Once again, cw: interrogation room, except this time I'm certain it's necessary.

When the leader of the Phantom Thieves tells you you're supposed to be somewhere five minutes ago, you're there five minutes ago. Or, if your time machine is in the shop, you pay for a cab.

Yuuki Mishima ignored the 'closed for the next few days' note on the door and walked into Leblanc. The cafe was empty except for most of the Thieves waiting for someone: Joker and Futaba (glued to him) were sitting in one of the booths, with Ryuji and Ann opposite them, the Shibuya people watcher standing by the door. Morgana was lying on the counter, Haru was inspecting the coffee beans on the shelf, curious, and some kid with messy light-brown hair and a hoodie was sitting by the counter. "Um, excuse me, have we met?"

"Nah, I came 'ere for a cuppa an' they keep me 'ostage."

"Don't mess with him, Akechi." Joker growled.

"Wait, that's…" The Phanboy frowned. "You."

"Me." The detective took the glasses off. "I can't leave the hideout without a disgui-" He was interrupted by Mishima slapping him in the face. "…huh?"

"Do you know how much time I spent deleting posts on the Phansite after you killed Okumura?!" He kicked him in the shin.

The detective shot him a glare in response. "Wow, I almost registered that blow. Ask Futaba for some tips."

"Both of you are going to shut your fucking mouths," the brunette snarled, then collected himself when the geek squeezed him tighter. "Sorry, I'm calm, I'm calm. I don't want you or anyone to be at each other's throats. Both of you are equal members of the team."

"He doesn't deserve to be insulted like that," Akechi remarked, before adding, "Who are you, by the way?"

"Nobody significant." Mishima shot him a glare. "Just the owner, administrator, and moderator of the Phantom Aficionado Website. Unflinchingly loyal to the Thieves."

He got an eye roll in response. "I wanted a name. First or last."

"Yuuki Mishima. Call me Mishima."

Akechi outstretched his hand. "Goro Akechi. Call me whatever, just be original with your insults."

The Phanboy awkwardly shook it before turning to the leader. "So, why did you want me to come?"

"Because, as I expected," he hugged Futaba a little tighter, "our support might need support, and you're the second most computer literate person that's in the know." He glanced at the geek. "Can you give him instructions if he'll need any?"

Futaba pulled out her phone, typed i can try and showed it to him.

"Good. We'll be talking details as soon as-"

As if on cue, Makoto entered the cafe with a bag on her shoulder.

"-as soon as Makoto comes back from Ōta with her laptop," he finished.

"I also borrowed sis' car again, just in case." She put the bag on the table and sat on a bar stool, facing Mishima. "So, what do we know?"

"I got the link to the video a few hours ago." the Phanboy explained. "It has Mr Sakura reading the demands out loud. Someone just off-screen was holding a silenced gun to his head."

Joker and Futaba embraced each other tighter.

"Suppressed," Akechi insisted.

"Anyway, they want to, quote, 'talk to Goro Akechi or other Phantom Thief of your choosing'. They'll be waiting tomorrow at noon on the Wakōshi station to pick them up. Also, 'don't call the police 'cause we are the police'."

Haru glanced at the detective. "Didn't you send those three goons to Wakō a week ago?"

"That could be just a coincidence."

"Wait, what goons?" the Phanboy asked.

"On the day when I regained consciousness, some nitwits came over to arrest Mr Sakura-"

"Why were you unconscious?"

"I was tired and beaten after… either trying to murder the Thieves or get murdered by them," he shrugged. "I'm not sure myself at this point."

Mishima turned to Joker. "…what the double-hockey-sticks did you drag me into?"

"Back to the main topic," Makoto piped in, "we could try to change the hearts of the kidnappers if we knew their names." She turned to the detective. "Do you know the names of those three that were here before?"

"Regrettably, no," Akechi replied.

"And who knew about your involvement with the conspiracy? Maybe we can narrow it down to a manageable amount of people and go after them one by one."

"I…" he focused, "I can't tell, really. I wasn't really introduced to people, I just passed them on the corridor a few times too many for it to be a coincidence."

"Okay, you probably have this covered, but I gotta ask:" Mishima glanced at the detective, "how do you know he's not lying?"

"Short version is," Ann joined the conversation, "he has no reason to. He knows beyond doubt that Shido would've killed him as a loose end.

