2020-07-21 edit: changed Akechi's hissy fit to be more blasé, to keep the characterization in line with other chapters

The door beeped, and Joker, Akechi and Morgana entered the flat.

"Ah, you have returned," Yusuke put aside his brush. "There's some leftover rice and kiełbasa left, do you want me to reheat it for you?"

"Yep!" Morgana replied, and the artist went to the stovetop.

"Toys for me!" Futaba ran to the group and yanked one of the bags from the group. She reached inside and pulled out a white T-shirt with thin black, grey and violet stripes on the edges of the sleeves.

"These are clothes for Akechi, you want this bag," Joker extended his other arm, and the girl grabbed the the bag from it.

"Rootkit, your phone," she demanded, and after getting it, promptly returned to her room.

"I like her enthusiasm," the detective remarked, as him and the brunette entered the living room.

"May I ask you a question, Joker?" Yusuke said, stirring the mixed rice and meat on the pan.

"Sure."

"Why weren't the other Phantom Thieves informed about the current plan of Akechi's?"

"Because I don't want to get people's hopes up," the brunette replied. "This is both different from what we're usually doing, and hinges on Shido being stupid enough to have anything incriminating lying around."

"And on Akechi's loyalty," Yusuke shot the detective a subtle death glare.

"Believe it or not, I got it through my thick skull that going against the Thieves is a bad idea," he replied. "And besides, we share a goal, we both want Shido taken down, fast. Pragmatism alone makes a second betrayal unlikely."

"You could say the same thing about the first one." The artist sighed. "Do not get me wrong, I want to believe you're trustworthy, but the last time I was in a similar situation the person turned out to be responsible for my mother's passing."

The detective covered his face with his hand. "Please don't tell me I killed a third parent on the team."

"...your Persona cannot induce seizures, can it?"

"Nope."

"It was unrelated to you, then."

Akechi was relieved for a few seconds before remembering that normal people don't have worries like that and the guilt came back. Futaba walked out of her bedroom, triumphantly opened the front door, and put the detective's phone to the lock. It let out a confirmatory beep.

"Exposition, please," Joker said.

"I've managed to boost the reader so that it's capable of getting data from cards in people's pockets from a few meters away," she explained, closing the door. "Then, I can transfer the data to a phone with NFC, like the one that the rootkit has, and use it like a normal card." She returned to her room and came back with what looked like a bunch of scrap electronics attached to a large coil. "The whole thing isn't small, but it's portable enough to hide it in a sports bag and bring it to somewhere where lots of office drones may gather."

"Like a cafe on the ground floor," Akechi said, taking his phone from her.

"I don't think the workers are going to gather there after school hours," Yusuke pointed out. "Are there any inconspicuous adults we could ask to go there on the morning or the afternoon?"

"I have a few friends that owe me a favour," the brunette replied, pulling out his phone. "Bee-arr-bee, gonna make a call or two," he said, marching towards his bedroom and locking himself inside.

"I never got around to asking:" the artist turned to the detective, "why are you wearing Joker's hoodie and glasses?"

"Disguise." Akechi took the glasses off and put them on the counter. "Worked like a charm, by the way."

"Fitting for a rootkit," Futaba muttered.

"Okay, I'm curious," the detective turned to her, "what is a rootkit anyway?"

"In simple terms: malicious software created to get access to an otherwise verboten part of the system, often concealing its presence."

"Hm." Akechi took a moment to understand the 'simple terms'. "I like it. It's personalized and clever. Better than hearing 'Gory and Sketchy' for the umpteenth time. How's food?"

"Should be warm enough." Yusuke put three bowls on the table and poured the food into them. The detective sat by the table, and the cat jumped on it, and they started eating. Futaba and Yusuke joined them, for companionship. "Joker!" the artist called. "I will not reheat that again!"

"Ten seconds!" he shouted from the other side of the flat. "Yeah, I'll send you the address… You just have to sit there with the device… Thanks. Lovely, see ya tomorrow. Good news, everyone!" he burst out of his room and marched to the living room. "A friend of mine agreed to deal with the data collecting!" He sat down next to Akechi and handed over his phone to him. "Text her the cafe address. She'll pick up the device tomorrow."

He typed it in and sent the message. "So…" he put the phone away, "...we're doing it."

"And we wouldn't be able to do it nom without you."

