." Chidori's narrow-eyed scrutiny seemed almost exasperated. It was the most human Akihiko had ever seen her. "A name is just a word. It means nothing."

"Then you shouldn't care if I call you Chidorita." Junpei's grin was shit-eating. "It's all the same, right? Just a word and all that?"

"No."

"Aw, c'mon, it suits you. It's cute, just like you."

Akihiko marveled that Junpei could universally drag out that same expression from any female regardless of species, level of sentience, or POW status. "I even bought you some new pencils." Junpei extricated a slim yellow box from his school jacket. "Look! I checked with the store clerk. Apparently all of them have different hardness and softness and stuff, so some write darker and some are better for thin lines and stuff. Y'know, for detailed work. Like for portraits or whatever."

Akihiko set his packed bag back up on the seat of the chair and looked over his shoulder to watch her reaction. Chidori had ducked her head towards her sketchbook and didn't appear to be invested in a response. When Junpei remorselessly nudged the pack against her hand, she bit out a sigh and snatched it from him. She regarded it with tight lips, her eyes darting back and forth across the label. "This wasn't necessary," Chidori said quietly, stiffly.

"Hey," Junpei said. "It is if it gets you to smile."

"I'm not smiling."

"You're not frowning with your eyes. Looks an awful lot like a smile to me."

Chidori was silent for a while. She made as if to put the pack aside, then hesitated, lips pressing back into a line. She slowly drew the package closer to her chest, thumb drifting to stroke the side.

There was something in Junpei's demeanor that Akihiko was startled to recognize. It was the same expression Arisato had given him on his way out the door earlier that day: the hope of communicating language across a barrier. "It's okay, you know," Junpei said. "To smile, I mean. No one'll get on you for it here. Happy, sad, mad, whatever. Whatever you wanna feel… it's okay to let it show."

Chidori angled her chin away, returning her attention back out the window. "You're weird, Junpei."

"Ha." As it always was, Junpei's response was halfway between sorrow and humor. "Look who's talking."

Seeing Junpei had the situation in hand and invested in getting more answers out of Mitsuru, Akihiko had straightened and was about to motion to her when something flared in the back of his head.

He bit back a startled hiss, thrusting his palm over his eye to smother the phantom burst of light, and distantly felt Mitsuru steady him by the elbow. Shinji. He went cold with clarity. In shadow for days, their bond had opened up as sudden as clouds parting, as sudden as surfacing for air. Shinjiro was near. Not just near. Here.

Shaking Mitsuru off, Akihiko spun for the door and stopped dead when he heard footsteps coming up the hall towards them. Shinjiro appeared in the doorway moments later, hands jammed deep in his coat pockets, reeking of cigarette smoke and car exhaust. Ignoring Akihiko, he slunk into the room to take up a spot beside Mitsuru, lifting a hand to scratch under his beanie as he expressionlessly surveyed the scene.

Overcome, Akihiko pressed his lips together slowly and kept his gaze on the floor between his feet. He was so fucking angry he could feel it shuddering in waves up from his toes to his teeth. Unaware of Shinjiro's AWOL status, Junpei barely acknowledged the arrival, still absorbed in his conversation with Chidori. "Any luck?" Shinjiro murmured.

"She finally started talking." Mitsuru was a calm contrast. He could feel her hand find his elbow again, surreptitious. "But nothing useful yet."

Shinjiro made a sound of acknowledgment. He was visibly tired, face smudged and drawn in taut lines.

The sight of Shinjiro's bored parade-rest, as though Akihiko hadn't personally upturned every goddamn street corner from Iwatodai to the gates of hell to find him, was making little explosions go off behind his eyes. He held himself in place, terrified to move. He knew better than to think Shinjiro couldn't feel exactly what was going on at this close of a range, but he couldn't afford to wig out here. Not with the talk with Junpei so close in his rearview mirror.

He took in a breath and let it out slowly. "Well, that's a start."

Shinjiro's unwavering scrutiny remained on Chidori.

Mitsuru's hand was still on Akihiko's elbow. Feeling steadier now that the first broadside blows had been avoided, Akihiko was finally able to bite out in Shinjiro's direction, "Why are you here?"

