Okay, content warning time: this chapter is much heavier on drama (or on being nonchalant about blatantly foreshadowed stuff at least) than those before it - unless your sense of humour is particularly bleak.

Let's go back a few days.

"Still unconscious," Joker said, marching downstairs. The rest of the Phantom Thieves were already waiting for him. The calling card was prepared, Futaba was waiting for an order to send it.

"Is he even still alive?" Ryuji asked.

"I checked with a mirror, he's breathing." The brunette sat down next to his friends. "I think we shouldn't wait for him to wake up and just go for the Treasure tonight, before someone notices he's missing."

"And leave the bastard alone with Boss?"

"I'll manage," the barista said.

"We could have someone stay behind and keep watch on him. One man down in Shido's Palace still leaves seven of us, and I can make up for whatever element's missing," Joker offered. "Is anyone willing to skip the final boss?"

Nobody responded for a few moments, and then someone raised her hand.

"Are you sure?" the brunette asked. "I feel like you should be in the forward team for the boss fight."

"I'm sure," Haru replied. "I want to be here if he tries anything funny, so I can kill him myself."

"Okay, if that's how we do it," Joker turned to the geek, not thinking about the word choice. "Oracle, do your magic."

Back in the present, Akechi didn't resist.

He marched downstairs to the basement, then through the door with a washing machine pictogram on it. There were two washing machines and a dryer inside, with card readers attached above the coin slots, so guests of the hotel could use them at no charge. Haru followed him, and closed the door behind them, then pulled out the handgun and pointed it in his general direction, as he turned around to face her.

"Could I at least get an explanation?" he asked, nonplussed.

"You know what you did."

"I killed your father."

"It's not about that."

Akechi raised an eyebrow. "…did I kill both your parents?"

"Not as far as I know- ugh, what did you do today?"

The boy rolled his eyes. "Maybe you'll explain what you're on about, otherwise we'll waste the whole evening on my guesses."

The girl pulled out a phone with her other hand and showed it to him. "Futaba sent us a chat app yesterday. It came with an extra functionality - it allows everyone to see your position in real time. And you spent the whole evening away from Joker, in some office building. Guess who's the first result when you look up its address?"

"Masayoshi Shido?" the detective replied, unfazed. "I broke into his office looking for kompromats to send to the press."

"Of course you did," she scoffed, putting her phone away. "It's such a pity nobody can confirm that."

"Morgana can. He was with me the whole time. Or Futaba, who's bugged my phone and listened to everything I said there. That's why I gave Mona my phone when you said you want to talk in private." He took a step forward. "Heck, we can go upstairs and ask the-"

She poked him with the gun barrel. "Stay where you are."

"Okay, okay." Akechi backed away, hands raised.

"Why did nobody tell me about this whole plan?"

"Because, and these are Joker's words, not mine, we don't want getting people's hopes up. I don't know if what I've taken is incriminating, I just photographed everything that looked like a document, and some things that weren't. If you go upstairs and ask him, he'll confirm it."

"And how can I be sure you didn't brainwash him or something, huh?!" she raised her voice.

"If I could do that to Joker, you would be able to do that to me, and trust me, I'd have rolled out a bloody red carpet and we wouldn't be having this conversation." Pause. "You're grasping at straws, Haru. This is just a misunderstanding, I haven't double-crossed you since you dragged me out of that accursed engine room, and I can prove it if we just go upstairs."

A rather long pause followed.

"Does that even matter, though?" she asked, in an ever-so-slightly off tone.

For the first time that evening, the thought of not getting out of this room alive had crossed Akechi's mind.

"I could just say I didn't know anything," she went on, "and you weren't answering questions, so I could jump to a wrong conclusion. There would have been a struggle, I wouldn't even have noticed when the gun fired and you toppled on the ground and bled out…"

"Grab it with both hands," he commanded.

"Huh?"

"Put your left hand around your right and grip the gun tightly," he attempted to demonstrate with his own hands. "There will be recoil. And take aim, for God's sake. That isn't a model grenade launcher, you need to be precise with it."

"Wh-what are you talking about?" Haru was taken aback, but kept the weapon pointed at him.

"If you're going to shoot me, do it properly. Right now, if you'll hit me at all, you'll hit me somewhere here," he tapped his left shoulder. "Line up the front and rear sights, and aim for the center of mass. Or for the head, I don't plan to move, so it doesn't matter."

Reluctantly, she adjusted her grip and aimed the gun. Akechi found himself staring down the barrel. He was always curious if you could see if there's a chambered bullet from the business end. "You should attach a suppressor. We're in a small underground room, the gunshot will be literally deafening."

