Chapter 17

Sakura-san asks him to help out in the cafe the following evening and Akira almost declines. Just how he almost declined when Morgana beckons him back into the MetaVerse to check out the next door with only Sakamoto for backup. It doesn't open and Morgana is quiet on the way back to LeBlanc, merely telling him not to stay up too late when Sakura-san orders him back downstairs. The headache that the MetaVerse gives them, along with the bone-deep exhaustion, make the colors in the cafe blur together like an abstract painting.

When he passes out, he's not entirely surprised. Is much more so when he wakes up with his hand throbbing in pain and something prodding at his face.

Takemi's sharp, purple fingernails are the first thing he sees when he manages to rend his eyes open. The digits pull away as he steps fully into consciousness and manages to sit up. The doctor is sitting on the edge of the chair that had been previously stationed at the desk in the corner, hunched over him and frowning in his direction.

He glances at his hands; finds it bright red with a set of blisters starting to sprout out of the curve of his thumb.

"Second degree burn." Takemi supplies leaning back and making the chair under her creak. When he glances in her direction, he spots Sakura-san behind her, looming quietly with his usual grim expression in place. A cigarette is hanging from his lips, casting sharp smelling clouds around the room. Ashes fall onto his apron and onto the floor, but it doesn't seem like the man seems to notice at all.

"You seem quite accident prone," Takemi says to him, throwing an arm around the back of the chair, "Even for a teenage boy."

He shrugs in response, unsure what to say to something like that.

Across the room, Sakura-san snorts into his cigarette. "He'll be okay, though?"

Takemi nods, not abandoning her posture to turn back to his guardian. Not even when Akira wish she would, just to keep her attention off of him.

"He'll be fine with some bed rest." She answers, then flicks a hand toward the empty shelves beside his bed where a large brown box is now taking up space. Something that hadn't been there this morning, "After taking those, he should be back to functioning normally."

"I appreciate you coming all the way out here, then, doctor." Sakura-san nods, but doesn't look less displeased. "Your next one will be on the house."

Face hidden from his guardian, Takemi smiles, a wide stretch of her dark-painted lips, "Of course." She winks at him; the makeup around her left eye folding in on itself, then, in the next instant reveals the dark gleam in her eyes. He's not sure what to make of it, is too tired to continue thinking about it after she takes her leave. She exits the cafe after giving Sakura-san her farewell. Akira can hear the door ringing as it's pressed shut, then he's alone with Sakura-san, who approaches the bed, taking the seat Takemi had just abandoned.

"You uh, feeling alright?" His guardian questions, flicking off the ashes of his cigarette onto the floor when he pulls it from his mouth.

Akira nods dutifully. He's not sure how he feels, isn't sure he's even awake; if this is all a dream he's made up to escape the MetaVerse's nightmares.

Sakura-san eyes him warily, but eventually nods, sticking the bud back into his mouth only to talk around it. "If you're ever... need a break when I need your help, I want you to tell me next time. Got it?" There's anger in his caretaker's voice, something he's quick to identify and he shrinks under it. Bobbing his head when his voice dies down, the muscles supporting it are weak from something. His head is still throbbing, made worse by the infinitely bright light from the attic's single light bulb.

"I'll uh, make sure not to mention anything about this to your parents, alright?" Again, he nods, only slightly stunned at the mention of his parents. He'd been in Tokyo for more than a week and hadn't heard anything from them.

Had Sakura-san? He questions, glancing up at the man from the corner of his eye. More ashes fall into the air between them, leaving him without answers.

"I'll let you rest." Sakura-san says eventually, taking to his feet with two loud pops of his knees, "I already closed the cafe, so it should be relatively quiet up here, but uh, here." His guardian digs into his pocket, pulling out one of LeBlanc's order pads as well as a pen. Ripping off the top page, Sakura-san hands him the paper. "If you ever have... an episode at school, the park, wherever, make sure to call me."

Akira nods.

"But don't just doing it for free rides," He says grimly, pointing the pen at him, "Got it?"

He bobs his head again; the thought hadn't even crossed his mind.

Morgana peels back onto the bed once the cafe's bell rings again, a shadow in shadows. The space next to where he's curled up indents as the cat climbs onto the mattress and Akira is able to make out the gleaming oceanic hue of Morgana's eyes staring down at him in the darkness of the room.