Shinjiro didn't look at him.

Akihiko was about to follow up when he was interrupted by a sudden gagging noise. He spun in time to see Chidori arch off her pillows, face bloodless, hands flying to her throat. "Chidori?" Junpei's eyes were wide. He stumbled to his feet, reaching out for her, stopping just before he made contact. "What's wrong?"

At his side, Mitsuru suddenly gasped. Realizing in an instant what was about to happen, Akihiko grabbed for his Evoker on instinct before remembering that he was unarmed. "Junpei, get back," he snapped.

"Chidori?" Junpei's hands hovered helplessly as Chidori convulsed on the mattress, biting out distressed, muffled shrieks.

Akihiko lunged to drag him out of striking range, weathering an elbow to his ribs as Junpei fought to climb back to her. The air roiled above them seconds later: still grappling with Junpei, Akihiko picked up the incongruous scent of steel and fresh-cut flowers before the hulking mass appeared in midair.

"A persona," Mitsuru got out, hand fisted in her hair as she flailed blindly for support against the wall. She was panting with pain. "Akihiko, there it is."

Akihiko had thought he'd been prepared. It was one thing to intellectually know about it and another to see the visceral horror of it in person. The persona under Chidori's skin was the uncontrolled violence of a natural disaster. In the midst of restraining Junpei, Akihiko watched Medea kneel over Chidori, looming and loving as Castor had been with Shinjiro, to gently throttle the life out of her. Chidori's screams closed into croaks. She opened and closed her mouth uselessly, lips blanching until they were blue, eyes bulging.

Akihiko was shoved aside. He stumbled and barked his hip off the cabinet, still juggling Junpei's flailing limbs. He looked over his shoulder in time to see Shinjiro push his way next to Chidori, seizing her chin and cranking her head back to shove something in her mouth. Akihiko heard her gag. "Swallow them," Shinjiro ordered harshly, and despite everything Chidori struggled to obey, nails scrabbling at his wrist, eyes half-mast with waning consciousness. "Swallow them, " Shinjiro repeated, and this time her throat worked audibly, clumsily.

The persona above them flickered. Paralyzed with confusion, Akihiko managed to tear his attention down again when Chidori clawed her way forward, clinging to Shinjiro's arm as if it were the only thing keeping her afloat. Shinjiro murmured an instruction to her, much softer this time, and she nodded once, terse. The next time she opened her mouth it was to suck in a ragged, noisy breath, biting the air in front of her like it was something to physically devour.

The persona vanished. Chidori collapsed back onto her pillow and shoved Shinjiro's arm aside. After several failed attempts, she managed to feebly drag her discarded sketchbook back up over her chest. She hugged it as she panted, eyes closed, colorless.

Akihiko grunted with surprise when Junpei managed to land a solid elbow in his stomach. He let go and Junpei surged forward, stumbling to a halt against the side of her bed. "Chidori." His voice was shaking. "Chidori, talk to me."

"Relax." Mission apparently successful, Shinjiro looked tired and disengaged. He slid his hands back into his pockets and turned away, yielding the space without fuss. "It happens."

"What happens." Junpei turned wild eyes to him. "What the hell was that?"

"They're not like us. They can't fully control their personas."

Mitsuru was still using the wall for support, breathing in and out slowly through her nose as if to stave off nausea. Ribs aching, Akihiko pushed himself up and over to her, sliding her phone out of her hand before she could drop it on the floor. He shoved his book bag off his chair and lowered her into it. "I'm all right," Mitsuru murmured. "It was just startling."

"Just take it easy for a second." He handed over his half-finished water to her and supervised her through several sips. "Even I felt that and I don't have a scanner."

"Would you make sense for once?" Junpei was snapping at Shinjiro. "Quit jerking me around and tell me what happened to Chidori. What the fuck was that?"

"It was her persona."

"It tried to kill her!"

"Like I said, they're not like us." Shinjiro didn't react to Junpei's rising volume. He was regarding Chidori with almost clinical curiosity as she continued to gasp on the bed. "They need to take suppressants to keep their personas from killing them."

