Chapter 14
Akira doesn't move when Sakamoto fades into the crowd, nor does he move when the moon rises fully in the spring sky, not that he can see it through the glowing obstacles of Tokyo's skyscrapers. His body stills, turning sediment against the station's wall, and refuses to move the several times he considers going back to Yongen-Jaya. He doesn't think about much, either. His body focuses on manufacturing energy that he's been deprived of; his mind, though, refuses to entertain him while he waits. It creates a numbness—an emptiness, that he hasn't felt since before his move, since before his trail. It is blissfully idyllic, but painfully sentimental. Of course, he finds himself lingering in it when his body finds itself strengthened enough for the walk home, pretending that the rough stone against his back is as pliable as tree bark. That the clamor of the city is crows and owls singing to each other. One thing doesn't change, though. He is alone.
Morgana doesn't react when Akira climbs to his feet, the cat remains as pliant as he had hours ago. He's still breathing, of course, slowly and subtly. His heart beats rhythmically, pulsing against his fingers as he maneuvers his roommate into his schoolbag as carefully as he can. Though it doesn't seem to matter, Morgana sleeps as peacefully inside the bag as he does occupying Akira's lap.
He doesn't descend into the station immediately, though he does consider the lowering entrance for a moment before he wanders away from it, his chest clenching with ancient memories. Knowing what he does now, he doubts that just by walking down those steps he would find himself surrounded by shadows or locked in a cell with a throbbing head, yet the thought of the Metaverse has his heart hammering against his chest until he passes around a corner, the tension behind his skull doesn't fade until the corner after that.
He's not sure where he's going, but he knows what he's looking for.
Leaning his head back, he reads store signs through the neon glare they trace over his glasses. Hundreds of signs and several streets pass before he finds himself both at his destination as well as incredibly lost.
Stepping into the brightly lit store, Akira found himself strolling through each aisle as quickly as possible, the encumbering tilt of Morgana's weight against his side quickly taking its toll on his legs. Finally, though, he found the area he had been searching for.
Bracing himself, he removed his hands from supporting Morgana's weight and reached outwards, lifting a litter box made of dark plastic. It was the cheapest on the shelf, and its quality showed sitting side by side with more expensive models. Even with the money that Sakura-san had given him, and the small pile of coins that the shadows in Mementos dropped at his feet, it was better safe than sorry. The litter was a shelf lower, and infinitely heavier than the box it was meant for. It weighed as much as Morgana did, of that he was nearly certain, and his knees threatened to buckle as he placed it inside of the litterbox, carrying the load with both arms clenched.
The food, both dry and wet, made up for their weight in their price. Piling the items into the box, he tallied the total inside of his head and stopped all too soon. Akira was, regretfully, unknowledgeable when it came to pet care, though he doubted that three cans and a bag of dry food would last Morgana very long.
It was mildly off-putting, and infinitely more embarrassing, approaching the counter with his meager purchases. The feeling was only amplified when he double counted the total, sliding coin after coin towards the other side of the counter. The man standing opposite to him said nothing, though Akira was unable to miss the growing glare that had his finger shaking as he slid over the last half of his payment.
"Would you like a bag?" The cashier asked, sweeping the money into his hand with the other.
Akira shook his head, piling the items back into the litterbox and quickly, or as quickly as he could, heading towards the exit.
The cool, albeit polluted, air of Tokyo was slammed into his heated face, chilling the clamminess that had accumulated around his neck. The lights of the city seemed all too bright and he averted his gaze from them, towards the endless grey of the sidewalk under him. A sense of calm washed away some of the anxiety of his recent encounter. Flower petals and reflective puddles served as his walking stones as he attempted, in vain, to recreate his steps towards the station. Fortunately, though, he did find an entrance to one, with few stares and a narrow entrance; nearly the opposite of the entrance to Mementos.
Pausing, he rested against the wall, and pulled his phone from his pocket, double-checking the MetaNav, then closing it just as quickly.
The station was emptier than it had been before he left, but still bustling with similarly-dressed people. He approached the station's gates and checked the massive map displayed in front of the turnstiles. Trailing the lines, he found that this station wouldn't be able to take him straight to Yongen-Jaya, but one stop away was Shibuya station, nearest big station, which would easily take him to his destination.
He, along with a stream of others, crowded onto the bus headed towards Shibuya-Central once the next train arrived. With the quick loading and unloading of people, he was left without a seat; but with only one stop to go, he found that he didn't particularly mind, even if the weight of Morgana and his supplies were starting to become too much. When the train stopped, Akira didn't walk onto the platform as much as he was corralled onto it by the other passengers, carefully blank strangers escorting him carelessly into an empty spot in Shibuya-Central where he remained until he spotted the appropriate line for Yongen-Jaya.
A small line formed where the train's doors would appear in two minutes, and he joined the small number, standing at the end of the line and trying his best to appear as if his legs weren't about to collapse under him.
Two minutes passed painfully slow, then another stream of people boarded the train. It was, save for the people that had been in front of him in line, noticeably empty. The train called out their destination, and Akira found himself slumped in a chair, waiting for the time to pass along with the landscape. His feet pulses painfully with the rumble of the tracks, the satisfaction of finally sitting down remaining completely mild as he was propelled towards Café LeBlanc at a nauseating speed.