"Joker?" His teammate calls, a paw lurches forward, landing on his cheek. He can't muster the energy to swat it away or move it, so he tolerates it when Morgana starts pushing his skin around like Takemi had just finished doing. "Are you really okay?"

He's not sure Morgana's vision operates in the dark, but he nods into it anyway. Figures the cat must have gotten the message when his frame settles down next to him. Akira puts his hand over Morgana's hand, letting rise and fall along with his breathing, falling asleep in the next instant.

Ryuji hisses when he sees his hand the next morning. The blond had been lingering outside of the school gates before classes and quickly fell into step beside him as they climbed up to the second floor.

"Where'd ya score that?" He questions, pointing to his hand. The box of medicine that Takemi had left behind had dispelled the initial burn, but the blisters were still sore to the touch. "Looks sick."

Akira shrugs, not quite sure how ended up with the injury himself.

"Anyway, I gotta place I wanna show you after school." Sakamoto drawls, "So cancel any plans if ya gottem, okay?" The blond doesn't give him anytime to respond before he's shutting the door to his own classroom into Akira's face.

By the time he makes it to his own classroom and his own desk, the bell had already rung. He's not sure if he's counted as late or absent by the way Kawakami glares at him from the front of the room as she takes attendance, but she starts her lecture without a word to him. Akira takes that as a good sign, or at least, not a negative one. Despite the slack she seems to have given him, he finds himself staring out the window, not to the ground below, but into the staggering skyline that's still waking up.

He takes in more of it at lunch, on the roof with Morgana. They share the sight and Akira shares his lunch- inexpensive bread from the school store- until nothing but the wrapper remains. Even under the relaxing spring chill, he finds himself sweating in apprehension. Kamoshida's confession was still circulating around the school; the Phantom Thief website- as useful as it might be- was also becoming a regular topic in the whispers behind his back. Somehow, he and Sakamoto were being accused of threatening Kamoshida; Takamaki had been left out of the picture. Morgana too, obviously. The number of times he'd interacted with Kamoshida outside of the MetaVerse could be counted on one hand; all but one of those meetings had been in public.

Akira scrubs at the Kamoshida shaped bruise on his face, still purple but turning yellow around the edges.

Is this what it's like to be a criminal... The bell rang. He returned to class without answers, tucking Morgana neatly around his notebooks and disposing of their trash before making his way to the classroom. Hiruta-sensei clicks his tongue at him, but doesn't say much else until his lecture over the composition of hair begins. He grapples at his own hair, twisting and twirling a couple strands until they end up defying gravity, curling straight upwards; it's a habit he can't seem to stamp out, letting one hand mess up his already messy hair while the other takes half-decent notes.

"Ready to go, partner?" A voice asks, just before a massive black shape materializes on his desk, crushing his textbook and notes. The desk rattles loosely as the shape lands, causing Morgana to yowl loudly from within. The sudden appearance and the small scream are enough to make him jerk backwards, casting the classroom in shades of blue, the light from the windows making most everything easy to identify. The stark white strands, one shooting into the open end of his desk and the other to the shape on top of it.

Sakamoto.

Akira glances around the mostly empty classroom to make sure nobody had heard the sound that Morgana had made,w hen he finds that nobody is looking in their direction, he turns his attention back to the teammate on his desk, glancing up at him from beneath his messed up hair and tugging the familiar weight of his phone out of his pocket.

"Where are we going?" He asks. Ryuji echoes the question into the air as he reads it, but doesn't respond otherwise, merely slides himself off the desk and the things on it with him.

He picks up the textbook, slides into the cage under his desk and tucks the notebook into his bag before offering it to Morgana.

"Sorry, dude." Sakamoto apologizes. And then, "But uh, think of it as a surprise."

Ryuji's surprise leads him onto the platform closest to their school, then to the other end of Shibuya where Central Street is. The blond in front of him is the only thing keeping him getting lost in the mostly familiar streets around him; he spots some signs he spotted on the way to purchase Morgana's litter box, as well as the Big Bang Burger they'd met at earlier in the week. Sakamoto is also the one keeping him from stopping in the busy street and taking all of Tokyo in; how busy it is, how bright it is, how it can smell both good and bad at the same time.