"What?" Junpei's face dropped another shade. "What are you talking about?"

Mitsuru finished the water and drew away with a gasp, holding her wrist over her mouth for a moment. Akihiko set the bottle aside and moved Mitsuru's hair out of the way so he could better see her face. She allowed the attention, but did gently take hold of his wrist to maneuver him to the side. "Suppressants." The appraisal she fixed on Shinjiro was cool. "You know about Strega, then."

Shinjiro watched Junpei continue to soothe Chidori. "You'd be surprised what you can learn on the streets."

"Shinji." Akihiko straightened from Mitsuru's chair. The anger from earlier came flooding back when Shinjiro merely shifted his weight, avoiding his eyes. "If you know something, you owe it to us to hand over that information," Akihiko said tightly. "You don't have any right to shut us out if it's something that threatens the team."

For a moment Akihiko thought Shinjiro was actually going to respond. He shifted his weight again, thumbing the base of his neck slowly. "I'll give the doc the right pills.," Shinjiro muttered, and Akihiko's blood pressure spiked when Shinjiro abruptly turned on his heel to leave. "The rest is up to you."

"Shinji, wait—" The sight of Shinjiro's retreating back displaced anger with panic. The door slid shut behind him with a clatter and Akihiko felt the link between them plunge back underwater.

He staggered and caught himself on the arm of the chair, and god damn it. He was done. He was one hundred percent done. Done with Chidori, done with Junpei, done with this hospital. Done with Shinjiro shutting Polydeuces on and off like a light switch like Akihiko was an empty room to walk away from.

He pushed off the chair, ignoring Mitsuru's sharp warning. He made it a few steps out into the hallway before the cavernous maw opened up in him again. Frustrated, reeling, Akihiko stumbled to the privacy of the stairwell and folded himself over the railing, gulping air in and out, watching the steps in the flight beneath him swing. Damn it. His vision blurred with tears. Damn it.

The moment he could straighten without falling, he pushed himself up and fought his way down the stairs. Sounds and colors flew by him like projectiles. He was forced to stop again when he hit the bottom, losing more time, catching himself on the wall and leaning his forehead against it as the tether between Polydeuces and Castor stretched nearly to snapping.

It was longer before he was steady enough to push off. This time he didn't waste his momentum. The sun was still drawing ripples of heat up from the pavement as he breached the hospital lot at a run, letting details smear in his peripherals as he weaved pell-mell around passersby towards the center of town. He reached into his head and caught the fraying tether between them and yanked vindictively, and to his satisfaction he felt Shinjiro stumble on the other end. That's right, asshole. Polydeuces fed his final burst of speed into the town square. You're not the only one who can fight dirty.

He turned the corner around the flower shop. Shinjiro was across the courtyard, heading towards backalley Paulownia with purposeful strides. "Shinji!" Akihiko reached into his head again and this time got a solid fistful around their connection. He yanked, felt something give, and all at once that vital part of both of them burst from under the water, sending blinding shockwaves over the surface that chased the last of the fog out from between his ears.

Across the square, Shinjiro finally stopped.

Akihiko jogged to a halt a few meters away from him, chest heaving. He kept a tight mental grip around the tether to Castor as he waited for Shinjiro to speak, but Shinjiro was silent, keeping his back to him. "Shinji." He took a step forward and had to lock his trembling legs to keep from buckling. "Shinji, look at me."

"Ain't in the mood for this, Aki." Shinjiro's voice was tight and tired. "I did my part. Go back to the hospital and sort the rest out yourself."

"Not in the mood?" There was sweat trickling between his shoulder blades. Incredulous, Akihiko stared in disbelief at Shinjiro's back. "What do you think this is?"

"Not my problem. Go back to the hospital."

"What the hell's going on? Why did you have those pills?"

Shinjiro didn't respond.

Akihiko wavered in place as he regained his breath, but his heartbeat barely slowed. Shinjiro didn't emote, standing there like he could outwait an apocalypse. "I know about those," Akihiko said. "They're taken to suppress a persona when the user can't control it. But the side-effects…"

Shinjiro eased himself around, hands still in his pockets.

