For an incredibly brief moment, Joker felt blissful.
For all the downsides of ceasing to exist, there was something to be said about not having to battle the personifications of humanity's worst desires, counting down days to getting backstabbed by someone you considered a friend, and having a country-wide conspiracy threaten everyone you ever cared about.
Of course, the exact moment when he was fully at peace with the cessation of his existence was the moment when he started existing again.
And the first thing he registered was that goddamn piano piece.
He opened his eyes. The cell was as he remembered it, with an uncomfortable bunk and a toilet he never actually dared to use for its intended purpose. He glanced down - as expected, he was wearing that stereotypical striped attire. Igor - yes, I know, let's call him Igor for now for the sake of convenience - was sitting by his desk. He let out a brief chuckle, and it was enough to get the brunette's blood boiling. He sprung up from the bunk and marched up to the cell door. "I want an explanation."
Another chuckle. "I do not know what you're referring to."
"Yeah, sure, and the Holy Grail sounded like you without the reverb because we've run out of voice actor budget!"
"Joker? What's going on?"
The familiar voice prompted him to scan the neighbouring cells, or at least those he could see from where he was standing. "Guys? Are you here?"
"Most of us, from what I can see," Makoto replied. "And we'd also want an explanation."
"Starting with how you know this guy," Ryuji added.
"Alright…" Joker tried to recall the events that led him to this. Bloody hell, it was all this year, those were the longest eight months of his life. "The first night in Tokyo, I woke up in this cell, with this guy by the desk and those twins as the wardens. By the way," he pointed at the one with a clipboard, "Justine," then at the one with the retractable baton, "Caroline," then at the other cells, "this is my team."
"Pleased to meet you," Haru politely nodded.
"The Grail said his name was Igor," the leader went on, "and told me that I need to 'rehabilitate' myself and save the world from ruin. Or something like that. The day after, me and Ryuji blundered into Kamoshida's Castle, and you know the rest."
"This was… an experiment. " The tengu-like man tented his fingers. "A game, so to speak."
"And you've failed, inmate!" Caroline slapped the bars of the leader's cell with her baton. "All our effort was for naught!"
"As a Trickster, you were supposed to bring change to mankind," the man went on, "save it from impending ruin. It appears, however, that this task was too daunting for you. The apathy of man has prevailed."
The twins felt a small tinge. They couldn't pinpoint the exact reason, but something was wrong.
"And where does Rootkit come into this?" Futaba piped up. "You said that he won this, somehow."
Igor didn't respond. He didn't even acknowledge that he was spoken to. "And what was Goro's role in this?" the leader repeated.
"A game requires two players."
"I can name at least sixteen that don't," the geek muttered.
"And as such, there needed to be a Wild Card to oppose you. One to encourage the distortion of the masses. One created by the negligence of humanity."
"One unwanted bastard with mental issues," Ann muttered.
Justine glanced at Caroline, Caroline glanced at Justine. Their master deliberately impeding humanity seemed… for lack of a better word, out-of-character.
"Goro's on our side," Joker explained. "We got through to him."
"Did you?"
"Yes - we - did!" he shouted, punching a bar in his cell's door to punctuate it.
Igor let out another chuckle. "Your trust in the detective is inexplicable. Has he not demonstrated the ability to keep his head down until the right moment to strike? Had he not tried to take your life in the name of the corruption of the masses and out of an unearned personal grudge?"
The brunette continued to glare daggers at him. "I believe in his change of heart."
"You're the only one in this room that does. Is the idea of someone not accepting your kindness that much of a bitter pill to swallow?"
"Master?" Justine spoke up. "I do believe discussing the detective's allegiance without interrogating him is pointless."
"We'll fetch him so he can explain himself!" Caroline added.
After pondering it for a moment, Igor waved them off. "If you want to. My verdict will not change though."