The train hissed to a stop at the Yongen station. Akira pulled his schoolbag over his shoulder, lifting Morgana's weight carefully, then, less carefully, the litterbox and food. The train's doors clapped shut behind him when he stepped onto the platform, and was gone in the next instant. Nobody else had gotten off with him, and he found himself surrounded by the all too strange silence of Yongen-Jaya.
Buildings faded together in the mute darkness of the small, nearly rural area. The darkness, however, put him on edge in ways that it hadn't before, particularly when he passed a darker looking ally. He sneaked past it, listening all too intently for a faint whisper or growl that preceded a shadow striking out. One paranoid thought avalanched into him almost sprinting towards the café, the night seeming to close in around him until LeBlanc's bell rang above his head.
Akira opened his eyes, unsure when they had closed and more unsure how he had navigated here without seeing. Letting out a sigh, he pulled the café's door closed behind him and stared out the door's glass, past his reflection and into the streets.
Nothing stirred.
"You're back." Sakura-san greeted him. He turned around slowly, mindful once more of the living being hanging off of his shoulder.
He nodded in return, staring away from Sakura-san directly, and towards the hand of a customer at the bar in front of his caretaker, distracting himself with black gloves maneuvering the handle of a coffee mug.
Sakura-san cleared his throat, "Head upstairs." He ordered, "Place is still open."
Akira nodded once more, turning his gaze away from the customer and towards the more familiar tiles of LeBlanc's floors.
The steps creaked noisily under his sore feet and when he reached their apex, he gratefully set down the litterbox on the table next to the railing. His schoolbag was quick to follow, Morgana's weight lifting off of him and onto the sturdy table. A sigh of relief hissed into the empty attic, and another one emptied out of him when he finally collapsed onto the bed, almost instantly soothing the pressure that had been closing in around his head. He made a note to himself to set the litterbox and food out when he woke up, which was the last coherent thought he had before he folded his glasses up and set them on the shelf near his bed. His phone was quick to follow. He was tempted to leave it unplugged, the weight in his arms begging for the additional seconds of rest before he found the energy to shove the cord into the port.
He was asleep in the next moment.
Fire strikes down upon him as soon his eyes are shut. It sparks into the blank atmosphere, and he lifts his arm to protect his face from the heat.
There's shouting. It's behind him, in front of him—surrounding him, yet he can't make out the words.
The flame returns. When he lifts his arm to block the intense light, it comes at him, at first an intense pressure then it worsens, growing painful, the flame growing brighter.
There's screaming; he's screaming.
He shoots up, ignoring the heaving of his chest and the burning muscles inside of it. Gripping at his arm, Akira lifts the appendage into the square-shaped moonlight that's peering inside of the attic. He runs his fingers over its surface from elbow to the ends of his fingers. There's nothing but skin, no sensation other than the one he initiates.
His hands drop onto the mattress, then curl around his legs as his knees fold under his chin. As his heartbeat slows down, his eyes begin to prickle painfully and compensate with a moistness that trails down his cheek and soaks into his jeans.
More tears follow, soaking into patches on his knees uselessly. He can't seem to stop, though, can't ease the calm back into himself. He continues to cry, sniffing until his nose decides to leak as well, hiccups interrupt his breathing, stuttering the flow of air that refuses to settle down.
He weeps for minutes, perhaps hours, with no idea why; with no valid reason other than his body feels like it. Then, when it's over, when the urge to sniffle and wipe at his face subsides, a wash of calm unclenches his heart, but refuses to let him sleep.
Lifting his head from the pillow, Akira folds the blanket off of him and steps onto the attic's floor. It creaks noisily underfoot, sounding thunderous after the endless silence of the café, but doesn't faze him as he navigates across the space.
Blindly, he dips his hand into the still open zipper of his schoolbag. His hands meets abundant heat and the pulsing ridges of Morgana's expanding spine. He pulls away and, more carefully, navigates into the café.
The café is darker than usual, yet there's light still on when he walk pasts the bathroom. Peering around the corner, he spots a figure.
Sakura-san. He identifies quickly, easing some of the anxiety that had begun to well inside of him.
He watches the other man for a moment, bent over a large pot, wondering if he should just return upstairs and have another attempt at sleeping.
Instead, he continues to watch. He's not sure for how long or why he stopped debating it.
Sakura-san turns towards him, glances away, then instantly back up at him. Behind his glasses, his eyes narrow.
Shit… He thinks, just before the expression mellows.
"Couldn't sleep?" His caretaker asks, before throwing something into the bubbling pot. The smell of spices envelops the café before Sakura-san had time to stir the pot. The man looks back at him.
Akira shrugs and watches as Sakura-san's eyes roll.
"You got home pretty late," He comments, spooning another ingredient into pot, "Not causing trouble, are you?"
He shakes his head, and Sakura-san nods stiffly at him.
"Sit down, will ya?" He orders, gesturing to the bar with a ladle, "You're making me nervous, standing there like that."