Akihiko's breath caught when he saw the expression in Shinjiro's eyes. "You're not taking them, are you?" Akihiko blurted.

Shinjiro was incriminatingly silent.

Akihiko felt, terrifyingly, like he was going to pass out. Aware of the passersby still filtering around their obstruction, he resisted the urge to sink into a crouch, instead gripping his hair to keep himself topside. Subject suffered respiratory failure. The glimpse he'd gotten of the researchers' journals before Mitsuru had snapped them back inside her briefcase. Variables and control groups. Procedures and mortality rates. Subject suffered renal failure. "Go back to the hospital," Shinjiro said. "Make sure Kirijo gets her people to call in and pull the right strings. If they won't do it, you'll have to be responsible for making sure she gets what she needs."

Subject suffered irreversible soft tissue damage. His vision was hazing again with tears. "Answer me."

"I don't owe you anything."

Of course not. He almost laughed. He wondered if he was actively swaying or if his imbalance was in his head. The ground felt as insubstantial as a fever dream under his feet. "Same as always, then."

For some reason that throwaway comment was the thing to push Shinjiro over the edge. Akihiko was yanked forward when Shinjiro got a fist in his collar, and – good. Better. This was better. The haze washed away under an obedient wave of adrenaline. Akihiko swayed on his toes, blinking, yanked up and off-balance by Shinjiro's superior weight. "There are other ways of putting you back in the hospital, asshole," Shinjiro gritted. "I don't owe you anything. You think I'm wasting my power, but your thickheaded bullshit is what got me into this in the first place. I'm tired of your preaching."

Akihiko's vision whited out. He felt himself go boneless, felt Shinjiro curse and fumble, maybe to catch him and maybe not, and it didn't end up mattering because the instant Akihiko's feet touched down he rammed his shoulder into Shinjiro's stomach. The breath exploded from Shinjiro's lungs. Akihiko had enough lucidity to pull the strike so he didn't shatter Shinjiro's jaw, but the contact still had Shinjiro spinning out, crashing against a bench with a pained grunt.

The crowd around them scattered. Akihiko was strangely tranquil. He stood over Shinjiro as Shinjiro slowly straightened, bracing himself on the back of the bench.

He could smell the flowers from the shop behind them being carried to them on the cross-breeze. "You know the reason."

Shinjiro didn't look at him. He held his wrist across his mouth. "They pinned me down and made me watch Miki die," Akihiko said. "That's not what they meant to do to me, but that's what happened. That's what I remember. They did that to me and I wasn't strong enough to stop them. I didn't have the control I have now."

Shinjiro was silent.

The world was still blurred but he felt removed from it. His only spare thought was the hope that no one would call the cops on them before he could finish with Shinjiro. "I don't care what you think you owe me," he said. "You, Mitsuru, the juniors, even Chidori – I chose to protect you. And I'll keep getting stronger, day after day, as long as it takes, until I can protect all the people I care about. Even if it's from themselves. Even if—" This was stupid. He couldn't see. He rubbed his own wrist across his face and then bit hard at his knuckles and it hurt fleetingly and not at all enough. "I can't do this, Shinji. I'm already falling out of my seams. I can't keep doing this with you. I don't have time to keep chasing you or, or… or wondering if I'm ever going to be enough to pull you back from wherever it is you go in your head."

Shinjiro's wrist slid away from his mouth. It was smeared with blood. Akihiko felt sick. Flowers and dead wires and bones under their feet. Subject suffered psychotic breaks. "We made a promise," he said. "We both swore we'd get strong enough to do what was right. We knew it'd hurt, we knew we'd lose things along the way, but we promised to do it together. You promised you'd be there."

The courtyard had cleared out. The clerk in the flower store was speaking urgently into her phone. "If the point of all this is to make me hate you," Akihiko said, and then his voice caught, and just like that he'd lost. The match was over. He'd broken first.

He turned his back and fisted the sweat out of his hair. The cage of scents around him was dizzying. Roses and popcorn from the nearby theatre and the rainwater pooling in the drainage grates. "If you're trying to get me to stand alone, then commit to it," he said. "If you want to be here and be in the fight, stay here and stop making me chase you. If you want out, stay out. Stop coming at me from the woodwork every time I start getting used to the idea of you being gone."

