Here's the next chapter! In all honesty, this was kind of a fun one to write. It fills my angst quota for the day lol
I hope you enjoy the chapter!
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Part 2 - Futility
"you look to me from across the table, a thin shadow of a smile cracking your face"
Akira sits across from Akechi in a small cafe by Shibuya station. Half-full cups of coffee sit abandoned on the table, steam no longer rising from them. The ringing is a dull presence in the back of his head. Annoyance flickers across Akechi's face, quickly brushed away. Akira wonders if he's hearing it as well.
Akira's phone starts ringing, the tone off but the vibration still sounds against the table. He silences it and considers turning it off. Akechi's own phone sits out beside him and it occasionally lights up with a message that he ignores as well.
"How long has this gone on for?" Akechi asks, staring out the large window to their side. The clouds have darkened over the city and Akira wonders how much longer it'll be before it rains. "How many—" Akechi pauses for a moment, pursing his lips. "—cycles, so to speak, have you been through?"
"Complete or incomplete?" Akira fiddles with a napkin on the table, tearing at the edges. He wasn't sure if he could answer either.
"A complete run is when you reach one of the endings you outlined to me?" Akechi removes his gaze from the window, looking back over to Akira. Akira nods. "Good, bad and true endings. How many are there in total?"
"Five." Akira releases the napkin, letting the pieces scatter in a small pile. "One bad, two good and two true. Any reset besides those is incomplete."
"So how many total cycles have we gone through?" Mild curiosity coated Akechi's worlds. "Complete and incomplete."
"I can't tell you." A small, self-deprecating laugh bubbled out of Akira. "I stopped keeping track."
Akechi frowns and is quiet for a moment. "The endings are a little more fuzzy than the rest of the runs and I can't get a good count. They start to blend together."
Akira passively wishes that he kept a better record of his cycles like he did in the beginning. It would make it easier now to figure out what exactly is the extent of the distortion.
(But then you would know. The small part of his whispers from the edges of his emptiness. Exactly how long you've been trapped here. How long it's been since you've given up.)
"The endings are the hardest to remember, especially Maruki's." Even now Akira isn't completely certain about what happens after he accepts Maruki's offer. There's only the vague sense of happiness that's layered with lies just sweet enough to hide the bitterness.
Akechi's expression tightens and his hand clenches on the table. But he doesn't say anything more about that other than a small warning. "Don't accept his offer anymore. It's been long since proven that nothing good will come out of it."
"I'm sorry." The words tumble out of his mouth before he can stop them. "I didn't do it to hurt you."
"It doesn't change the fact that you still accepted it." Hurt sits hidden within Akechi's voice, the thin veins of betrayal that he couldn't completely hide. "Why did you?"
"It was a world where we were all happy no matter how false it was." Akira's voice lowers to the point it's brushing just above a whisper. "If that was the last cycle I'd want a world where neither of us were dead."
"I never died." Akechi's voice is clinically flat.
"You didn't die?" Akira couldn't stop his voice from cracking and the thickening of his voice. Everything started to slide together to make a picture that Akira didn't know could be real. The person that he can never see no matter how hard he tries—it's harder to resist when the endings are so close—the Arcana that's so infuriatingly familiar with the echo of a bond once filled was Akechi's. Some part of him knew this, the part that's peering down at him with a needle thin grin, but he couldn't accept. With the information in front of him, however, there's no way for him to ignore it.
"I'm a pretty hard person to get rid of." The amusement in Akechi's voice is a little too bitter and Akira knows that he's hiding something.
"Where did you go?"
"I woke up in a hospital and I wasn't handcuffed to the bed." Akechi huffs. "Apparently Shido didn't say much about me in his little confession."
"Gunshot wounds don't heal that quickly."
"Maruki took care of that for me." A grin spreads across Akechi's face. "Although I don't think he expected me to turn myself in right after leaving the hospital."
"I don't think he expected much of anything that we did." Akira mimic's Akechi's smile, feeling something warm pool in his chest that was normally so cold it burned. A completed bond rested there, the Justice Arcana twirling slowly among the other empty Arcana. "We're quite the pair of wildcards, aren't we?"