One could consider Sae and Mishima bumping into each other while leaving the Shibuya station a rather unlikely coincidence, but let me offer a counterpoint: it would be remarkably easy to spot the one other person in the crowd that appears to have noticed the armagedon around them.
"Miss Niijima?" he said.
"Yes," she replied, "and you're that friend of Akira that was leering at my Shadow, weren't you?"
The Phanboy turned a nice shade of red. "Yes, that was me. Do you have any idea what's going on?"
"Not a clue." She showed him her phone in her hand. "I've been trying to call Makoto and her friends, but nobody's picking up."
He pulled out his phone in turn. "Have you tried their chat app?" He tapped the screen a few times. "Two people are on-line, Regent and Crow. Who's Regent?"
"Me. The Sakura kid messaged me yesterday afternoon and asked me to pick a codename. Who's Crow?"
"Goro, I think."
She raised an eyebrow. "Who?"
"Akechi." As far as the prosecutor cared, that was the least reassuring answer possible. Mishima opened the chat and typed What's going on? After a moment, a series of responses came back:
you can see this
?
all around
you can see whats happneging
where are you
In Shibuya, just left the station, the Phanboy typed. And you?
After a longer moment, another message arrived: behind you
The two spun on their heels, startled. If nobody had pointed out that the man in front of them was their acquaintance and a renowned celebrity detective from the TV, they would've missed him in the crowd. All it took was ruffling his hair, putting on a tracksuit and a flat cap, and borrowing Joker's glasses. Admittedly, the handgun sticking out of the trouser pocket and the thousand-yard stare also didn't match his public image.
"What's going on?" Mishima repeated the question.
Goro opened his mouth and nothing came out. Describing what he had just witnessed, especially the part with the Grail telling him he 'won', would've made him a prime target for the older Niijima's grief.
Unfortunately for him, not describing it just made the prosecutor more anxious, which produced a similar result. She grabbed him by the lapels and pulled him closer. "What have you done to my sister?!"
Mishima had an uncomfortable realization - namely, that he was the closest thing the trio had to a sane man at the moment. "Whoa, whoa, whoa," he stepped between the two, "we don't know what happened, and I doubt this whole mess is his fault."
"It is," Goro said, weakly.
Sae's hands moved from his lapels to his throat and squeezed tightly. "And you had the audacity to-"
The Phanboy then did what seemed like a reasonable idea at the time - slapped the prosecutor in the face and raised his voice: "We don't know anything! Shouldn't we hear the whole story as opposed to a single line?"
A beat followed, as Mishima did his darndest to not run away in panic, and the last rational part of Sae's brain finally decided that he had a point. She released Goro, who gasped for air. "Fine. Tell me the whole story. Now."
"You might as well continue strang-"
"To hell with you and your death wish, tell me what happened, you two-faced little shit!"
The detective started taking breaths to keep his composure. He pulled out his notepad and a pen and started writing.
"The heck are-"
"Futaba did something similar, remember?" Mishima interrupted. "If he can't talk about it, let him write."
Goro ripped off the top sheet and gave it to Sae. The writing was barely legible. Do you know how Palaces and Treasures work? He realized something and promptly followed it up with You've interrogated Akira for hours, of course you do.
"You waited outside to murder him," she hissed, "you don't get to claim high ground now."
The heart of humanity as a whole got distorted and we went to Mementos to steal its Treasure, the detective went on. but it was large and sentient and sounded like the thing that gave me my powers and also Akira's maybe. He didn't get to explain.
The detective's hand started shaking, and Sae realized that despite months, nay, years of knowing Akechi as a colleague, she had never seen him in such a state. Even if it was just a mask of sanity he had been putting up, what the H happened to him to make it crack like that?
We tried attacking it but it healed itself with 'will of the people' and then booted us out to Shibuya and then ―――
The hand slid across the paper, as if he forgot how to actually put words to it. A tear rolled down his cheek, as he moved to a new line.
And then Mementos and reality merged.