Shinjiro was silent behind him. Fist still in his hair, Akihiko deliberately loosened his other grip on the mental tether. The bright constellations bridging Castor and Polydeuces settled back underwater, and once again he was muffled inside his own head.

"Make up your fucking mind," Akihiko said, and left.


.

They pulled the juniors up from reserve duty to help them with that evening's watch rotation, recruiting Ikutsuki when it was became clear neither Akihiko nor Mitsuru had the stamina left to supervise the operation overnight. Junpei, rattled and increasingly proprietary, insisted on staying with Arisato during the first watch and Akihiko during the second before Akihiko put his foot down and sent him home. Yukari and Fuuka were the last team before the Dark Hour, followed by an extended shift with Aigis and Koromaru to allow the rest of them an uninterrupted seven hour block of sleep before school. Ken was exempted from hospital duty but placed in charge of holding down the dorm during their absence, which Akihiko thought was a little overkill until Mitsuru shot him a significant look over Ken's head to shut him up. "This will likely only be for tonight," Mitsuru informed them once the roster was settled. "Now that we finally know what her episodes will entail – and more importantly, what can mitigate them – we can ease our safeguard back to a single operative from the research team."

Akihiko was having second thoughts when it came time to tag out with Yukari and Fuuka. The original watch rotation had been with him and Mitsuru in mind, swapping them out in the late evening for more well-rested eyes. He'd neglected to realize that he'd be consigning two teenage girls to walk home by themselves late at night on inter-city streets with barely forty minutes to spare until the Dark Hour began.

He tried to send them back home when they arrived, figuring he was already there and might as well just tough it out at this point, but to his surprise Yukari stood firm. "No offense, but you're being kind of super condescending right now, senpai," she said, tossing his coat over his shoulder and steering him towards the door briskly. "We go into like, literal levels of hell on a regular basis. If you think we can't handle ourselves against run-of-the-mill punks, you're not giving us enough credit."

"I have pepper spray," Fuuka said helpfully, gathering up his book bag for him and gently helping him slide it over his unoccupied shoulder. "We'll be fine. Yukari-san is strong."

"And Fuuka-chan can smell trouble coming from like forever away," Yukari said. "Trust me. We've got this."

"At least promise to call me if you change your mind and want me to come pick you up," he insisted, but reluctantly let them shovel him out of the door. "I won't be angry. Be smart about it. If it looks like trouble, call me."

"Yep." Yukari said. She slid Chidori's door shut to a crack behind him and waggled her fingers through the gap. "Sleep tight. Bye, senpai."

Stomach empty and head not much better off, Akihiko was too tapped out to go for his run by the time he dragged himself back to the dorm. Fingers trembling in the chilly air, he used his key to let himself in, toeing his shoes off at the door and blinking to adjust to the change in light. Ken was alone in the lobby, cross-legged in the chair, an assortment of school books and handwritten notes on the coffee table in front of him. His Evoker was in plain sight in its holster over his ribs.

Akihiko eased the latch into place and wondered if he should bother to sign in at the desk. The juniors did it with more regularity, but for as often as Akihiko came and went for workouts, it'd started to become somewhat of a running joke that he took up all the slots. Ken had looked up promptly when he'd come in but had said nothing, watching Akihiko as Akihiko bent to rearrange the sloppily-discarded shoes next to the map. "Everything clear?" Akihiko said.

"Yes," Ken said. "But then, no one expected anything to go down here when I was assigned."

"That's not true."

"It doesn't matter." The inflectionless flip-flops Ken tended to do were twice as disorienting when Akihiko was down to his last reserves. "Wherever I'm assigned, I'll always pull my weight. No one has to worry about me following through on my promises."

"We know. That's why Mitsuru assigned you to the dorm. Strega is still out there and they're still a threat. If their intel is anywhere as good as ours, they know where we are."

"Well," Ken said. His smile was empty and bright. "Good thing nothing gets past me, then."

Akihiko signed in. The stairs were swollen with shadows and twined up nearly as high as Tziah. He showered as hot as he could stand it for as long as he could stand it, making sure every mirror was too fogged for a reflection when he passed by them on the way back to his room.