He considers objecting, to returning upstairs without a word, but finds himself sitting at the café's bar, in his usual morning spot in the middle of the night.
"You eat today?" Sakura-san questions, voice loud from around the corner. The man's head pokes around the corner and Akira nods his head; Sakura-san nods back, then disappears around the corner before he can catch the man's reaction.
His stomach clenches at the thought of food. Had he eaten today?
The events of the day pass by in a blur at the front of his mind—meeting up with Sakamoto and Takamaki, which turned into running around with Skull and Panther, resting outside of the station with Morgana, shopping alone then returning to LeBlanc.
Surely he had consumed something during all that.
His insides twisted, a reflection of how it felt to enter the Metaverse. Akira grabbed at his stomach, still expecting pain to flood through either of his arms and finding himself tensing at the remembrance of his experience with Kamoshida and with Sakamoto—with Skull. Glancing down at his hands, mere outlines in LeBlanc's shadow, he finds them shaking.
A sudden pain reverberates through the bones in his arm and he finds himself stifling a gasp as it dies down in the next instant; the phantom sensation gone as quickly as it had come. Just as it had been in his dream.
His throat hurts.
Sakura-san places a plate in front of him, the strong smell makes his insides squeeze together painfully when it hits him and he snatches the glass of water that the man sets down in front of him, their hands nearly colliding with each other before Akira pulls it towards his mouth.
The smell of flames die down as the water's coolness quenches the dryness in his throat. The muscles pulsate still, a persistent heat and pressure that keeps dragging him back to Mementos.
Another plate slaps against the heavy wood of the café's counter. The first thing he notices is the discrepancy between their portions; his being the lion's share and Sakura-san's looking to be for someone much smaller than himself.
He looks up from the counter, from the plates, with a question but Sakura-san's attentions are taken up by the remote control in his hands, then, subsequently, the television hanging from the wall.
Akira drops the subject, as well as his spoon, and swallows down small portions of the curry and rice. The aroma is only second to its flavor, and he wishes, despite himself, that it tasted bad, or at least only decent. He finds himself continuously lifting his, still uninjured, arm, shoveling more into his mouth; his throat and stomach protest, both tightening and attempting to rebel the ecstasy of the meal, and his bruised cheek burns its way into his attentions, the only recent injury that hadn't been erased from the healing magic that Morgana had performed on him.
The lurching in his stomach dies down after sometime, leaving only the burning afterthought in his useless throat as he continues to swallow down Sakura-san's curry. The sensation leaves him confused, the stillness from within rather than the sinking feeling he's been feeling non-stop as of late. Its absence is enough to remind him how exhausted he is, and how bone-deep fatigue can reach.
"You been taking that stuff that uh, the doctor dropped off?" Sakura-san asks, dipping his spoon forcefully into his rice and lifting it just as hard. He glances up at his caretaker's face, but finds LeBlanc's darkness, as well as the glare peering into the man's glasses from the television's light, Akira has a difficult time find anything gleaning in the expression; though he wasn't sure if it was sure if it was due to Sakura-san's ability to conceal his emotions exceeding his own ability to read them, or if the previous factors were doing all the work for the older man.
He finds himself nodding, anyway, gripping his hands against his guilty conscious. The lie makes his stomach drop and finds himself sitting up straighter in an attempt to combat the feeling.
If Sakura-san sees through his lie, he doesn't comment on it. The older man continues to feed himself his own meager portion without looking at the plate, his gaze narrowed in on the late night news. He uses the man's distracted state as an opportunity to swipe the remainder of his meal down the sink. The curry and rice swirl down the drain in a rush of water, and he quickly washes the dishes he's used, setting them to dry with the rest of the identical looking ones in the rack beside the sink.
In the small corridor that separates the attic and bathroom from the café, Akira turns around and bows his thanks before heading back up the stairs to grab his hygiene items and quickly locks himself in the bathroom with the water running. With damp paper towels, he wipes down the grime and sweat that had long since dried from their descent into Mementos and reemerged from his unfortunate dream. Bending his head into the sink, he scrubs at his oily scalp with the tips of his fingers, hoping the still warming water was enough to rinse out the flakes of shattered hands and oil that had built up over the afternoon. By the time he got around to brushing his teeth, he was having a difficult time keeping his eyes open, even with the bathroom light shining right into his eyes.
Sakura-san made no reaction when he emerged from LeBlanc's bathroom, drying the dripping ends of his hair with paper towels. Akira took the silence as a dismissal and quickly found himself in the café's attic once more, standing in the moonbeams that shone through the attic's window. The now-used paper towels are balled up, and placed on the shelf beside his bed, quickly lost in the oblique shadows of the room along with his other belongings.
He rolls onto his other side, removing the pressure from his still swollen cheek, and quietly falls into the oblivion of sleep, the epitaph of Mementos, and the fire it burns under his skin, is left behind for the time being.
The ringing of his phone sets off the alarms in his head, shifting the black of his eyelids to the dimmed grey of the attic's wall before he finds himself sitting up. From within, the small number of personas within him stir in outrage; from across the room, a high-pitched groan emits from his schoolbag. When he turns off the alarm, Morgana's voice filters down until it is barely recognizable from the sounds of percolating coffee and the murmurs of the customers downstairs. Inside of him, Arsene's voice calls out over the small storm of different voices, silencing them and Akira is suddenly alone in his head for the first time since he's awakened to his power.