He avoids stepping in any spring puddles, fallen cherry blossoms, or any combination of the two as his teammate finally stops in front of an alleyway. Akira steps into and leans against one the tall brick walls when Sakamoto does; the blond rubs at his knee. It's a gesture that Akira is starting to notice more and more often as they enter and exit the MetaVerse.

Morgana squirms his head out of the opening under his arm, "T-this is the surprise?" There's a waver in his voice that Akira is surprised to hear, "A creepy alley?" The cat's voice is belted out loudly, a yell that his him wincing but doesn't seem to draw the attention of the stream that's passing in front of the alley they're propped up in, nor does it drag anyone out from within it.

"Quit yellin'" Ryuji yells, pulling his hands away from his ears, leaving the shorter ends of his hair sticking straight out, at least on the side that Akira can see.

"Then explain why we're here!" Morgana orders. Akira can feel a thump against his rib where the cat stomps a paw from inside the bag.

Sakamoto rolls his eyes, then turns more towards him, rolling his shoulder over the wall until his entire front is facing him. Akira drops his chin, catching sight of a singular rat dragging something along the wall they're leaning against.

"Ya know that model gun I handed you in Kamoshida's palace?" Akira nods; he's pretty sure he can identify the weight of it in his bag, tucked away in one of it's pockets. "Well, it was dumb at the time, but then it actually worked, ya know, like," Ryuji drags a hand away from where it's folded over his school blazer, mimicking the shape of a gun, "Bang."

Again, Akira nods.

"Well, I bought it from this place just around the corner." He explains.

"Oh." Morgana pipes in, "So you want to procure more guns to use in the MetaVerse?"

"Yep." Ryuji nods.

"I must admit, Ryuji, that's pretty good thinking." The compliment is sudden and causes Ryuji to make a strange enough noise that Akira forces himself to look up.

When he does, he finds Sakamoto covering the lower half of his face with one hand; an inverse to the mask he wears, though it does nothing to conceal the blooming color that spreads out from underneath it, settling, finally, onto his ears. Akira looks away, letting him have his privacy, and is caught off-guard when the blond speaks again.

"W-whatever, let's just get inside." Is half-muddled under Sakamoto's hand, but when he kicks off the wall and steps further into the alley, Akira gets the message and follows.

Untouchable. The pronunciation of the neon green letters is probably butchering the name of the shop, but he doubts it matters as he's stepping inside the shop's door when Sakamoto holds it open in front of him. All at once, everything catches his eye, effectively blinding him to both the big picture and the details of the new environment. He recognizes the bell on the door as it rings, a soft chime in an otherwise near-silent room. The air hums with air conditioning that doesn't help the stuffy warm air as it starts drying out his nose. The interior of the shop is more organized than the mess of bikes and dumpsters outside would have indicated and Akira finds himself curious, even as he keeps his head down and follows Sakamoto further into the shop. As organized as it was, with neat boxes stacked on top of one another, it did little to conceal the vast amount of things crammed into the building. He has a hard time taking it all in, the displays of military-grade equipment and dangerous looking weapons.

At the edge of the shop and circling around it, are glass display cases-though, they too have numerous boxes piled onto them- housing various weapons side by side and he figures it's a good place to start, if any. Sakamoto is nearby, too, having not strayed too far into the place and out of sight. Akira steps further into the stuffy air of Untouchables and stands in front of the display case nearest the exit. The window riding the wall above it is barred with black metal, sending pleats and bars into the cases and sending back a glare.

"Help ya find somethin, glasses?" The address startles him with its suddenness more than anything else; and after he recoils from jumping, it takes him a while to find the origin of the voice.

Behind the counter, mostly sunken into a low-hanging chair with his boots propped onto the counter. Half his face is cast in shadow from the hat pulled low on his head, the bright orange ear-protectors wrapped around the bucket of the hat make him double take. The man underneath the hat has his eyes narrowed into almost cat-like slits, his mouth is as sunken as the man himself is, riding low on his chin in a scowl with a white stick hanging out of one corner.

After another moment of silence, the man sits up straight, looking more like a person the less slouched he becomes and Akira becomes cognizant of the fact that he's been asked a question.