"You're serious about all this, aren't you?" Haru asked.

"Just trying to make this as swift and painless for you as possible."

"For me?"

"If you do it properly, I'll be too dead to care."

Another pause followed. The detective wondered - for the suppressor to not be useless, the gun had to use subsonic ammunition. Human reaction time was around a quarter of a second, so if the gunshot and the bullet were more than that apart he could've been able to technically register it before dying, assuming instant death when bullet reaches him. Speed of sound was 343 meters per second, and while he didn't measure the bullet speed himself, he read somewhere that subsonic 9mm bullets commonly travel at around 300 meters per second. So after a second the sound would've been 43 meters ahead of the bullet and after a quarter of a second… wait a minute, how long was he thinking about that?

"You are aware that the longer you hesitate, the more likely it is that someone'll step in and prevent you from taking the shot, aren't you?" he spoke up.

Haru didn't reply at first. "If I… If I follow through… will I be any better than you?"

"…yes, by a long shot?" He shrugged. "I mean, at this point I've killed… a few dozen people, I think. I never counted." He wondered if he should have. "And there were also all the cases where I drove people psychotic, indirectly killing some, wounding others, and ruining lives of everyone around. I don't think it compares to killing a single man who won't be missed by anyone, and who, let's not beat around the bush, deserves to die like that."

She didn't say anything to that. Akechi noticed that the gun, previously held steady, started ever-so-slightly twitching, and then Futaba's words echoed in his head:

Killing a person, no matter what they did to me or my friends, will cause me even more trauma!

Wait, she didn't say 'killing', she said 'wounding'. The point still stood though, if Haru pulled the trigger, the aftermath of that would've stuck with her for a long time. Or not that long, depending on how overwhelming her regret would be and how many bullets were in the magazine. The thought terrified him - he deserved that, she did not. Deescalate.

"This appears to be harder on you than it is on me," he remarked. "I should have noticed that before, but my social skills are… not as up-to-par as I'd like them to be." He waited for her to speak up, and after she didn't react, he said, "It isn't too late to back down."

"So you can run off to Joker and tell on me?"

"Like he'd believe me." He probably would have, but he found that more convincing than 'he wouldn't hold it against you and neither will I'. "If you do not speak up about this, I won't either. Turn the safety on, return the gun to where you took it from, and let's both pretend this never happened."

And then, silence, again, as both of them understood and regretted the actions that led to this particular situation, but neither of them dared to display that regret, in fear of the other interpreting it as a weak spot to attack. The two of them looked at each other for an uncomfortable amount of time, and then Haru moved her hands apart, allowing the firearm to drop on the floor.

Now, dear reader, consider the following: it has been established that Masayoshi Shido, who was responsible for making sure Akechi gets supplies to clean up his messes, was a reckless man who cared very little about what happened to his assassin. Which begs the question:

Do you think he would have worried about something so beyond his interest as drop safety?

Akechi's phone had been plugged into Futaba's laptop, and the geek was browsing through the photos he had taken earlier.

"Mwehehe…"

"I like that laugh," Joker got up and walked up to Futaba. "Whatcha got?"

"Oh, Rootkit did a wonderful job." She alt-tabbed to the web browser. "I've managed to access Shido's party account and I'm in the middle of downloading bank statements."

"Where does Akechi's work come into this?" Makoto asked.

The geek alt-tabbed back to the image viewer. "One of the documents he photographed had the login and password written on the margin."

"And Shido had that just… noted down?" Morgana tilted his head in disbelief. "It was in a locked drawer, but Akechi just raked it open in five seconds."

"By the way," Futaba turned to him, "did you end up using that SSD I gave ya?"

"No, there were no computers in the office."

"Can I have it back? I'll upload everything I find to it so Joker can give it to his press contact."

"Akechi still has it."

Joker turned to the door. "I'll go and fetch it."

Makoto stood up. "I'll accompany you."

The two got out of the apartment and marched to the staircase. "You're worried, aren't you?" the girl asked.

"Things are going too smoothly for my liking," the brunette replied as they marched to the ground floor. There weren't any rooms or flats on it, only a reception desk that had no one behind it - there was a note on it with a phone number to call if someone wanted to check in so late in the evening. The two walked to the front door and looked outside, trying to spot either Akechi or Haru around, to no avail.

"I don't like this," Joker muttered, pulling out his phone to call Haru.

And then they heard a muffled bang, coming from below them.