Tired of feeling cold, he tossed his summer night clothes into the laundry basket and scrounged out his heavier winter flannel. Knowing he wouldn't be able to rest until he'd checked in on the others, he crammed his feet into some clean socks and padded off down the hall to make his rounds. Junpei was snoring like an angry asthmatic volcano god and was obviously alive to accomplish it, so Akihiko made quick work of the stop before heading upstairs.

His heavy footsteps seemed perverse in the perfumed silence of the girls' wing. Mitsuru's light was off and she didn't answer his text, so Akihiko allowed himself to ease against her door and listen. She'd insisted the jostling she'd gotten from Medea had been minor, but he cautiously cast himself out anyway, feeling along the still-warm tether he shared with Penthesilea. This close he could pick up the combination of freshly-shampooed carpet and the bergamot candles she used to unwind before bed. When he pushed further, he could sense that her mind was quiet, Penthesilea dormant. Satisfied, Akihiko pushed away and passed by Yukari and Fuuka's empty rooms until he could make out the faint gleam of light under Arisato's door.

The image of her eight appointments on tomorrow's calendar square came back to climb into his craw. Exhausted and exasperated, Akihiko was waffling between trust for his field commander and the contractual responsibility he had to the younger residents when he realized there were faint voices coming from the room.

He lifted his knuckle to the wood and hesitated. For some reason he glanced down at his feet again. The light coming from the crack was an odd shade: too pale to be from one of her lamps and too steady to be from a TV. Arisato murmured something, and someone else – young, boyish, startlingly close and definitely not from a speaker – gave a silvery little laugh in return.

Okay, what the hell. Disgruntled, Akihiko rapped his knuckle loudly on the door. "Arisato."

In an instant the light flickered out and the conversation cut off. He heard her bed squeak, heard bare little feet pat across the floor; he blinked down at her when she opened the door wide without compunction, revealing the dark, empty expanse of her room behind her. "Hiya," Arisato said.

"Hiya," he echoed flatly, not amused. "You know I have to bust you for visitors, right?"

Arisato tilted her head and looked over her shoulder in exaggerated confusion. Her hair was loose around her neck, her signature bobby pins missing in the low light. "I heard voices," Akihiko said. "Is everything all right?"

"I'm fine," she said. "Sorry, did I wake you up? Maybe I was talking in my sleep. I do that sometimes."

His eyes flickered over her. The room was dark and empty, her computer asleep on her desk. Her window was closed and locked. "Just me in here," Arisato said, holding up one finger solemnly. "On my honor."

Akihiko replayed the audio feed in his head. The laughter had definitely come from a child, but there'd only been one set of footsteps and they'd come straight for the door. The remote for the TV was in its place atop the set. "It's late," he said, softening a little to take the edge out of his unsolicited narcing. "You should be taking better care of yourself, Arisato."

This finally got him a flicker of her eyes. She shifted her weight as her smile dimmed a little, more genuine for the adjustment. "I know."

"There's no hard and fast rule about it, but it's still on me to make sure you're not falling over at school. You and Junpei are legal wards here. It comes back to us if your grades start slipping."

"I know," she said. Her hair was mussed on one side, presumably from her pillow. "I really am alone. You can do a room check if you want."

"I won't go that far." Though he did let his gaze adjust over her head again, one last time, thoroughly sweeping the bed and under it and over to the shadows behind her desk. When he cast about for her phone, thinking the glow he'd seen might've been from the screen, he spotted it dark and plugged into the outlet by her desk.

Her smile didn't abate.

"All right," he said. He let go of the doorframe. "Sorry I bothered you. Good job tonight. Try to get some sleep before tomorrow."

"No intrusion," Arisato said. "Thanks for checking on me. I really do appreciate it."

What the hell had he heard. Akihiko turned away and pondered the merits of either accepting his insanity or simply not giving a shit about reality anymore tonight. Sinking his chilled hands into his pockets to warm them, he started back up the hallway, intending to fall into a bed before he fell onto his face.

"Akihiko-senpai."