He shakes his head, at the same time Sakamato speaks up, "We're lookin' to buy somethin'."

"'S'at so?" The man grins under the shadow of his cap; Akira's not sure if it's a friendly gesture or not and takes a step back from the counter, "You a coupla enthusiasts? I've never seen either of you around here before."

Akira shrugs when the man's gaze falls on him and he catches Sakamoto frowning out of the corner of his eye when the man looks in his direction.

"Right then," The guy says without provocation, sitting up even straighter in his seat and pulling on the end of the stick in his mouth, "Don't go pointin' these things around at people. Keep 'em in your bag or something' if you're out in public. And don't let the fuzz catch wind of you havin' 'em, I don't need anyone sniffin' around here. If you do break one of those rules, I dunno you; you don't me, got it?"

He bobs his head dutifully when the man behind the counter points the stick at him, a piece of bright red candy hanging off the tip. The mention of the police just enough to make his gut curl uncomfortably in on itself.

Beside him, Sakamoto does the same and the man settles back down, sinking low in his seat with a smirk.

"I don't mind helpin' some fresh faces but uh..." The man rolls his neck around and itches at his neck, revealing a tattoo of a reptile for a brief enough period that he can identify its shape before it disappears again in the fold of the man's jacket, "Stick to the kiddie shelf, 'kay?" The man gestures with a sweep of the cherry red curve of the candy in his hand to the shelf his feet had just been on. "Top shelf only, got it?"

Akira nods into a bow before taking a step forward to examine the shelf the clerk had pointed out. On his left, Sakamoto huddles in as well, taking in the selection.

Just below his shoulder, Morgana offers, "The more real they look, the more effective they should be in the MetaVerse."

"Uh," The clerk pipes up, "Was that a cat?"

Akira can feel his heart sink into the soles of his school-issued shoes and averts his gaze away from the counter and the clerk in general.

Morgana disappears into the folds of his bag and Sakamoto reels back, standing disturbingly straight as he steps away from the display case. "Uh- N-nope, no cats here."

The man behind the counter scoffs, but doesn't comment further.

Akira- none too gently- shoves Morgana's head back into the bag when the cat tries to slip out again.

They all look pretty real... He notes mildly, letting his eye wander over the shelf the clerk had pointed out and beyond; but upon seeing the price tag attached to the merchandise just a shelf below, Akira keeps his gaze locked onto their permitted shelf and hoping that looking didn't cost extra.

"What about that one?" Ryuji questions, jabbing his finger towards the middle of the case. A large handful-most likely two, considering it has more than one handle- of a machine sits under it, covered in ridges of black, shiny plastic. The barrel of it is wide and Akira has a tough time imagining just a single bullet flying through the cavernous space. "Pretty badass, huh?"

Akira shrugs. It looked real enough.

"Psst." Morgana whispers, "What about me?"

Sakamoto looks at his bag with a frown, "Whaddya mean? You don't even have fingers, you dumb-" The word cat is replaced with a growl as Ryuji cuts himself off with a quick glance to the clerk.

"What about that?" Morgana removes a paw to point towards the corner of the display case where a stack of slingshots are piled up together, "I don't need fingers for that!"

Sakamoto whispers sharply, "Fine, fine. Just stop talking." Then turns to face him towards him, "Whaddya think Ann would like, somethin' like what you got?"

Again, Akira shrugs. It hadn't crossed his mind before; and even when he thought about it, his mind drew a blank.

"You're not really helpful, are you?" Sakamato growls again, now directed at him.

Sakamoto stares at the display case for another few minutes before finally drawing the clerks attention, "Yo- Uh, I mean, excuse me?"

The man behind the counter sniffs quietly, turns a page in his magazine only to close it in the same instant. "Yeah?" He asks, sitting up again.

A phone goes off and Akira tracks the noise to Sakamoto then to the blond's hand as he digs it out of his pocket. "It's my ma, can you finish and I'll meet you outside?" He asks, but is out of the door before Akira can even begin to offer an answer.

He ends up pointing to the big monstrosity that Ryuji had pointed out, the slingshot, and another odd looking one that was bigger than both of them for Takamaki.