Checking the time, he catches in his peripheral as his bag jolts in place before Morgana's outline appears on the floor with a quiet thump. There's three new notifications on his phone when he checks, but doesn't open them before Morgana is on the bed beside him. The cat's fur is in disarray, sticking up at weird angles and looking generally untamable; not dissimilar to Sakamoto's own hair, he notices. Morgana blinks a few times, sneezes directly onto the sheet below them, thankfully missing the hand between them, then stares up at him with a large, blue gaze. His expression is unreadable, and Akira finds himself returning to his phone instead of attempting to continue investigating the morphing feline features beside him.
One of the notifications had been a message from Sakamoto, which was abrupt in nature, but ultimately pointless.
The second had been of more interest. In bright white letters, Phantom Thieves.
Followed by the last notification, Ann Takamaki added.
His initial reaction was very subdued, still addled by sleep, but considered it to be a necessity if things were going to continue as they were; if they were going to continue operating as phantom thieves.
Nothing else had been posted in group chat since Takamaki had been added, though he wasn't sure what to make of it.
"Phantom thieves." Morgana read aloud, having somehow scooted even closer while he had been preoccupied. Akira shrugged in response, throwing the phone down onto the mattress as he took to his feet. Crossing the attic's space, he ran his hand over his uniform, which had been hanging since he'd gotten home on Saturday. It was surprisingly dry, but unfortunately wrinkled in a way he wouldn't be able to mend before he had to catch the next train. Piling his, now also dry, notebooks, and the dry-erase board into his schoolbag, his attention was quickly caught by the purchases he had made the night before with the money they'd made in Mementos.
Sighing, he pulled open the corner of the litter bag and dumped about half into the plastic bucket it had been resting in. With that done, he glanced over his shoulder, then did a double-take. Where his phone had been, Morgana's back was now turned to him. The shadowy tail the cat possessed was flicking back and forth airily. He considered it to be a small mercy, not having to bother with instructing Morgana away as he began tugging off the clothes he'd slept in and pulling on his school uniform; but he did keep his gaze discreetly pinned on the bed across from him, hoping that Morgana wouldn't choose an inopportune moment to turn around.
Fortunately, that anxiety died down as he pulled on the Shujin blazer, completing the outfit except his shoes. Glancing, once again, towards the bed, he found Morgana's position unchanged, and he crouched down in front of the shelf that held his personal belongings. He pulled out a pair of socks and quickly dressed his feet in them before shoving on the stiffened leather of his school shoes. They stuck to the floor slightly when he paced to the other end of the attic once more, announcing his presence, though Morgana hadn't seemed to have taken notice, as his tail continued to swish loftily until Akira was right over him, shadowing the cat an even darker shade as he reclaimed his cell phone.
He glanced at the screen, taking notice of the half composed message before glancing back down at his companion, whose expression had soured. The white ovals that composed his eyebrows were tilted downwards, flattening into rectangles while the eyes below narrowed deeply. "Hey! I was using that." Morgana whined, the pitch of his voice at odds with the venomous expression he'd equipped. If he wasn't in a particular rush, such as the one he was in now, he might have given the cat an explanation on item ownership. Instead, he clicked the lock button on the device and slid it, and Morgana's half-message, into the pocket of his uniform, and strode downstairs with his toothbrush.
Keeping his gaze, and hopefully presence, away from the customers, Akira quietly locked himself in LeBlanc's bathroom and quickly attempting to groom himself. His hair refused to cooperate without a brush, and he wasn't necessarily in the mood to run upstairs and risked being yelled at by Sakura-san. Instead, he patted it down, accepting that it would remain rather fluffy for today. He returned to the attic, putting his hygiene items back into his box and exchanging it for his schoolbag. He dragged it off the table, only to find it expectantly heavy to the point that it tumbled to the attic's floorboards.
The bag yelped and Akira instantly recognized his mistake.
Pulling open the sides of the bag revealed Morgana's tense form. The cat glared up at him but refused to get out of the bag when he pulled it open further.
I hope this doesn't become an everyday thing… He complains silently, adjusting his stance as he pulled the bag over his shoulder to compensate for the additional weight. Morgana, for his part, remains still and mostly quiet as he makes his way back down LeBlanc's stairs and towards the café's exit. When he turns to shut the door quietly, he spots Sakura-san through the glass within the door. His caretaker doesn't beckon him back inside, merely nods in his direction before turning away from him. He's unsure what to make of the interaction, but doesn't dwell on it like he might have a few days earlier; Sakura-san was quite enigmatic, in his opinion.
Stepping past the rows of metallic shoe lockers of Shujin Academy, he notices, almost immediately, that something past the blur of students had been altered. However, it's not until he's walking past the school store does it actually click inside of him; the lack of red through the bustle of the students around him. The endless stream of calling cards that Sakamoto had somehow produced, and somehow plastered around the entire school without being noticed—something that Akira was beginning to question, were all absent. Once he had begun to notice, he found himself unable to stop searching. Casting his gaze around the school's corridors, he searched for a sign that they had been here two days prior.