He looked over his shoulder. Arisato had leaned against the doorframe in his wake, scratching her shoulder blade absently against the wood. He hadn't realized she'd been watching him walk away. "What," he said.

"You can call me Hamuko, you know," Arisato said.

It took a moment to penetrate. He turned a bit more fully to blink at her. "My name," Arisato supplied. "I've never liked to stand on ceremony. Life's too short. To be honest, I have a hard time even remembering to add 'senpai' onto things, but I get yelled at by the teachers if I don't."

Social etiquette demanded something here. Akihiko was really tired. He stared at her, struggling and failing to remember what it was that came next. It somehow hadn't occurred to him, between her distance as his commander on the field and his distance in the dorm as her supervisor, that she'd prefer anything but last-name recognition from him. "That is, if you don't mind," Arisato added, almost an afterthought. "But I'd prefer it, if it's okay with you."

"Okay," he said, still a little blank. "I don't really use honorifics either, though, so it'd just be your first name."

"Good." If anything she looked more relieved. "Even better."

Hamuko. Akihiko wrapped his brain around it. Mitsuru. Shinjiro. Hamuko. Most of them in the dorm were off surnames now anyway, excepting Mitsuru, who did it to put in boundaries as their executive overhead. He could handle a degree or two closer to the juniors. "Okay," he said again, more to himself than anything. "I'll try to remember."

He half-expected her to follow up with something that would really push the conversation past an awkwardness of no return, like so can I call you Akkun or I actually prefer Hamucchi, but she merely said, "Thanks," and disappeared back inside with a click of the latch. The light didn't return under the door.

Akihiko made it upstairs and managed to throw himself in the general direction of his bed before his body gave up on him. He slept shallowly, aware of his own icicle feet, rising once or twice to an accidental mouthful of pillow as he clawed his blankets ineffectually around him to block out the chill.

He'd half-hoped he was tired enough to sleep through the turn of the Dark Hour, but as usual the greasy green snap of the air around him roused him. Akihiko woke with a flinch, muzzy and confused, wondering why his heart was racing. A quick mental flail found Mitsuru still asleep below him. When he pried his ear away from the mattress to listen, no alarms came from the command center.

The floorboards outside his room creaked in the direction of the stairwell. Drowsiness vanished under a deluge of ice when he realized that he'd been jolted from sleep by a knock on the door.

He silently rolled out of bed and grabbed his Evoker from the bedside table in passing, crossing the room in a crouch. His sharp ears caught a door opening and shutting down the hall, but when he pressed his ear to the wood he couldn't pick up anything further.

He cocked his Evoker under his ear and opened the door a crack, getting his face down nearly to floor level. The hallway was dark and still, a strip of light at the very end throwing shadows against the opposite wall.

Utterly focused as he was on threat, the scented steam under his nose was slow to hit him. Glancing warily again down the hall, Akihiko cautiously edged the door open wider to get a better look. There was a platter on his doormat. A glass of ice-water stood in the corner alongside a napkin. A pair of chopsticks rested neatly across the rim of the small bowl in the center.

Puzzled, Akihiko threw a last check over his shoulder before setting his Evoker to the side and sliding the tray across the threshold. He angled it towards the dim spill of city lights through his window to get a better look at it. The rice was laden with toppings unidentifiable in low light, but he could pick up overtones of sesame and nori when he brought the bowl to his nose.

Ignoring the chopsticks, Akihiko stuck a thumb in and tested it. Wonder and recognition flooded him. Chazuke.

He crouched there, incredulous, until faint sounds in the room down the hall brought his attention up. When he glanced out again to look at the strip of light, he realized belatedly that it was coming from the room furthest on the right.

Akihiko stared at Shinjiro's door stupidly until the light under it flickered off. He heard a grunt of escaping air, heard bedsprings squeak, and the wing once again fell silent.

A little dazed, Akihiko retreated back into his room and eased himself back into a sitting position against his wall. Fucker. His eyes were stinging. He sat the bowl aside and pressed his fist over his mouth; raked his fingers through his hair and dug his palms over his ears to try to block it all out and the sound was internal, it was tidal and rising. He drew up his knees and pressed his forehead against them. When he tentatively reached out to toggle the line, Castor erupted instantly into the forefront of his awareness, throwing starlight across the expanse that skittered and stung like salt.