The clerk boxes each of the items and stacks them on the counter between them, "That'll be uh, four-thousand."

He can't help the shocked, raspy gasp that plunges from his throat.

Akira almost reaches for his own wallet, mostly empty and tucked into the back pocket of his uniform, then decides against it. Instead, he shoves his hand past Morgana's frame and latches onto the wallet from the MetaVerse, handing over the contents of that wallet instead. The guy flicks through the bills and slaps them onto the counter.

"Wanna bag?" His nose twitches as he offers, and wrinkles when Akira nods a moment later.

"Not much of a talker, are ya?" The guy asks, "Unlike your friend out there." He raises the cherry-red end of his candy, gesturing just beyond the glass door where Sakamoto is, still talking on the phone. His back is turned to both of them; unaware that he's being talked about.

He shrugs.

The clerk chuckles, "Needs to be more guys like you out there."

Akira's fusses with a piece of his hair, resolutely ignoring the way his cheeks start to burn, the bruise on his cheek starts to pulse in time with his heart.

The guns are bagged up in an unmarked, white plastic bag, then scoots towards him.

"Thank you." Ends up spilling out of his hands before he can help it, his brain skipping a step before he's realized it; he blames the embarrassment.

Opposite to him, the clerk's expression recalibrates through several unreadable expression before settling on a dimpled quirk of his lips; a smile that's mostly hidden under ashen facial hair.

"See you. Later." The guy signs back, leaving Akira floored until the guy pushes the bags forward again with his foot after he sinks back into his seat. He hoists it on the opposite shoulder to Morgana, surprised how much they weigh; though to say he wasn't more surprised at what had just happened was an understatement.

The door's bell is enough to draw Ryuji's attention from his phone call. The blond turns around, looks at the bag hanging off of his shoulder and gives him a thumbs-up.

Akira walks off, giving his teammate a respectable distance while he stares off into the still impressive traffic of central street from afar.

"Inmate!" A harsh voice rings, startling him but doing nothing to halt the still flowing traffic in front of him. Turning on his heel, he comes face to face with a large, familiar door. It's bars float straight up, standing taller and wider than he does. And, not dissimilar to the girl standing just outside of it, is completely shrouded in a deep, velvet glow.

Caroline stares up at him with palpable viciousness that has him taking a step back. "Our master made this door so you'd have a method of contacting us while you're awake, so you better use it, and you better be grateful." She barks with a slash of the metal baton that her fingers are curled around. Her attention shifts away from him, "Oh, is that one of your contracts?" Her one eye glows a deep, uncomfortable red, "Ah, The Chariot, right?"

Akira's brow furrows together as he glances over his shoulder, towards where Ryuji is standing, still on the phone. Chariot?

Caroline's eye fades back into it's normal-though still abnormal- color. "Huh." She says, taking a step back, her back leaning against the door she'd, presumably, came from. "W-well, make sure to foster your bond with him, I gotta go, inmate."

The door slams on thin air as Caroline steps into, yet he can't see her through the door's open bars. He recognizes the door for what it is then; the same one he always views his wardens through. Only now it's in the real world. He takes another step away from it. Even when he turns his back to it, he can feel its presence lingering over him; the pull of the MetaVerse seems to tug at his very being. Separating himself from it is like walking through water and the first few steps are the hardest. Only when he reaches the edge of the alleyway that Sakamoto had dragged him through does the encompassing pressure seem to ebb away. Even still, the empty void beyond that prison bars seem to tug at edges of his clothes.

"Sorry 'bout that." Ryuji's suddenness draws him out of himself, severing the connection between him and the velvet room by appearing at his side, "The school keeps callin' my ma and her only break is around lunch..." The blond trails off, then starts up again drawing up a smile that, even to Akira, looks a little off. "So what did you end up gettin'?"

Handing over the bag, he lets Sakamoto dig through it. "Oh you got everyone somethin' huh?"

His face alters again, then he laughs, "Thanks dude! How much do do I owe ya?"

Akira shakes his head when Ryuji looks down at him; the empty wallet in his bag seems heavier without most of its contents, the only thing remaining is the blank business card, and he considers throwing the whole thing away.

"You sure?" He shakes his head again, then adjusts his glasses when they start slipping down.