"He also brought us some dirt on him that we'll get published next week," Haru added.

"And…" Akechi glanced to the side, at the dejected Futaba. "…eh, nevermind. I'm with the Phantom Thieves now, because where else can I go?"

"To the nearest police station?"

"So they can drug him, kill him and blame him for everything?" the brunette growled, with enough vitriol to make the Phanboy inch away. "Out. Of the. Question."

"Alright, calm down," Mishima raised his hands in surrender.

"Can we please stay on the topic?" Makoto rolled her eyes. "Does anyone have any ideas on how we can get Sojiro back and not just hand Akechi back over to them on a silver pla… tter…" Something clicked in her head, and since nobody else spoke up, she turned to Futaba. "Is the bug on Akechi's phone still working? The one he had when infiltrating Shido's office."

The geek opened her laptop and typed something on the keyboard to run the program. Then, she got up, grabbed the detective by his sleeve and led him outside and a few meters away. "Um, lorem ipsum dolor sit amet?" Akechi's voice could be heard from the computer speakers.

Yusuke stuck his head out. "Works like a charm. You may return now."

The two came back and Makoto got off the bar stool and faced the detective. "I have an idea, but it requires you to take a risk for the team."

"I'm already the most disposable-"

"You're not fucking disposable!" Joker slammed the table, startling everybody and causing Futaba to latch to Yusuke. "Nobody in this room is!"

The president remained silent for a few moments to allow the tension to die down, then went on: "Anyway, the idea is simple: They want to talk? So let's go there and talk. Pretend you're turning yourself in and try to get at least one name. We'll have a team ready to go to Mementos at any time."

"We're operating under an assumption that they won't kill me the moment I show up."

"If their intention was getting rid of a loose end, they wouldn't permit a replacement," the artist pointed out, embracing the geek with one arm. "But if you don't want to take this risk, we'll respect your decision and seek another volunteer. No pressure."

"No pressure whatsoever," the detective said, feeling everyone's stares on him. "Can I… can I at least have some weapon on me? A collapsible nightstick, a can of pepper spray, anything?"

Joker pulled out his wallet and tossed it at him. "A friend of mine is running a pawn slash weapon slash airsoft shop in Shibuya. I've been buying all the equipment from him. Get whatever you need, and mention I sent ya for a discount."

"You have a lot of friends." Akechi put on the glasses. "Address?"

"Morgana will show you the way. Get him some tuna for it."

The store was empty, other than Akechi, Morgana in the bag, and the owner - an intimidating-looking fellow with a visible gecko tattoo on his neck - staring at him from underneath his cap's brim.

"Good evening, sir," the detective said, defaulting to a formal tone. "I've been told by Joker that I can acquire some arms here."

He glanced at him, disinterested. "By who?"

Akechi quietly pointed at the glasses on his face.

"Ah, that kid. What are you interested in?"

"Do you have any walking sticks?"

Morgana poked his head out of the sports bag on the detective's back. "Walking sticks?"

"It's a decent bludgeon you can carry everywhere without drawing too much attention," he explained. "Feigning weakness is also a plus."

"So you're talking to the cat too, huh?" Iwai said, reaching under the counter. "Everyone's got a quirk." He put a black cane on it. "This one's aluminum - heavier than wooden canes, but much more durable. Looks inconspcious enough, has a nice wide hook for tripping people up, and black matches everything." He cracked a small grin. "Good enough for ya?"

Akechi picked the stick up and inspected it with a gleam in his eyes. He liked its weight in his hands. "How much does it cost?"

"15 thousand yen."

"Perfect." The detective counted out the exact amount from Joker's wallet and handed it over.

"You want anything else?"

"Nope," Akechi smiled. "Thank you and goodnight." He walked out of the store, then turned to Morgana. "Do you mind if I go on a little walk? I feel like I need to practice a convincing limp."

"He's…" Mishima spoke up, "he's taking his sweet time, isn't he?"

Makoto pulled out her phone and opened the PT chat app. Where are you? she typed.

A response came back: I bought what I had to and went for a walk. I need to clear my head a bit.

Futaba felt concerned. She opened a terminal and typed in ~/rootkit-tracker -h 20 -m -r. A map of Tokyo was shown in a separate window, with multiple red dots on it. She showed it to the group.