Finally taking notice of the amount of attention he was drawing, Akira ducked into the classroom, his face warm from the sheer number of curious, yet malignant, gazes that had pinned him down. Takamaki is already in the seat in front of him when walks down the last aisle of desks and takes his place by the window; she doesn't notice him walk past, or if she does she doesn't take an interest in his arrival. Unfortunately, the student that sits behind him is already there as well, though his attentions are absorbed in a green-covered book. He uses the distraction to escort Morgana inside of his desk, using his school bag to keep stray glances from spotting the transition. He slides the mostly empty bag under his seat and pulls out his phone from the pocket of his uniform.
He unlocks it and finds Morgana's half-written message once again. Deleting it, he begins drafting the first message in the group chat, finding himself oddly apprehensive and checking over his word usage more than is probably necessary before hitting sent, tacking on Morgana's message towards the end in a rather clipped fashion.
"All of the calling cards are missing. Morgana says hello." In the next instant, from in front of him, a phone chimes loudly enough to draw a few stares before the roar of the classroom picks up as if it hadn't been disturbed. He spies Takamaki digging into the pocket of her own uniform and pulling out her own phone. She stares at it for a long moment, then her hair flicks over her shoulder and she looks at him with one eye. His fingers latch onto a lock of his own messy hair, twirling the dark strands, his gaze falls to the desk below him. When he musters the courage to look back up, Takamaki is no longer looking in his direction.
"I heard that Kamoshida cancelled practice for the volleyball team and made them shred every one." The message had stemmed from a silhouette of panther, no doubt Takamaki, and was quickly followed up from a skull motif.
"Sounds like something that asshole would do."
The chat quiets into silence after Sakamoto's message, and class starts soon after with Kawakami stepping into the room. The lines in already stern expression were amplified by dark, familiar looking circles around her eyes. She called role quickly, not looking up from the clipboard until she called his name. She glanced up, her stare boring into him for a long moment, before she checked him off and began her lecture.
Kawakami didn't ask many questions and was quick to dismiss herself several minutes before class was actually supposed to end, leaving the quiet room to escalate in volume in her absence.
Akira pilfered his phone from inside of his desk and glanced at the new messages that had shown up.
"Kamoshida isn't here today." That in itself shouldn't have been cause for suspicion, but considering the multiple warnings that Morgana had beat into them before starting their operation, he couldn't help the spike of negative emotion that splintered through his chest.
Did Kamoshida lose all his desires? He pondered the question quietly, tucking his phone back into the desk. According to the man's shadow, everything had worked out faultlessly when Takamaki had threatened him. Besides the defeated expression that he adopted as he had thrown his crown towards them, Kamoshida didn't look traumatized, didn't resemble the empty shell that the rumors depicted.
If anybody was sharing his doubt, nobody spoke up about it.
He spent lunch alone, lingering on the stairway that lead to the roof where Sakamoto had dragged him into Kamoshida's business. It wasn't an ideal situation, the stairs were hard against his butt and dug into his spine, but it was quiet and kept him out of sight, which was ideal. He doubted that anyone would find him unless he made his presence known. Using the solace, he worked over the information that Morgana had provided them prior to their confrontation with Kamoshida's shadow. Everything had gone according to plan, or at least he thought so. They'd sent the calling card, defeated Kamoshida, and stolen the treasure. All without being crushed under the collapsing castle of the man's twisted desires. Yet Kamoshida was nowhere to be found, no sins confessed, no crimes atoned for.
It was making him nervous, even though he's not sure what he should be expecting. For all they know, Kamoshida could have gone to the police station instead of Shujin. It was a logical conclusion. The more he thought about it, however, the more vivid the sight of Kamoshida's prone body, unmotivated to eat, to breathe, to live, became in his head.
Someone pinned him to the hallway on his way back to the classroom, when he opened his eyes, he almost expected to see Kamoshida from behind his glasses. It wasn't; it was Sakamoto.
"Did I scare ya?" The blond asked, the tilt of his face was serious and gloomy, not dissimilar to the expression Kamoshida had adopted when he'd been called into the man's office.
Hesitantly, he nodded in assertion. The grip clamping onto his shoulders loosened considerably and he felt like he could breathe again, despite still being effectively pinned.
Sakamoto clears his throat, "Sorry 'bout that." The blond takes another step backwards, releasing him altogether and Akira can breathe again.
"Have you heard anything, yet?" Sakamoto's voice drops in pitch as he begins to whisper, "About Kamoshida?" He casts a glance in either direction of the hallway and Akira does the same, spotting several people staring at the two of them, but they seem far enough away that it's unlikely that they're hearing anything Sakamoto is saying, so he finds his attention locked onto the blond's shirt. A long column of red travels up from Sakamoto's waist, boxed in by the lapels of their matching blazers. It's not an obscene amount of the same shade that had decorated the halls a few days before, but it's enough to quell the anxiousness of Kamoshida's absence that had been building inside of him.