"I'm not a wildcard." Akechi's voice was subtly guarded and his expression settled back to neutral. "But I don't know if that's really relevant, is it?"
Akira recognizes an attempt at deflection when he sees one and doesn't push the topic. "I think we should tell everyone else."
"Do you think they'll believe us? Or even remember?" Akechi had enough restraint to layer a steady flatness over the accusation in his voice.
"I can reset if it doesn't go well." Akira shrugs. "They deserve to know."
Akechi narrows his eyes. His voice pitches to brush against condescending. "If they actually answer your call and agree to come, you can tell them."
Akira grabbed his phone and started dialing numbers from memory, numbers that he doesn't think he could forget even after a lifetime.
The calls went as well as he would expect considering he was practically a stranger to them. The ringing grew with each successive person he called but he pushed it away and focused on the words he was going to say. Luckily it was after school and it was easier for them to meet.
Akechi sat with a mildly amused expression on his face but it slowly became more strained as the calls continued. Akira caught his rubbing at his temples out of the corner of his eyes but didn't say anything.
He came down to the end of the list, his finger hovering over the call button. Futaba wouldn't be able to leave her room, not now at least. Not before her memories are restored. He'd have to resolve with calling her once everyone is gathered and hope that she picks up.
Akira stood, throwing a few hundred yen on the table. "We're meeting them at Inokashira Park."
"All of them?" Akechi stands and does the same, tucking the yen in a neat pile half-way under his cup. "Don't you have one more person to call?"
"You've heard about how Futaba was before we changed her heart. Do you really think she's voluntarily leave before regaining her memories?" Akira slips his bag over his shoulder, it thumps lightly against his back.
"And Morgana?" Akechi picks up his briefcase and follows Akira out the door, waving to the waitress as they leave.
"We'll catch him up if need be." A wry smile darts across Akira's lips. "We don't exactly have time to traverse the Metaverse now."
"I doubt that you have your Persona yet." Akechi remarks, tugging a bit on the cuff of his glove. "You wouldn't be much more than dead weight."
"How are you so sure that I don't?" Akira found a teasing tone had worked its way into his voice, something that he didn't even know he still felt.
"During one of the runs," Akechi's voice is softer, sadness curling on the edges. "I was called in for a murder. Ryuji showed me to the body." Akira's blood ran cold. "You were decapitated and I could still feel the faint mark of the Metaverse on you. Your Persona wouldn't have let that happen if it was there."
"I didn't think the run would continue after I died." The scar on the back of Akira's neck burned and it took all his effort to not reach back and rub at it.
"It didn't for much longer. That's the last thing I remember from it."
What does that mean for all his other runs? Could his friends remember everything that he's died in that room, everytime that he's betrayed their trust by taking Maruki's deal? Why would they even want to work with him after everything he's done?
He wouldn't blame them if they didn't.
Akira clamped down on all his emotions, shoving back into the emptiness that awaited them hungerly. "Hopefully it was a unique situation."
They both knew that it wasn't.
They arrived at the park first, being that they were the closest. Makoto shortly followed them, standing at the furthest point from them with her back straight and her eyes narrowed with suspicion. She must've heard of his record by now and rightfully wary considering the circumstances. He hopes that Akechi's presence as a detective quells some of her distrust.
Not that he's doing much better by eyeing her with eyes half-closed with disinterest.
The rest of Akira's friends trickle in; Haru's next followed by Yusuke then Ann and finally Ruyji bringing up the rear. Their gazes are wary and they stick to those they know. Ann and Ryuji stand near each other even if they haven't talked since middle school and Haru stood closest to Makoto although not with enough proximity to those who knew each other beyond simple formalities.
Akira pulls out his phone and dials the final number. Equal looks of confusion bore into him from all his friends. Futaba picked up after the second ring. "How did you get this number?" Her voice was distorted.