"What are we looking at?" Makoto asked.

"I think she's checking Akechi's location," the Phanboy guessed. "The 'h' flag means… history? The last twenty registered positions?" Futaba nodded. "And 'm' means showing that on a map, and not just outputting the coordinates in console."

One dot disappeared at the end and reappeared at the beginning of the line.

"And the 'r' flag means refreshing or real time," he added, and got another nod in response.

"So, you can keep up with Futaba's tools, that's great," Joker remarked.

"Just guessing things from context. I mean, it's not 'flag1' to 'flag9'."

Makoto looked at the line of dots of the screen and something clicked in the head. "Can you move the map around a bit?" The geek pointed at the arrow keys and the president tapped them a few times, confirming her suspicions. "Oh, fiddlesticks."

Ryuji couldn't help but giggle. "What happened?"

"He's heading towards the courthouse. My sister's Palace."

"…oh, fuck."

Morgana realized what's happening when he felt himself shapeshift. He poked his large head out of the bag and noticed that Akechi's wearing his Metaverse toy soldier uniform.

"Where are we?"

"Older Niijima's Palace," the detective turned to him and smacked him in the face with his mask's beak. "Sorry for that," he took it off.

"And what are we doing here?"

"I'm making an educated guess, and you're tagging along," he said, in that polite tone affably evil villains use to make backhanded threats. "Or not - you can run back to Yongen to report about my behaviour." He gently put the bag on the ground. "I'm not forcing you to stay."

The cat weighed his options. Running off would've meant leaving him unattended and unwatched, and trying to take him one-on-one would end with a cat-shaped-human-shaped stain on the ground.

"I'm sticking with you." He got out of the bag.

"Alright, it's not your funeral." Akechi picked it up and marched in a direction the cat was worried he would march. "Why do you think the Palace is still standing? You did steal the Treasure, didn't you?"

"Well… no," he said. "We needed it to stand for us to, well… "

"To trick me into shooting a cognitive copy of Joker." He sighed wearily. "Let's not sugarcoat this." The two entered the police station. "But you managed to convince her to help you, got her on your side. Wouldn't that cause the Palace to collapse?"

"Apparently not," Morgana shrugged. "This isn't an exact science. By the way, how did you figure it out?"

"Someone made a comment on TV about turning the phones off, and I remember that Sae-"

"Not that. What you're doing right now."

"Oh." Pause. "As I said, it was an educated guess. Haru inadvertently confirmed you're holding onto it, and that one person can access it without the others noticing. And, well, if this place is still accessible, it's perfect for storing some very illegal things." The two found themselves in the basement, standing in front of the door to the interrogation room. "Of course, if you put it literally anywhere else in the Palace, I'll be foiled."

"In retrospect, we really should have."

Akechi sighed, grabbed the doorknob, and opened the door. It was all still there. The table. The two chairs. The handgun, lying next to the magazines and the suppressor.

"No corpses," he remarked.

"The cognitions dissolve a moment after they pass away." Morgana winced. "We… tested that beforehand."

"I had to… I had to shoot the guard first," the detective remarked. "Your whole plan would've fallen apart if I showed literally any hesitation, 'cause I would've noticed the corpse disappear."

"I wonder what would happen if you did."

"I'd double down." He didn't even think about the answer. "Get out of the Metaverse and shoot the real deal."

Morgana looked at him. There was a certain, for lack of a better word, stiffness to him, similar to the one he had displayed after seeing Shido's little death note. "Aren't you too hard on yourself?"

"It took beating me within an inch of my life," inhale, "and witnessing my cognitive doppelganger mocking me to my face," inhale, "to realize how boundlessly idiotic my whole approach was."

"Yep, you're too hard on yourself."

"Aw, why won't we feel bad about the guy that pulled the trigger?!" he said, in a mocking high-pitch voice. "He had it bad too, you know?!" Another breath to collect himself. "Let's grab the gun and get out of here."

"And then what?"

He sat on one of the chairs, facing the exit, and picked up the gun. "Wander around until tomorrow noon, go to the meeting spot, shoot every kidnapper in the face, get Mr Sakura out alive." He attempted to wipe any fingerprints left by the previous user with his sleeve.

"And then what?"