"You don't think we… y'know?" Sakamoto makes a crude, yet vague gesture with one hand, "I mean, Morgana said he'd be fine, right?"
The weight against his side squirmed, lurching forward forcefully enough that he almost lost his balance before Morgana's head ascended from a gap in the half-closed zipper. Again, his eyes darted around the hallway, hoping that the other students were more preoccupied with discussing him rather than the pair of large blue eyes that glared from the schoolbag under his shoulder.
"Is that what you've been worried about?" When he glances down, Morgana's head is craned backwards and staring right at him. The oceanic tint of his pupils are slanted and upside down, but the glare is instantly recognizable.
Akira shrugs his shoulders, lifting Morgana up slightly as he did so. He wasn't aware that he'd been projecting enough for Morgana to take notice.
Morgana's attention drops from him, instead he converses directly with Sakamoto, sharply affirming that nothing hadn't gone as they had planned it. Akira toed at the edge of a floor tile with his shoe, erasing a skid mark that he'd been standing on. It took up most of his attention, enough that his teammates' hushed conversation filtered into the buzz of the hallway. A pair of bright white slippers stepped in front of him just as he'd erased the remaining edge and he glanced up, caught Kawakami's gaze, and quickly dropped his attention to the floor. His whiteboard was still in the classroom, not so much at Morgana's insistence than annoyance with the stiffness of the object; and he wasn't sure how his homeroom teacher would react to him pulling out his cell phone in the hallway, so he hoped that she would avoid stirring a conversation with him.
"Perfect timing" She said, instantly hushing Sakamoto and sending Morgana back inside of the bag, "Study hall will be held instead of P.E. today, I'm letting you know in case you hadn't heard. Kamoshida-sensei has taken the day off." It was the first time Kawakami had been anything but straight to the point with him. He wondered if it was due to Sakamoto's presence or the stream of students and staff that were avoiding walking in front of either of them.
Beside him, Sakamoto perked up, standing taller than he'd been just a moment ago, "H-he ain't here?" The surprise was evident in his tone and Kawakami took a step forward, drawing the bubble they had created even closer.
Crossing her arms, Kawakami replied in a quieter, conspiratorial tone, "Don't tell anyone that you heard this from me, but we've received word that Kamoshida-sensei is placing himself under suspension…" The woman in front of them sighed loudly, "It's such an important time before the tournament, too. When Kobayakawa went to talk to him about it, but he supposedly wasn't making any sense." The tension that had been steadily creeping into the atmosphere hit its crescendo at her last remark. Akira swallowed down, hard, and hoped that his expression didn't reflect anything guilty.
"A suspension?" Sakamoto's yelped out.
Kawakami shushed him, glaring at both of them, "Not so loud." She whispers sharply; at the reprimand, Sakamoto's face goes carefully blank, his face smoothing out like a mask. Instantly, he's reminded of Mementos, of Skull's betrayal and the broken hearing aid that's sitting in his pants at home. His arm flares in pain that he knows isn't real and he backs himself against the wall, grasping at his skin through his uniform, digging the blunt ends of his fingers into himself until he separates the memory from reality.
In front of him, Kawakami takes a step back, "Also, there's an assembly this afternoon during last period regarding…" she pauses, "Regarding Suzui's accident, in the gym. Please be in attendance."
When she looks down at him, Akira nods dutifully. Sakamoto does the same, though he can see the shift in the boy's mood as if it were physically affecting him; the tension building itself inside of his slouched form. Something about it makes him nervous, though he knows he has no reason to be, not outside of the Metaverse.
Morgana wormed his way out of the bag once again, peering into the hallway for a moment, then back up at him. He wouldn't know it, but he was almost certain that a flicker of doubt had warped Morgana's features before the cat quickly concealed his expression.
"That was strange, wasn't it?" The cat questioned, one of his front paws escaping the confines of the bag to rub at his face.
Akira nodded quietly, still processing, still clawing at his arm.
Beside him, Sakamoto stepped away from the wall he'd been leaning against and more towards him and Morgana. The expression of shock that had been there before dropped into an unreadable frown, "Looks like somethin' happened." He comments darkly. "At least it sounds different from a mental shutdown." He supposed that was true, from what little he had heard from the line between Yongen-Jaya and Shibuya, none of the shutdown victims called in before they caused their accidents or death. It seemed, from what little they had to go on, mere speculation—though Kawakami's speculation was more likely to hold some validity to it than his own— that Kamoshida's desires, most of them at least, were still intact.
"Guess all we can do is wait." Sakamoto sighs out. Below them, Morgana nods firmly before slipping back into the bag's opening.
During his next class—now study hall, Sakamoto relays the information to Takamaki in their group chat. When he looks up from reading the messages himself, he finds her staring at him over her shoulder once again. Her gaze, this time, averts his faster than his does.
"Did you hear about the assembly this afternoon?" Her voice carries out under her breath and the words are directed towards the floor.
When she glances up at him, he nods, feeling uncomfortable. Takamaki had been friends with Suzui; even though she hadn't seen the pictures inside of Kamoshida's castle, he had a feeling she knew why the other girl had cast herself off of the roof.