"Alibaba, I'm Kurusu Akira. I'm going to put you on speaker and I want you to listen to what I have to say." Akira pressed a button on his phone and turned to the crowd before him. "I am the one that you spoke to on the phone." He gestures to Akechi with his free hand. "And this is Akechi Goro."
"The Akechi Goro?" Ann asks in disbelief and suspicion.
"Yes." Akechi answers, crossing his arms with an expression of amusement carefully hidden behind a guard of mild interest. "But is that really relevant to the matter at hand?"
"I have to say the same." Makoto says, more hesitant than usual. "I'm sure that we all want to know why we were called here and how you got our numbers."
"I'll explain but I have to ask you to keep an open mind about it. I promise that it makes more sense than it sounds." Akira pauses so they can all nod their heads. "This isn't the first that you've lived through this year."
"What?" Ryuji shouts.
"That's impossible." Makoto adds, suspicion coloring her expression. "You can't be serious." Both Akira and Akechi stare at her with impassive expressions, although exasperation starts to bleed into Akechi's.
"Do you think that we'd go through calling everyone together if we were joking?" Akechi crosses his arms over his chest.
"They're not lying." Futaba's voice crackles up. "They couldn't have gotten this number without being given it or hacking my systems. They've done neither of those things."
"That's why your voice was so familiar." Ryuji walks up to Akira so they stand eye to eye. "I've heard it before."
Ryuji doubles over and clutches his head with one hand, a pained gasp passing through gritted teeth. Ann rushes to him, supporting his shoulders. "What did you do?" She hisses.
Akira steps back, the pounding in his head drilling deep. Akechi watches them with detached interest, a faint hint of strain on his face. He's tapping a finger against his arm slowly.
Eventually Ryuji raises his head and through the pain there's an expression of recognition. He steps away from Ann, who places a hand on his chest to stop him but it is unsuccessful, and throws his arms around Akira. "I'm glad you're okay, Akira." The Chariot burns brightly within him.
Akira returns the hug and smiles. "I am too."
Ryuji pulls away and shoves his hands into his pockets. "Dammit. I should've noticed something sooner."
"You didn't remember. There was no way for you to know." Akira reminds him.
"You were so withdrawn. It was like you weren't even there half the time." Bitter, cold anger bubbles in Ryuji's voice.
Akira doesn't have a response. For a long, long time he wasn't there. Not in the sense that mattered.
Maybe he was never there in the first place.
"While this is certainly a touching reunion, you're not the only one that remembers." Akechi gestures to the rest of the people in the small clearing before turning to cross his arms with a twinge of pain on his face.
The bonds within him started to fill one by one, thread dancing and weaving together. The Justice Arcana still rests in the center. But the pain starts to grow as each one completes.
"We need to find a way to stop this." Makoto gathers the attention over everyone there, already reaccerting herself into the strategist role.
"It can't be easy." Haru says, barely threading her fingers in front of her. "Surely Akira and Akechi would've figured it out already if it was." A bitterness in her voice.
"It's certainly intriguing." Yusuke drums his fingers against his thigh, as if wishing there was something to hold. "The idea of time continuing to loop endlessly can create a spectacular centerpiece for any artwork."
"Inari." Futaba spoke up, the voice modular gone. "You can paint when everything's done, now it's go time!"
"Can you guys take anything seriously?" Akechi asks, hiding a waver of pain with exasperation.
"We take plenty of things seriously." Ryuji says. "We've succeeded as Phantom Thieves all this time after all."
"I'd have to say that I've—"
"Thank you." Akira cuts off all conversation, his voice a little too disconnected for his tastes and the searing pain his head rises far too high. "For not changing after all these runs."
Akira drops and the world collapses with him.
—
Akira wakes on the train with a splitting headache and the taste of nausea on the back of his throat. He leans over, placing his head in his hands and massaging his temples. Hopefully this time it'll be easier to keep the world intact.
His phone buzzes and he pulls his head up from his hands. He pulls out his phone and turns it on. Only a single message sits unread.
—
Wasn't that a fun one? Akira can't seem to catch a break here, now can he?
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