"No clue. Hide from the cops and the Thieves or something."

He attached the suppressor to the gun and moved the bullets around so he had two full magazines and one with three bullets missing. He then wiped the potential fingerprints of the magazines and the suppressor, just in case.

"I'm-I'm curious:" Morgana broke the silence, unnerved, "did you get any firearm training?"

"Nope," he said. "They didn't even give me a gun at first, but it turned out beating Shadows to death with a baseball bat takes too much time."

"I'm surprised that… that despite his disinterest in you, Shido arranged you an actual firearm."

"I didn't get a talking cat to tell me that I could use a well-detailed mo…" He paused, hearing someone marching down the corridor. Out of reflex, he shoved a magazine in the well and chambered a bullet. Then, he took a breath and pointed the gun at the door, which was slammed open by someone familiar.

"Of course you're here."

"Didn't expect you to catch on so fast," Akechi said, politely putting the gun on the table, so that the barrel was pointing away from both of them.

"Explain yourself," Joker demanded.

"There is no explanation that you would find justified, so no."

Joker pulled up a chair and sat on it. "Back to old habits, I see," he said, in a disappointed tone.

"That is the exact opposite of my," cue air quotes, "'old habits'. I'm skipping straight to the part where I shoot the bad guys."

"I won't let you kill people." the brunette growled. "Bad guys or not."

"Joker, saying this pains me, but…" he paused, "I'll go through you if I have to. We're in the Metaverse, Morgana will heal whatever damage I cause."

"What makes you think I'm stupid enough to confront you alone?"

Makoto, Ryuji and Ann entered the room. Akechi registered that none of them were in their Metaverse outfits. The cat inched towards the group.

"Of course, the cavalry's here. Makes sense. It worked the last time." He looked past Joker at the group. "Were you all waiting for the most dramatic moment to reveal yourselves?"

"We are not killers, Akechi." the brunette tried to keep the conversation on-topic.

"You aren't." The detective shot him a glare, and his tone switched from forcefully-polite to confrontational. "And I am not willing to walk straight into a potential trap because you're putting your moral code over getting Mr Sakura out alive." Pause. "But I guess it's easy to make that call when your life isn't on the line."

On a good day, Joker would've been able to shrug it off.

"How… dare you?"

That was not a good day. His indignation quickly gave way to anger. "You son of a whore, how dare you?! And in this room, of all places!"

"Joker, you're riling yourself up," Makoto said.

He stood up. "You brought the cops to the Metaverse, to the Thieves' territory! To my territory!"

"Joker, calm down," Ann commanded, but it fell on deaf ears.

"I coulda just blast through them with zero effort and deny you the opportunity to blast my fucking brains out! What- what do you know about putting life on the line?!" He grabbed the pistol and put it to Akechi's head. "You couldn't care less if you live or die!"

"Dude!" Ryuji reacted.

"No worries, Sakamoto," the detective snarked. "He won't dare to get his dainty little hands dirty like that."

"THAT IS NOT A THING YOU SAY WITH A GUN AT YOUR HEAD!"

"Akechi, shut up," Makoto ordered. "Joker, put down the gun."

"I should've left you to die in the engine room," the brunette snarled.

"Well, now you get a chance to fix that error," the detective replied.

"This is all your fault," he said, pushing the gun against Akechi's forehead. "Sojiro's kidnapping, Kunikazu's death, Shido's ascent to power, my criminal record, all thanks to you enabling your father, you bastard!"

"Finger on the trigger, Gary Stu."

"Akira, drop it!"

"Take the fucking shot, you coward!"

At that moment, Joker simultaneously made the right and the wrong decision.

The right one, by deciding that no matter the taunts from the bastard in front of him, he wasn't going to shoot him. He was better than that.

And the wrong one, when instead of putting down the gun, he threw it against the table. It landed magazine-first, bounced in a weird angle and landed on the side. A casing was ejected and clinked a few times before falling on the floor.

"What the… Joker!" Makoto shouted. "It has no drop safety or something, remember?"

"At least it didn't hit anyone this time too," Ryuji remarked, then looked at the detective blankly staring into the distance. After the longest five seconds of silence in his life, he asked, unsure, "Akechi?"

The blood trickled from underneath his fringe, down his face. Then, to hammer the point home, his corpse fell forward on the table.