Ryuji exhales from his mouth, "You wanna grab somethin' to eat before you split?"

He shrugs; still full from lunch, he decides to follow Sakamoto into Big Bang Burger anyway, but doesn't order anything, not even when the other boy offers to buy him something.

"Uh," Ryuji ends up saying after wolfing down a burger and most of his fries. One is still dangling from the edge of his lip as he continues speaking, a vague impression of the clerk from Untouchables. "Money's been pretty tight lately, at home I mean. And uh, Kobayakowa, the principal, he's been callin' me to his office after school so we don't like, sue or whatever. He's even offered me my scholarship back to butter my mom up, ya know?"

A grimace shakes some salt from the fry hanging from his lip. Akira thinks he looks more angry than happy at the news.

"It should be a good thing, you know?" Ryuji looks up from the mess of salt and starch on the tray between them. He's not slouching, but seems smaller than normal; subdued in a way he hasn't seen since before either of their awakenings.

Akira nods quietly.

"My ma, she's still thinkin' about lawyering up, though. Kobyakowa's breathin' down my neck to make me stop her but..." Ryuji waves a hand, sending a splash of salt onto the table, "I dunno."

Thinking about lawyers makes him jittery, an uncomfortable shuddering in his shoulders that he can't control. When he looks up, Sakamoto's face is like staring into a blank wall; no smile, no frown or grimace. The fry hanging from his lip is gone as well.

"I made it awkward, didn't I?" Ryuji asks, breaking the silence between them with a quiet laugh. "My bad..."

"What would you do?" He ends up asking, handing his phone over.

Ryuji looks at it, then at him, but doesn't respond. Akira occupies himself with Mishima's website.

"I dunno." Ryuji eventually replies, standing up with his tray and returning a minute later. "I guess I'd do the same thing, but..."

Across from him, Ryuji folds himself over the empty table. His hands wrap around his head to scratch at his scalp roughly. Akira can hear the blond's frustration in the huffs of breath he lets out under the table. Had he said the wrong thing? Eventually though, Sakamoto sits back up, then slouches further into his seat, arms crossed tightly.

"Whatever." He says, leaving Akira even more unsure.

They leave shortly after that, Sakamoto leading the three of them back to the station. Akira has to jog to keep up with the taller boy's pace, keeping his schoolbag tucked closer to his chest to prevent Morgana from bouncing too much. When they enter the station, Sakamoto turns on his heel so suddenly that Akira nearly runs into him.

"Thanks for uh... today." He says, tucking his hands into the pockets of his school uniform, "C-could you not mention what we talked about to Ann- about Kobayakowa, I mean?"

Akira nods, bobbing his head forward.

"Maybe if I just lay low, he'll just leave me alone." Sakamato laughs, "Speakin' of that, shouldn't we wait to pawn off that medal we got from Kamoshida? I mean if anybody asks where we got it... Well, I don't even want to think about that, ya know?"

Akira nods a bit, they'd need to find a place that wouldn't ask questions about a few high-schoolers with a weirdly glowing medal.

"Hopefully this thing with Kamoshida dies down soon," Sakamato sighs, "People keep lookin' at me like I'm gonna snap any second; but on the bright side, my home-room gave me some bonus points on a quiz for 'improving'." He admits with finger quotes and a roll of his eyes.

He smiles a bit at that, wondering if he'd receive the same treatment.

"Anyway, I better get goin'," Sakamoto waves, "See ya tomorrow?"

Akira waves back, heading through one gate while Sakamoto meanders into another.

Sakura-san doesn't stop him as he walks through the cafe, but upon hearing a familiar name, Akira stops in his tracks; his feet cement themselves to the floor as Kamoshida's name seems to ring in his ears. When he glances up, towards the mounted television, he immediately identifies the Shujin uniform; an exact reflection of the clothes wrapped around his own body. The camera is cut down to just below the neck, rendering whomever speaking in privacy. An unnatural, robotic voice filters through the speakers.

"...bruises all the time. It was scary, but I'm relieved that the abuse is finally going to end now."

His heart starts beating painfully in his chest, making him far too aware of how quickly it was starting to palpitate. Swallowing around the growing lump in his throat, Akira watches raptly as the camera cuts away from the faceless boy and onto what was obviously a female student.