Mishima raised his hand. "That's where the dead carcasses came from, isn't it?"
Goro nodded.
"What… happened after that?" the prosecutor asked, trying to sound as non-threatening as possible.
We wanted to go back to the depths,
His hand froze. The pen, gripped tightly, cracked a bit.
but then they just― disappeared. Dissolved into thin air before my eyes
"Wh-what?" Sae blurted out after reading the last note. "Why?"
The detective started breathing sharply, on the verge of breaking down. Apparently the Phantom Thieves don't exist in the people's cognition anymore and with Mementos being here that means they―
The pen stopped moving and he started quietly sobbing. Sae glanced at the notepad he clutched in his right hand and the implicit followup to that sentence collided with her brain at Mach 3.
Another Niijima threw their goddamn life away.
"Hold on a second…" Mishima turned towards a random person from the crowd that kept moving past them, unbothered. "Excuse me, sir…"
"I'm in a hurry," he said and promptly moved away.
Undeterred, the Phanboy approached someone else. "Excuse me, ma'am, have you ever heard about the Phantom Thieves of Hearts?"
"Nope, sorry!" the woman replied and marched off.
"It's about that urban legend, innit?" a third passerby spoke up.
"Wha- they aren't an urban legend!" Mishima reacted. "They've changed the hearts of multiple people this year and even got blamed for two murders they didn't commit!"
"Uh, sure," the stranger replied, and then decided to swiftly walk away from the weird kid.
"This makes no sense…" A stray thought appeared in the Phanboy's head and he turned back to Goro. "Is it possible that the Treasure, like, deliberately changed humanity as a whole? Changed what they believe and don't?"
The detective replied with a weak shrug. He didn't care at that point.
Sae realized that a single detail of the story doesn't add up. "…and why did you tell me it was your fault?"
After a moment, Goro finally spoke up: "The… when they all… disappeared, the Treasure's voice said that I… quote, 'won the game'."
"What game?"
"I don't know."
"And if…" Mishima started, "and if the Thieves don't exist anymore, then why didn't you disappear with them?"
"Same answer." He pulled out his pistol, removed the empty magazine and tossed it away. "But I'm going to…" He retrieved a full mag and shoved it into the magwell. "fix that oversight promp-"
Before either the Phanboy or the prosecutor could protest or disarm him, a blue cell door popped into existence and opened with an eerie creak. The detective reflexively shoved the handgun back into his trouser pocket.
Out of the nothingness behind the cell door emerged two kid-sized wardens, dressed in blue to match their means of entrance. The one with the clipboard turned towards Goro. "Mr Akechi? Our master wishes to speak with you."
Mishima turned to Sae. "You can see that too, right? The twins and stuff?"
The prosecutor nodded.
The detective lifted his head and stared vaguely in Justine's direction. "Do I look… speak-with-able to you? All my friends are dead, fuck off."
"Watch your mouth!" Caroline pointed at him with her baton.
"Your friends are alive and safe, imprisoned by our master," Justine added.
"Makoto's alive?!" Sae pushed Goro aside. "Take me to her immediately!"
"The invitation is for Mr Akechi only, since the events that transpired are related to his actions."
"How?!" Mishima burst out.
"All will be explained soon. Come, detective," The warden with a clipboard grabbed the detective by the sleeve and pulled him towards the door with more force than you'd expect from someone of her stature. Her colleague followed, and the three disappeared behind the cell door, which then closed, locked itself, and disappeared.
Mishima picked up the notepad that fell out of Goro's hand, the last and only piece of evidence that he had been among them a moment earlier. "You know, at least we know they're not dead."
"At this point," Sae said, "I don't know if it's a relief. I don't know anything else and Makoto is probably in danger and I need to place my trust in Akechi of all people."
"Don't worry, I'm sure they'll handle it."
"Do you actually believe that?"
Mishima smiled awkwardly. "Well, someone has to. How can it become true otherwise?"