Chapter 25
Both Sakamoto and Takamaki are dragging their feet, not to mention they look as tired as Akira feels, yet both of them end up walking him and Morgana all the way to his line. It's not something he makes sense of, especially considering the three of them shouldn't be seen together. All the same, no goodbyes are exchanged as Ryuji shambles towards the line in the opposite wing, one that leads to the other end of the city, and Takamaki disappears completely around a corner. He'd by lying if he didn't consider the whole ordeal strange, though it pales in comparison to what they'd all seen just hours before. Regardless of all that, he still glances around the station's platform a few times, trying to catch sight of the stalker. Part of him, whatever is left outside the pulsing ache he's feeling all over, is scared that when he glances over his shoulder he'll find the student council president standing there having seen the three of them grouped up once again, then Takamaki and Sakamoto would get in trouble for a mess Akira himself had caused. Not to mention what would happen to him once what they've been doing is dragged into the open.
Fortunately, when he does glance one way, then the other, he doesn't see anybody in the area paying him any attention.
There's no food waiting for him when he unlocks the cafe, nor is there any sign of his guardian for the next eleven months.
Part of him wonders if he should be worried about either of those things, yet when he finds it almost too difficult to wash his face in the cafe's sink or take off his glasses, he knows he wouldn't get very far looking for the other man, not unless he was hiding under the blankets in the attic; he wasn't.
Akira climbs into bed with Morgana just a step behind him, but when his head hits the pillow, he can't fall asleep, even when his eyes refuse to stay open. Something about being in the dark made everything much more intense. The cramping, burning pain from being stabbed remained, even if he was no longer bleeding. Morgana had healed him almost as quickly as it had happened and when they returned to the real world, his skin was smoothed over, sweaty, but not covered in blood like it had been. It still hurts though, the phantom pain that lingers, even when he's not seeing it behind his closed eyes.
Crawling out of bed, Akira doesn't bother to catch himself as he falls to the floor, though he does wince at the sound and pressure that tremors through his bones when he lands on the floor. Ignoring Morgana's calls, Akira reaches under the bed and grabs blindly at the creams and pills under the mattress. The white labels seem to glow where there is no light. Easy to spot as they are, Akira still reaches for his phone and uses it to illuminate the words on each of the bottles until he finds something to take the pain away. That relief comes in the form of a minty salve that feels like being set on fire while, somehow at the same time, being encased in ice. It's not entirely unpleasant to experience if he's being honest with himself, though he could do without how sticky his hands are when he climbs back into bed.
Sleep is practically immediate when the salve or cream- whichever it was- starts kicking in.
When he wakes up, Akira is refreshed, but stiff in his shoulders and legs. The pain from yesterday feels like it's never left when he stands up but dulls when he applies another layer of the medicine from the night before. He throws the bottle in his bag just before Morgana climbs to it as a precaution and heads to the station without looking up.
By the time lunch rolls around, his stomach is cramping again and is only mildly soothed when he spreads the cream over his skin. With the pain in his abdomen, he doesn't bother getting anything to eat for himself, but he does- at the cat's request- scrape the red beans out of a roll and allows Morgana to eat what's left of it.
Sakamoto ends up texting the three of them just after lunch ends. Akira is walking down from the roof's stairwell when his blazer pocket vibrates but doesn't check it until he's safely in his desk and Morgana is mostly safe inside of that same desk.
"Can't do anything today gotta meet up with my ma"
Akira doesn't respond to the message, but he's quietly thankful that he won't have to go today.
It's not until long after that initial message that his phone vibrates again. He's in LeBlanc's attic, about to go back to sleep early in the afternoon when Sakamoto sends another message.
"You busy?"
He reads over the message a few times, deliberating. Considering if resting was him being busy or not. He doesn't reach an answer before he starts feeling nervous about taking too long to respond and ends up typing back a response.
"I don't think so." Akira offers guiltily.
"Can you come to the station right by the school? I need to talk to you." Something about the message filled him with dread. He had no idea what Sakamoto wanted or what the other was feeling. Had something happened with his mother and the blond wanted to take it out on him; Akira doubted that he would, he really did, but anything could happen; the MetaVerse was more than proof enough of that.
Akira, not really in the position to say no, sends back an affirmative and pulls himself away from bed. Morgana, already asleep, doesn't budge at all when Akira moves across the attic and collects his school bag. There's something odd about being able to easily sling his bag over his shoulder without the weight cutting off feeling in his shoulder; it was a feeling he wasn't used to, that much was true, but he hadn't realized just how much of Morgana's weight attributed to him feeling prepared to leave the house. The strange feeling of having forgotten something but leaving anyway was a hard one to quell. It reminded him a bit of being back home and forgetting his homework or something to write with.