"I'm glad I don't have to deal with that sexual harassment anymore..." The robotic overlay on her voice stopped abruptly, emitting a robotic, static-laden screech that takes him a moment to identify as a sob. "He'd call me into his office during class or... or- or after practice and-"

The camera cuts away again, censoring whatever the girl was going to say.

If I was a girl... The thought washes over him, filling him with dread.

"Isn't that your school?" Sakura-san asks, pulling his stare away from the screen. His guardian is standing behind an open flame of a coffee burner, but the gaze behind his glasses is fixed on him.

A mixture of shame and pride renders him still for a long moment, the entirety of which is under Sakura-san stern gaze; knowing he'd had a hand in helping stop Kamoshida, but also at the prospect at being caught and put into a cell. Eventually, though, he forces himself to nod, hoping his guardian doesn't look too far into the action. Sakura-san's expression shifts into blank mask and his stomach drops in his chest.

"Things might get... turbulent, but it's important to keep your head down and your hands clean, got it?"

He nods, and without waiting for permission, Akira takes Morgana upstairs and remains there until the cafe empties, only helping himself to the bathroom when Sakura-san finally leaves. He tucks the gun boxes under his bed, concealing them further with the box that Takemi had left him in addition to the bottles that she'd already given him the first time she'd ambushed him in the bath house. Curious though, he retracts his arm from under the bed, taking one of the products with him to examine in the light. Sure enough, when he examined one of them- a cream that was supposed to reduce his scars- her name was labeled in one corner in bold, gothic looking letters.

Curious still, he opens the product, screwing off the cap until it clatters on the floor and ripping off the metallic protective shield with it. The cream is as thick as lotion, but burns like an open flame when he sticks his fingers in it. Lifting up the front hem of his shirt, Akira rubs where he knows the scars on his ribs start and hisses into attic's empty space. The mintiness attempting to cover up the medicinal scent the product gives off burns his nose until its as numb.

Turning off the overhead light, Akira settles into bed and Morgana moves to the corner with a complaint about the scent. Out like a light, he hadn't heard anything the other had said.

It takes just over two weeks after the news broadcast for Kamoshida to not be featured in every conversation. The Olympian-medalist, and the Phantom Thieves with him, fade into the whisper of whispers during school hours and the name almost never makes an appearance outside of Shujin's grounds. He's surprised, really, at how quickly things died down after the man's confession. If something similar had happened had happened at home, he's certain it would still be circulating around the library or around town; in Tokyo, however, nobody looks at him differently in the train station when he has his school uniform on, no reporters hanging outside of the stone walls that block Shujin Academy from the outside world. If Kamoshida's trail ends up on the news, he doesn't hear anything about it and, in those two weeks, he doesn't go looking for answers.

He does, however, take Sakamato's advice, and waits for things to die down before asking Morgana to retrieve the medal from wherever he's hidden it. During the first day of their school break- one Akira hadn't even known they had until the day before it started- and also the start of Golden Week, he walks down the road from LeBlanc, to the strange repair shop that Sakura-san had sent him to. He's disappointed, but not all that surprised, when the man refuses to buy the thing off of him; it does leave him at a bit of a loss, however, and he's not sure where to go next until Morgana ends up suggesting they head to Untouchable with the notion that the clerk seemed more attuned to the sort of hushed, shady business they were after.

"Back again, glasses?" The clerk asks as soon as he steps inside, startling him. A grin, one Akira can only describe as wolfish, spreads around the candy sticking, seemingly perpetually, from the man's mouth.

Akira shrugs, attempting to appear casual, and approaches the counter, tugging the medal from Morgana's underbelly.

"Buy this?" He questions, pushing his phone over with one hand and dangling the golden medal from the other.

The clerk's eyes bulge out for a second, then narrow into an unsettling glare that wither all of his attempts at casualness.

"Someone send you, boy?" His voice is hard, like a physical, cold presence that sends a shudder racking down his spine.

Frightened, Akira shakes his head quickly once he manages to grasp at most of the control over his body.

Send him?