She turns away, after that, and doesn't speak with him again until their class is headed towards the gym. Despite the considerable alphabetic difference in their two names, she somehow ends up right in front of him.
"Do you think Kobayakowa will talk about Kamoshida?" She whispers to him.
Akira shrugs. He doesn't know what kind of person Shujin's principal is, but it seemed, from what Kamoshida told him in his office, that the school was covering his actions in exchange for his benefits to their prestige. He rubs at the still healing bruises on his cheek, still resembling the facsimile of Kamoshida's hand.
Their class files in right next to Sakamoto's, the blond sticking out where he notices his presence almost instantly amongst the number of other students. He supposes the same thing can be said about Takamaki, as Sakamoto quickly weaves through the crowd of his classmates and ends up standing next to them.
Another wave of students filter into the gym, filling it completely, letting the roar of whispers grow even louder. All of it does down, however, when Kobayakowa steps onto the stage and stands in front of a podium with the Shujin logo on it. His face, under the gym's lights, is glowing almost distractingly bright.
The man leans forward, the sound of his quick, shallow breathing echoes through the speakers all around the gymnasium. "Let us begin this school-wide assembly." His voice wavers distinctly over the static of the speakers. "As you all may know, a tragic event has taken place on these school grounds the other day." He pauses, as Kawakami did hours before, "On Friday morning of last week, Suzui Shiho a-attempted suicide on campus last week. Many of you may have known Suzui-chan. Spoken to her, or seen her during one of our school's volleyball games as a starting player. It came as a surprise to us all that she felt like this was the best option for her—fortunately, though, she has managed to pull through, though she remains in critical care at the moment."
Kobayakowa clears his throat into the microphone, "As you may well know, the students of this school, of any school in this country, are the f-future for this country. Shujin Academy has been known, for many generations, to produce many leaders that have shaped this country that it is today; it is important, not just for yourselves, but for everyone around you, that you consider the importance of your own lives. The schoolboard, and your teachers, as well as myself, felt that, with the increasing rates of these… incidents occurring across the country, felt it was necessary to inform you all of your options regarding stress or… m-mental difficulties, that you may be facing due to your workload or living situations. A-as such, we've invited a guest speaker today to…"
The speech was interrupted by the gym doors being wrenched open, then slamming shut. Akira hadn't noticed the sound so much as the subsequent wave of gasps that followed. Leaning on his tiptoes, he attempted to locate the source of the reaction, but was unable to see past the sea of uniforms in front of him. Instead, the information came slamming into him as rumors began filtering through the collected student body.
"Kamoshida…" Takamaki whispered towards Sakamoto, whose teeth gritted together loud enough for him to hear over the whispering students around them.
Kobayakowa, who had no trouble seeing the doors from where he had been standing, huffs into the microphone.
"K-Kamoshida-sensei, what are you doing here?" Echoes throughout the room.
Kamoshida's voice manages to reach him, even over the mass of bodies in front of him. "I… have been reborn."
Reborn? He questions, apprehensive.
"That is why, I will confess everything to you all." Kamoshida's voice moves around the perimeter of the gym, and through the gaps in the students around him, Akira is able to spot glimpses of the man; of the husk Akira was terrified he'd been turned into. When the man takes the stage, blocking out Kobayakowa and the podium, he takes in the mess of limp, greasy hair, the slouched posture, and the defeated expression in his face that he'd only seen in that lost moment in the Metaverse. The timers and whistles around his neck rock like pendulums, counting the seconds before Kamoshida opens his mouth again.
"I have, repeatedly, done things… that were unbecoming of a teacher." The stopwatch around his neck swings again, "Verbally abusing students, physically abusing my team, and… Sexually harassing female students.
It swings back, "I am the reason Suzui Shiho tried to kill herself."
Somehow, through the haze of his confession, and the endless wave of students surrounding him, Kamoshida's gaze falls onto him; he finds himself unable to look away from the piercing stare, caught in the malignant gaze of his enemy—his former enemy. "I... released the record of a student to the student body." His gaze shifts a fraction to Akira's left, "I was the one who attacked Sakamoto Ryuji, not the other way around."
"I… coerced Takamaki Ann into a relationship with me." As Kamoshida's gaze sweeps across the room, more sins continue to spill from the man's mouth, each more vile than the last. Despite the horrified silence in the room, nobody steps forward to stop the man from confessing.
Finally, Kamoshida falls to his knees, his form convulses almost unnaturally as he sobs, "I thought of this school as my own castle, and I am… truly sorry for putting such innocent youths through such horrible acts." The man in front of them chokes over his own words and cries, "I am an arrogant, shallow, and shameful person…"
Kamoshida pauses, "No, I-I'm worse than that!" The man that had threatened to execute all of them throws himself forward, bowing to all of them "I will take responsibility for my actions, and kill myself to repent."
Hearing those words breaks the silence that had tranced the crowd in front of him.
Behind him, Kobayakowa rushes over to Kamoshida's shrunken form. "K-Kamoshida-sensei, please remove yourself from the stage."
Another teacher calls out, "Everyone p-please return to your classrooms; this assembly is disbanded as of now!"
