"Akira!" Futaba all but jumped down the stairs in an act of athleticism that was rare for her she landed on her feet and continued forward to the bar where she occupied her usual seat right across from the curry pot. All the energy vanished as she slumped onto the counter looking at him from behind her large glasses like a pathetic sloth. "I hunger!"
He nodded, a plate already half prepared for her. No matter how much Futaba threw herself into a project it was only a matter of time before her stomach won and she'd go searching for food. With but a moment and just the right amount of flourish he slid the plate of his extra spicey flavor packed curry in front of Futaba, his hand didn't even leave the plate before she had a spoonful in her mouth.
"Did you make any progress?" He asked her, pouring a cup of her favorite blend that she didn't know the name of and sliding it next to her. Sure, part of him wanted to send the blue haired sword happy princess home, as part of doing the right thing, but most of him just wanted to be Joker again. To let his true self for a few more hours.
Smash had been fun, but he wanted more.
Futaba hummed and snorted, a noise she made when she tried to eat and talk at the same time. She coughed, pounding on her chest before grabbing her drink and chugging it. It was a good thing that he didn't give her a hot coffee. "Blehm, bleh, It's like I said, it was only a one time trip, when we high jacked the show and forced them to all but add you to the roster as a DLC character all those fans pictured you entering the game, which gave us access to the world."
"Your switch is fried by the way, but I was able to get a lot of data on the whole event, we didn't quite connect to the metaverse, but we did pass through it, a bit. Probably because we used the T.V. and the switch instead of our phones. But for now, the path is closed again." Futaba plopped another spoonful into her mouth, actually chewing it for once. "Maybe if we make some kind of a mobile app that goes viral we'll be able to change public perception enough for us to travel with our phones into the metaverse."
"Woah!" Ryuji slammed his hands on the counter next to her, his eyes a bit puffy from the heat of his curry. He was half certain Ryuji only ate it because everybody else could eat it with ease. In Makoto's case, it was probably because eating Sae's cooking for years had left her tongue numb to actual food. "We're going to make a mobile game?"
"It's just an option, I doubt hacking our way into another video game we have absolutely no reason to be in would be a good idea, start to get diminishing returns on stuff like that. It's a shame we don't have someone that's more-" Futaba's spoon fell out of her hand her eyes growing wide, she spun on the stool and looked right at Lucina. "We do! I-I-I think I have an idea!"
Before anybody could stop her Futaba was out of her seat and the door, her plate still half full.
"She's certainly energetic." Lucina blinked, her plate of Curry nearly finished. So far she'd eaten all of it wordlessly, maybe she was like Makoto and had no taste buds? He could probably google that actually, there was probably a wiki page about her, there was a wiki page about everything. "Did I do something wrong?"
"Nah," Ryuji spun in his seat. "That's just how Futaba works, her brain works faster than her body sometimes."
Sojiro groaned, rising from his seat and popping his back. "Well, its close enough to closing time, fill Futaba's plate back up, I'll make sure she has plenty of energy to work on whatever you kids are up to."
He did as asked, filling the plate up with an extra flourish while smiling at Ann. She rolled her eyes. Some people just didn't understand his art, when was Yusuke coming back? "Thanks for putting up with me again."
"Bah," Sojiro rolled his eyes grabbing the plate. "I told you to stop with that, you earn your keep and well I can't see that room as anybody else's but yours. Well, try not to run up my electricity bill too much."
Makoto stood up. "Boss, could you wait a second, we have one thing we need to talk to you about."
"Uhh, sure, but what can an old geezer like me do for you?" He laughed, hand still on the door.
"Well, I doubt we'll be getting Lucina home tonight, so we need to find a place for her to stay." Makoto began.
"You don't have to worry about me, I can sleep pretty much anywhere." Lucina held up her hand. "I might be a princess, but I'm a warrior first."
He should introduce her to Haru, and then have Makoto take both them to kickboxing. Might be fun to watch. If it wasn't for the fact that he'd probably end up getting his ass kicked if he tried to watch them. Ryuji tried. Once.
Why were more than half of the girls in his life scary?