Akechi stared at Joker, puzzled. "Um, you totally would. You got the parts, Futaba put them nom together, your friend will get entry card data, and Yusuke nom cooked dinner. Thanks for that, by the way."

The artist nodded in acknowledgement.

"Only you know where the nom office is," Joker pushed.

"It's not really a secret, Shido nom used to give legal advice from there. If you put 'shido nom office' in a search engine, you'll get the address on the first page."

"Truth be told," Yusuke piped up, "we probably wouldn't have even considered the possibility of physical infiltration. Metaverse operations were usually sufficient."

Akechi threw the chopsticks down in frustration. "Can you please drop the forced politeness and compliments?"

Joker put another morsel in his mouth. "Can you please accept that there's nothing forced in the politeness? You can be nom both a mess with lots of things on your conscience and a valuable member of the team."

"I think some things bear reiterating." The detective stood up from the table. "Our goals are aligned, so I will remain loyal, but if you really believe that I am, was, or will ever be a member of the team, you're a fool. That is all, goodnight." He marched back to his bedroom, as the artist, the geek, the brunette and the cat watched him, too puzzled to react.

"Well…" Morgana finally broke the silence, "I call dibs on his food."

"Please tell me he will not be unsupervised," Yusuke muttered under his breath.

"Oh, don't worry about that," Joker replied. "There'll be a few subtle measures in place."

It was just before seven AM when the train rolled to the Otorii station and Chihaya Mifune got off it.

It wasn't too crowded yet, and she was able to spot him almost immediately. He was sitting there, waiting for her with a sports bag on his knees and a black cat by his side.

"Hey!" he waved as she approached. "Thanks again for helping me out with that."

"It's no problem, really." She took the bag. "I'm working evenings anyway, I can spend a few hours in a cafe. Besides, the cards told me nothing will happen to me."

"To you, huh?" Morgana piped up.

"Did they say anything about me or the operation as a whole?" Joker asked, knowing she doesn't understand the cat.

"It should… kind of work."

"Kind of?"

"Further divinations didn't give me anything more precise."

Futaba barged into Akechi's bedroom without bothering to knock. The inhabitant was lying on his bed, with his clothes on, staring blankly into the ceiling.

"Rootkit!" she announced. "Two things to discuss!" She showed him an SSD with a USB cable attached to one of the ports. "Thing one is this little drive. If there'll be any PCs in the office, plug it in, turn it on, select the disk from the boot menu, and let it do its magic."

"And thing two?"

"You're going to say sorry to Joker when he gets back from the station. We need to work through your issues if you wanna work with us."

He lifted his head and glanced at her. "What would your mother say if she saw you trying to comfort her killer?"

"Oh, I know that dance," she said, trying to pretend the question wasn't an incredibly low blow. "Step one, push away people who wanna help, step two, wallow in self-loathing when they leave."

"Answer the question."

"She would've been proud." She started breathing to calm herself down, and her palms started twitching. "She would've been proud… that I'm getting out of my shell… and having a normal conversation with someone… even though that someone is an asshole with a death wish." A few deep breaths, giving Akechi ample time to realize he crossed a line with a nice long jump. "They dragged me out of my slump, Joker and I will drag you outta yours."

"Well, unlike you, I kinda sorta deserve-"

"Irrelevant!" Akechi actually recoiled away from the girl. "Nobody deserves to think about themselves like that! Ask Joker, ask Morgana, dig up my mother's grave and ask her and they'll all tell you the same fucking thing!"

"Alright, fine, I'll talk to Joker!" the detective raised his hands in surrender. "Just… don't get worked up like that. Deep breaths."

The front door beeped and Joker and Morgana barged into the flat, then into the detective's bedroom. "Is everything alright? I've heard some screams on the staircase."

Cue a several-seconds-long exhale from Futaba. "I'm fine. Akechi's a jerk, but that's nothing new. He agreed to talk to you about his problems." She turned on her heel and marched out of the room, leaving the brunette, the cat and the detective alone.

"Morgana, could you please leave? This'll be personal." Joker closed the door behind him and sat down on the chair next to the bed. He glanced at Akechi. "Soooo, do you want to start?"

"Where, though?" he returned to lying down. "You know my past, my present, my inner demons, my outer demons… I'm an open book to you."

"We could go back to the thing you've said yesterday evening," the brunette said. "I mean, as far as I'm concerned, you are a member of the team. Or at least were."