"I'm havin' a hard time believin' that, glasses." The guy mutters, scrubbing at the salt and pepper facial hair on his chin with a hand. The glare slides off of him as the clerk examines his other wrist where a dark-colored watch is wrapped around his wrist, then, just as quickly, slides up to him; locking him place. He feels like a specimen under the dark look, even when the man stretches back with a sigh, tugging at the pair of earring sticking out of one ear and, in the process, exposing the dark reptile tattooed on his neck.

"Listen, kid." He ends up saying, when Akira builds up the wit to start tucking the medal back into his bag. Checking his watch again, the man smirks at him from behind the counter, "On uh, second thought, I'll snag that medal from ya. How's thirty sound?"

His hand pauses. Was thirty too low? He feels stupid for not looking up gold prices before trying to pawn the thing off, and chances a glance down at Morgana, who's no longer bothering to be clandestine as he sticks his head out of the bag.

He ends up nodding, half-desperate to just be rid of the thing. We could always go to Mementos if we need more money, he rationalizes, thinking of the wallet he'd dumped just outside of this very shop.

Thirty ends up meaning thirty thousand, and Akira can't help it when his eyes go wide at the sight; he's not sure he's ever seen, let alone been handed, that much money before. He glances up at the guy, almost certain that the utter disbelief he's experiencing is somehow showing on his face. He has a feeling that the happiness is mostly genuine when the clerk just offers him a small, dry laugh as he slides the bills over the counter, snatching the medal from around his wrist with the same hand in a quick, fluid motion. He has a feeling that the happiness is mostly genuine.

"And uh," The guy says, reaching a hand under the bar and throwing a brown paper bag onto the glass counter between them with the same swiftness he'd used to take the medal. It clangs noisily on the glass, making him jump. "Take this as a... token of my appreciation. Bring it by sometime next week, now scram." The door to the shop opens as the clerk gets through most of his statement. Akira watches his eyes get a bit wide and, for some reason, takes the bag in hand, tucking it between Morgana and the dry-erase board. His own fear intermingles with Arsene's curiosity; and he wonders, not for the first time, when their emotions had began to muddle into one another.

"Thanks for your business." The clerk says loudly, smiling brightly in a way reminiscent to Sakamoto. The change in volume startles him, forcing him to wonder when they'd devolved into whispers before he gets his feet to operate. He scurries out of the door, dodging around two guys in suits as they approach the counter he'd just abandoned; the badges on their chests as he scoots by do not go unnoticed and he can't help the bone-deep dread that sinks into his stomach as he weasels into the alleyway.

"W-were those cops?" Morgana questions once they're at the junction between the, mostly new, entrance to the Velvet Room and the entrance to the alley. Ignoring him, Akira rips the paper bag out from beside Morgana and rips it open. The force at which he does makes either side of the flimsy paper tear a few centimeters downwards, creating fissures in the creased packaging.

A gasp pushes out of his throat, raspy and shaky, as he peers inside.

A gun- an actual gun! Morgana climbs out from the bag, somehow managing to balance on his arms and tightrope across; his limbs are locked in shock, but somehow able to maintain Morgana's weight without the cat tipping over even when the burn starts to settle in.

"Is that a gun- wait, wait... I think it's fake!" Morgana exclaims, pushing his nose into the bag that has a gun in it. "It looks so real..."

Morgana's face pulls away, then stares straight up at him, a smile tugs at his lips, baring his sharp, feline teeth. "D-do you think he'd noticed if we used it?"

Akira isn't sure of the answer, nor is he anymore sure when he ends up tucking it even under the bed, past the boxes of unused medicine, even past the empty boxes of their previous gun purchases until it's practically against the attic's wall; completely hidden by the light that Akira can't make out his own hand until it's retracted. Fake as it might be, it looks real, really real. Sakura-san would throw him out the window it's currently hiding under if he ever discovered it real.

Once the gun is out of sight though, his heart slows down, still pounding heavily and painfully against his chest, but slowing nonetheless. He feels faint enough that he ends up taking a nap without noticing, the folded up bills- thirty thousand Yen- still clenched in his hand.

He informs his teammates about the money- thirty thousand Yen- but doesn't mention, even in passing, about the gun the clerk had all but thrust in his hands. Takamaki sends back an address and a date- the last day of their break- then logs off after sending a smiling, cartoon face.

Akira smiles a bit, indulgent. Thirty thousand Yen!