"We're not going to let you stay in the streets, or the floor if we can avoid it," Ann spoke up turning towards Sojiro. "Come on don't you have a spare room you can let Lucina stay in? It is technically the fault of Futaba and-"
"Oh no, no, no," Sojiro shook his head and pointed towards him. "I'm Futaba's guardian still he just rents the place upstairs for cheap, and while a lot of that has passed I still do have a case handler, and they might even come to do a drop by just to check on me. It'd be a different story if Sae still managed us, but she's not and Lucy is pretty much an illegal alien. One that's actually from another world."
"Lucy?" Lucina's face twisted as she whispered the word. If he had to guess, nobody had ever given her that nickname, but from Sojiro it was less a nickname and more that was actually what he thought her name was.
Makoto sighed, her shoulder slumping ever so slightly. "Well, I guess that answers that. Thank you Boss."
"For the record, I have no problem with her staying here." Sojiro looked right at him smiling. "Just don't do anything I wouldn't do."
In much the same way that he desired to make a grand entrance, he was starting to wonder if Sojiro had a thing for awkward exits. Or just awkwardness in general. Was he going to be that when he was old? Ahh, chills down the spine, yep nope, not a happy thought.
"There's no room at my place," Ann said frowning. "And Ryuji's is flat out." She turned towards Makoto. "Don't you have a spare room at your place?"
"I do, and unless she'd prefer staying with Akira, I guess I'm it then." Makoto sat back down pulling out her phone. "Give me a moment and I'll let my sister know we'll be having a guest."
"Thank you for your hospitality, but I wouldn't want to be a burden."
Ann waved her hand. "Non-sense, you went on an adventure with our leader, that basically makes you one of us." She gasped, tapping on the table. "Oh, we should give you a code name! And a mask!"
"Doesn't she need a Persona?" Makoto asked.
"She has a sword," he looked up from the dishes, wiping off his hands. Sojiro got mad when he left a mess after cooking. And getting his landlord, mentor, and more or less cool uncle figure mad at him was not high on the list. "She'll be fine in the metaverse." She shrugged, pushing up his glasses. "A code name would keep things consistent once we're in there."
Though ultimately useless unless they were going into another palace. Which wasn't off the table. The Metaverse was still there, lurking under the surface, he could feel it. Probably.
"How about Princess?" Ryuji added a half grin oh his face. "Because you know she's a-"
"Yes, yes, because she's a princess we get it Ryuji," Ann sighed resting on her hand. If she wasn't careful her eyes might roll out of her head.
"If I need a code name for this Metaverse, then you may call me Marth," Lucina reached into the small pouch she had and pulled out a small blue mask that looked like it would cover her eyes. It actually looked a bit like a masquerade mask in the shape of a butterfly. An edgy butterfly. "Will this do? It covers more of my face than his mask dose."
Where did she pull that from? Her pouch didn't look big enough to hold something that size.
"Oh, wow, that's really pretty Lucina, but why Marth?" Ann asked.
"It was the name of one of my ancestors, I've used it as my Alias before."
Makoto put her phone away, smiling up at them. "Well, with that settled my sister is okay with you staying with us. And we should get going if we're going if we don't want to miss the train."
Ann what out of her seat in a heartbeat. "You aren't kidding! How'd it get so late? Come on Ryuji we need to get going."
"Train?" Lucina asked. "You have trains here?"
Oh, looks like he was going to miss Lucina having technology shock. Which was weird, considering how he was fairly certain they fought on a space ship. And the T.V. had been on the whole time, and she had been watching everyone use their phones, saw the computer Futaba built in his room for their experiment.
Ehh, she'd be fine. Probably. Still, Marth seemed like a bad name, her mask was a butterfly so that would have been a good code name.
"I'll text you when Futaba explains her idea." He paused putting the last of the dishes away. "Or if she passes out again."
Maybe he should google how people like playing his character tonight. It was kind of awesome being a video game character.
XXXX
This was a city.
That was the only way to properly describe what she was seeing right now, but to apply that word to this place meant she had to strip it from every other location. Even the empressive size of her home Ylisstol, capital of Ylisse paled in comparision to the sheer amount city that she was seeing, it was almost as though the whole world had been engulfed by it.
The first tower she saw, tall enough that it scrapped at the heavens, was so grand in size alone that she had thought it the home of nobility. Then she saw the second, the third, the fourth, and her mind raced to keep up with it all. She had seen similar cities, or rather similar buildings in much smaller scale during her stay in the Causeway, but this was on a whole nother level.