Akira turns around and begins to follow his own class out of the crowded gymnasium, but pauses when he hears a familiar voice shout over the others.
"Don't run, you bastard!" Takamaki shouts, causing the lines in front of him to pause as they turn and look. "Shiho is still alive! Even after all the things that made her want to die."
Her foot stomps onto the ground, sending a sharp crack into the air that makes his face flash in pain, "You have no right to run from this!"
Kamoshida, in between his thunderous sobs, responds, "Y-you're right… I should be punished under the law… to atone…" He sighs loudly over the still circulating whispers, "As of today… I resign from Shujin Academy, and will turn myself into the police. Please—please call the police!"
"Wow…" Sakamoto's surprise comes from right beside him.
Akira nods appraisingly, shocked beyond himself; inside of him, he can feel smugness that isn't his own, radiating from Arsene.
The gym doors are pushed open, and more faculty yell at them to evacuate, their voices more stern than before.
The rumors swirling through the hallways shift from Kamoshida's confession to the calling card, then finally the Phantom Thieves; and, despite himself, he feels his body stiffen in an attempt to keep from reacting.
Just ahead of him, Sakamoto's form does the same, making the blond stand taller as he glances around the advancing march of students. Sakamoto looks back at him, a large smile is beaming on his face. Akira isn't sure what to make of it.
"A-plus job then, huh?" The blond calls over the rush of gossip around them.
He shrugs. Something about Kamoshida's confession made him uneasy, even if appeared to still be normal, the fear that his desires would turn to ash, that he'd become like the other mental shutdown victims. It worried him, more than he would like to admit.
Takamaki didn't return to the classroom until minutes after the rest of them had returned, and he didn't find out why until another moment after she sat down as she started to text him directly, instead of using their group chat.
"Some of the other girls came up to me and apologized for spreading rumors about me…"
He read over the message twice, then a third time as Kawakami began lecturing them about avoiding suicide, and he still wasn't sure to respond.
"That's good." He eventually sent.
"I guess, not like any of it matters though. Shiho got her justice, and that's good enough for me."
He didn't respond, but another message showed up, this time in the chat that the three of them were in.
"Are you guys busy after school?"
Sakamoto replied almost instantly, despite all of them still being in class.
"Nope."
|"Why?"
"I think we should celebrate!" Takamaki revealed, followed by a happy looking sticker.
"Sounds good."
"Akira?" The use of his name made him uncomfortable, but he ended up responding to Sakamoto's message anyway.
"Sure." Sakamoto followed it up with the same sticker that Takamaki had used earlier; a stark contrast to the skull motif he used as an avatar.
A minute passed before his phone lit up inside of the desk and he checked it right as Kawakami dismissed their class.
"D'ya think the Phantom Thieves will be famous after this?"
"I doubt it."
|"I mean, it's just a teacher admitting that he's a creep."
|"You know?"
Sakamoto doesn't respond.
His phone doesn't light up again until Takamaki drags him out of the classroom and towards the stairs, heading up instead of down.
"We're on the roof."
"Already? My teacher is still nagging about not being disgraceful to the school."
Takamaki sends back a picture with its tongue out; Sakamoto doesn't reply.
The girl beside him continues to drag him across the roof, and doesn't release him until they're standing at the fence that's supposed to prevent incidents like Suzui's. He stares out, towards the horizon that's blocked by the scaling buildings of the city, taking in the sights. His gaze, inevitably, sinks down, though, to where Suzui's body landed. Where the girl he'd met only once, but seen in pictures hundreds of time, had almost died. Something in his chest tightens painfully; he looks away from the ground.
"Do… do you think there's more palaces out there?" Takamaki questions eventually, breaking the fragile silence between the two of them.
Akira looks back at the girl and shrugs. Morgana had heavily indicated to that being the truth.
The bag under his shoulder squirms, and, as if summoned by his own thought or by Takamaki's voice, Morgana's head grows out of the open zipper of his schoolbag. "It's a high possibility." He says, almost cryptically.
From the corner of his eye, he catches Takamaki nodding, the pale shade of her hair picking up streaks of orange under the sun's light.
Her mouth opens again, but instead of words, the sound of an opening door catches in his ear and Akira looks back to catch Sakamoto walking up to them, a grin still creasing his lips.
"Yo!" He shouts, despite the closing distance between them; the volume causing several birds to fly off of the roof.
Takamaki smiles too, as if Sakamoto's cheerful expression were contagious. "Hey, Ryuji!" As if the use of his name affected him as much as it did Akira himself, the blond pauses a few meters away, then continues to advance, the grin he'd had seeming miniscule compared to the one that was now blooming on his face.
"So what should we do to celebrate?" Sakamoto questions once he's close enough, slinging an arm around both of their necks. The sensations is warm, and heavy.
"I have a feeling…" Takamaki says, seeming unfazed by the added weight on her shoulders, "That you'd say, 'ramen' if I asked you what you wanted to do."
Sakamoto splutters noisily, causing Takamaki to laugh in response.
The weight on his frame increases as Sakamoto starts to laugh as well.
His knees collapse under the strain, folding under him as they decided to stop coordinating.
Suddenly, he felt exhausted.