"Sae's Palace's infiltration doesn't count," he scowled. "I blackmailed my way into your ranks solely to get you in a position where I could shoot you in your stupid face." Sigh. "You know what, you won't snap at me for it, so I'll be direct:" He closed his eyes. "I regret that. I regret everything that led me to this point. Not even from a pragmatic standpoint - from a 'this was morally wrong and I deserve to be hanged' standpoint. Now, what should I do about that to hate myself less?"

"Hmm…" Joker rubbed his chin. "Try and right your wrongs?"

Akechi turned his head and looked at him. "You haven't befriended any necromancers, have you?"

"No."

"Maybe you have access to a time machine then?"

"Ha ha, no."

"Then what can I do?"

Joker rubbed his chin. "Hmmm… off the top of my head, you could help us take Shido down. By, for example, breaking into his office to look for dirt we could leak to the press to reveal his true nature." He smiled.

"That doesn't count," the detective rolled his eyes. "I'm not doing that because it's the right thing to do, I'm doing this for vengeance."

The brunette got up from his chair and walked to the door, to check if nobody was listening, then returned to the chair and looked Akechi in the eyes. "That's how the Phantom Thieves started out."

Akechi was blindsided by that remark. The image of Joker he envied, he despised, was an incorruptible pure warrior of justice, fairness, and other goody-goody abstract concepts, infinitely better than the detective himself would ever be. "Uh, what?"

"Picture, if you will, three teenagers." A noticeable scowl appeared on his face. "A former track team member, overtrained to the point of literally breaking a leg. A newly arrived student, smeared with false rumours before he even set foot in the school. And an," cue air quotes, "'exotic' girl who was told that either she'll sleep with the PE teacher or he'll go after her best friend."

"Sakamoto, you, and Takamaki?"

"Yes. Ann told the teacher to sod off, and... he carried out his threat," he went on, his voice disturbingly tranquil. "Her friend, Shiho Suzui, tried to kill herself by jumping off the school rooftop. She lived, but required months of painful rehabilitation." Sigh. "That PE teacher was our first target. Before we even called ourselves the Phantom Thieves." Joker adjusted his glasses. "Suguru motherfucking Kamoshida. We didn't know what would happen if we infiltrated his Palace and stole his Treasure. Morgana, for all good he was and still is, wasn't sure of that himself. But after Shiho jumped off that roof… we didn't care. If he would die, he would die."

"But he lived… yes?"

A pause. Akechi was almost sure that he remembered the news about him admitting what he did, and he had to be alive for that, hadn't he? "Only because Ann decided him getting killed would've been an easy way out for him," Joker finally said. "Now I see that this was the right thing to do, but back then… Ryuji claimed he didn't really want him to die, but I can't say that about myself for sure." Another sigh. "Anyway, the point I was going for: doing right thing for wrong reasons is still doing the right thing. A gateway drug to doing the right thing for the right reasons."

"Hm." The detective sat up. "That was… unexpected. I have no idea if that'll help me ahead, but… well, you've bared a chunk of your soul to me. To the guy that shot you in the face."

Joker shrugged. "You said it yourself: I'm a fool."

Akechi got up, marched to the door to check if anyone's listening, then marched back to Joker. "Just this time, I appreciate that foolishness. I'll try to be… less difficult in the future."

"Thanks." The brunette smiled. "We have a few hours to kill, wanna order takeaway and watch American cartoons?"

"Yeah, sure, why not? But I have to apologize to Futaba first. I've said some… things that were uncalled for."

The two marched out of the detective's bedroom and into the living room. Futaba and Morgana were giving them awkward looks.

"Is something wrong, folks?"

Morgana looked to the side. "...we don't think you're foolish."

Realization flashed on Joker's face. "...is my phone still bugged, Futaba?"

"A guy can't have a private conversation in this house." Akechi rolled his eyes. "Anyway," he outstretched his hand towards the girl. "I'm sorry for being a jerk earlier today." Pause. "And you can punch me if you want to."

Futaba attempted to do so, but the detective grabbed her by the wrist. "No, no, not like this. You don't put a thumb inside the fist, you'll only hurt yourself." He allowed himself to move the finger into the proper position. "You put it right here, so it keeps all the other fingers in place, so you hit harder. Now, try it."

After a moment of staring at him in confusion, Futaba punched. Akechi felt the impact, but calling it painful would be a massive stretch.

"...yeah, don't quit the support role."