"You'll get used to it" Makoto said, either she could navigate this maze like city or she was just as lost as she was. She doubted she could find her way back to the small alleyway street joker was. Makoto turned to smile at her now walking backward. "Tokyo is the largest city in the world after all."
Oh was that all?
"How many people live here?" She couldn't help but ask, they were at the base of one of the towers now, its height was making her dizzy just looking at it.
"Last I checked close to 14 million." The flippant way she said that like she was stating that the sky was blue, did little to deminish the sheer weight of that number.
There weren't just more people living in this city than there were people living in Ylisstol, there were more people living here than in her whole country. Several times over! She had to be exaggerating. Or maybe she simply misspoke. There was no way that so many people could live in a single city.
A crowd exploded around them when they stepped out of the road and onto a dazzling pathway that was so bright that it might have been daylight. There were more people here than the busiest market day. More of those monolithic buildings jutted up from around them, dominating the sky line so that only a square of the starry sky could be seen.
Images and movies played on screens far larger than she had ever seen, and people entered and exited buildings completely blind to them. It felt like there were more people here than in any battle she had been a part of. She disbelieved Makoto's number now for a completely different reason.
A few of the people stared at her, pointing, and holding up those same strange devices that Makoto and Ann had showed her. What was it? A Phone? A flash went off blinding her for a moment. "What are they doing?"
It didn't hurt or anything.
Makoto shrugged grabbing her by the wrist and pulling her through the crowd. "They think you're a cosplayer," she had no idea what that was. "When we get home we'll have to see if any of my clothes fit you, I think we're about the same size."
Clothes? Clothes meant fashion! It was her one true vice, though her mother did find her choice in fashion to be rather questionable. Not that she was one to judge she wore the same robe to every event. Even her own wedding! Maybe she'd be able to get some unique clothing from this world.
Makoto led them through the crowds like ferrymen navigated a river. They stopped at a giant staircase that went downward. It was brightly lit and magnificent, as though someone had mixed the summer springtime bazaar with the catacombs to create something beautiful, there were more people down here. Almost like a whole second city below the first. Down here it was hard to imagine it being night.
Did people ever sleep here?
They passed through several gates and checkpoints, only getting stopped once by a guard to ask her about her sword. But a flash of Makoto's phone and a ridiculous pose later and they were set free. Apparently, she was mildly famous in this world and everybody just assumed she was cosplaying.
A screech tore from the depths, less beastlike and more artificial like a sword glancing off a shield. A crowd of people excited what looked to be a to small space for so many people only for more people to enter it. After a few minutes that small building began to move that same screeching noise zooming away.
"Good," Makoto said checking her phone. "We're right on time our train should be here in a moment."
She was not going to say something stupid and call it a screeching metal dragon that was taking people to the underworld. She was not a barbarian. But, she still did think that a little bit. "That's a train?"
"Yep, they're the best way to get around in Tokyo, if we were to walk I think it'd take a couple of hours to get my home, this cuts the time down to ten minutes." Makoto smiled at her and pulled her towards a picture that was nothing but black lines, colored lines, and names. "We're here," Makoto pointed towards a point where a bunch of colored lines met up and dragged her finger along a purple line. "And we're going here."
It was a map. That was a map? How did people navigate this city? Her head was starting to hurt just thinking about this. Maybe they didn't even need to, some of them could probably live in those towers and never have to leave.
A moving picture on the wall moved, flashing to something she recognized. "Fire Emblem Heroes! Spring event rerun." was written in shining gold letters. Then it showed a "Spring Exalt." showing her father.
Wearing an adorable pair of bunny ears. A suit that mother would no doubt find absolutely dashing on him. And wielding a large ax that was decorated with carrots. It brought a smile on her face seeing him like that.
"Spring Exalt" flashed across the screen again.
Followed by her.
Wearing a bunny hood. And wearing a rather cute but frilly outfit that would have matched her fathers perfectly. It appeared as though she was wielding a colorful egg as a weapon. She liked the hood but the rest of the outfit just seemed impractical.
But why a bunny?
AN: I was looking forward to writing this all week.
Trivia note. Lucina has terrible fashion sense and even seems to enjoy bad fashion. I discovered this fact and was sad because I couldn't have her freak out about her fire emblem heroes spring outfit.
Next chapter will be Akira light depending on the legnth.
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