Akihiko kept his face buried against his knees as he cried. The Dark Hour passed by him in abstracts as the smell of the rice rusted every weak link in his chain and even all this wasn't an excuse. His chains were guarding an empty cell. He'd boiled an egg for breakfast and had had three slivers of green pepper for potassium and manganese. He'd skipped lunch to study in the library. Bottled water in the afternoon with Mitsuru, followed by three orange slices for vitamin C. The cavernous maw that had opened up to try to swallow him at the hospital was the same empty cell now begging for prisoners.

He was cold and needed to blow his nose. Akihiko compartmentalized. He put the bowl back onto the platter and worked himself to his feet with the help of his doorframe. He slung his blanket from his bed over his shoulder, jammed his Evoker into the waistband of his sleep pants, and bent to pick up the tray on his way out.

Shinjiro's door was unlocked. He was flat on his back atop his covers as Akihiko shouldered his way in, one knee bent towards his chest, gaze on the ceiling. He made no move to intercede when Akihiko hit the lights and didn't react when Akihiko shoved the door shut behind him with his foot.

Akihiko set the tray down on the bedside table and switched on the lamp. After he'd returned from shutting the overhead light back off, he tossed his blanket onto Shinjiro's bed and plopped down next to him with the delicacy of a cannonball.

Shinjiro muttered an exasperated curse and used the bounce of the mattress to turn over onto his side. Akihiko had plans. He got a hold of Shinjiro's hoodie and jimmied him up mercilessly until Shinjiro consented to be propped against the wall behind his bed. The rice had long since stopped steaming but was still warm to the touch when Akihiko gathered some up between his chopsticks.

Akihiko reflected on give and take. In full view of Shinjiro, he pinched up the rice and shoveled it into his mouth without allowing himself time to think. He didn't expect the swell of panic that followed as the flavor hit him like a backhand. He swallowed, pinched another mouthful, shoved it in. This time he only chewed three times before swallowing.

He knew without looking that Shinjiro was watching him. Give and take. Creaking cell doors and willing prisoners. His heart was triple-time and he was already lining up the make-up workout in his head, but he was capable of this tonight. He could give up this much just this once. He shoveled in another bite and swallowed without chewing and coughed when a grain of rice lodged in his throat. He washed it down with a sea of ice-water. More nori. More rice.

When he'd successfully divided the mound of chazuke clear down to the bottom and the remaining rice gleamed like a half-moon, Akihiko passed it over to Shinjiro and joined him in leaning against the wall. He splayed a hand over his protesting stomach as he listened to Shinjiro wordlessly attack the other half, chopsticks occasionally clinking in the bowl. The portion had been small but it seemed to take forever for it to be done.

He took the bowl away when Shinjiro was finished and pushed himself up to go run it under the kitchen faucet. He brushed his teeth for five minutes in the bathroom to chase away the lingering aftertaste of tea from the rice. He'd eaten maybe what could be fit inside of his fist and it'd still lodged in his stomach like an actual fist. He considered giving in to his nausea and throwing it up, but that would necessitate another five minutes of brushing his teeth and he was frankly over it. Better to let it sit and settle and mutate until it all became something more and he became something less.

Shinjiro had progressed to laying back on his bed with his forearm over his eyes when Akihiko returned. He could still hear Fuuka and Yukari rummaging around above him as they finished settling in for the night, but no alarms were raised. The command center was quiet.

He felt like a microwaved corpse. "Shove over," he said, taking his Evoker from his waistband and clacking it onto the bed stand beside them.

Shinjiro threw the bundle of Akihiko's blanket against the back of his head, which Akihiko figured he had coming. He shoved Shinjiro over with his foot until Shinjiro was closer to the wall, then appropriated the space between Shinjiro and the door and slid his Evoker back off the shelf.

Shinjiro let out a slow, exhausted, exasperated breath.

"Go the fuck to sleep," Akihiko replied, and promptly passed out with his finger on the trigger. He was happy, probably.