Sakamoto was waiting just outside the line when Akira stepped off it. The blond, like him, was still in his school uniform and smiles when Akira approaches. His earlier thoughts, the ones that had made Ryuji out to be a bad person, ebbed after that, disarming his brain with no effort at all; he wondered if it should have made him more nervous.
"Hey." Ryuji greets, "Uh, thanks for comin' back out, I was worried for a bit that you mighta said no."
Akira shrugs, unsure what to say, that had almost been the case after all, as guilty as it made him feel.
Ryuji scratches at his cheek, then continues, "A-anyways, I wanted to talk to you about somethin'. I mean, something we already talked about, but I'm just-" He cuts himself off with a low, frustrated growl, then starts up again just as quickly as he stopped, "Just... come with me, will ya?"
The blond doesn't give him time to respond before he's being grabbed by his shoulder and led into a different part of the station. His heart is hammering too quickly for him to figure out exactly where he is and he's left to wonder if he should be doing something instead of letting himself be pushed to places he doesn't know.
In the end, Akira does nothing and Sakamoto pushes him onto a train he doesn't recognize and sits down next to him once it takes off. There isn't much time between one station and the next before Sakamoto is telling him to stand up again. A few dozen people get off with them, shoving him in every direction except backwards. It's more than a little disorienting, but he manages to keep sight of the only person he knows and follows the bright head of hair through the crowd until it's just the two of them standing outside of a line of shops.
Ryuji's mouth opens like he's going to say something, but Akira hears his teeth click together and figures that's the end of it. For now, at least. After a few minutes of waiting, the foot traffic seems to die a little. Akira takes that time to finally calm down, letting his heart stop slamming against his chest, though the time spent waiting doesn't do much to stop his mind from running just as quickly. It doesn't help that he still has no idea why Sakamoto brought him all the way out here or where here even was. The smell told him that the area, or at least the street that they were standing on at the very least, was crowded with restaurants; which helped him relax a bit, even though his stomach felt a bit queasy after an extended exposure.
Once the roads were mostly empty, Sakamoto's frame turns toward him and the blond finally speaks up
"Come on." Akira nods, if only to himself, and lets his teammate continue to guide him into the unknown. Sakamoto stops at the last place on the street. Akira stares up at the building and can't help but compare it to Madarame's house. The cement walls are littered with cracks that are sprouting green lumps that blossom outwards and downwards in wiry bundles; a type of plant that Akira doesn't know the name of. The noren, bright white flags with a logo he doesn't recognize hang down from what's left of the extended roof tiles, stop him from seeing inside the building, leaving Akira with the impression that he isn't going to like what he sees once he's past the entrance.
Sakamoto pulls back the entrance curtains and waves him inside. And, after taking a steadying breath, Akira walks himself into the building.
It's not that bad. Is the first thought that crops up in his head and is one that inspires guilt to swell up in his stomach. There isn't much time to consider an apology or something similar before Sakamoto grabs onto him once again, this time from behind, and pushes him through the restaurant's narrow walkway. The only empty seats that are next to each other are on the far side of the counter and Ryuji pushes him into the one closest to the wall before sitting on his left.
"Just a second, boys." A older man says from behind the counter, his hands deep in a cooker of some kind.
The same man appears in front of them with a smile. His face is tanned and shiny under the ceiling lights. His smile comes as easily as Sakamoto's even when they don't know each other and Akira finds that strange and uncomfortable.
"You kids know what you want?" To which Akira has no reply, he didn't even know what they served here. When he shoots a look at Sakamoto and the blond doesn't look back, Akira feels himself starting to panic a little.
"Two tonkatsu bowls, old man!" Sakamoto answers for them. Or he hopes, at least.
"H-hey! Who're you callin' old?" The man behind the counter balks. His eyes go wide, exposing bright brown eyes. "Ryuji-chan?"
Akira glances towards his teammate just in time to see his face explode in a splash of color, though he looks away when the blond growls again.
"I didn't recognize you with all that hair! Has it always been so yellow?" The man goes on. Akira thinks he sounds happy, but isn't entirely sure. "I haven't seen you kids in here in ages! This a new recruit?"
Sakamoto goes quiet for a long time. "Nah. S'just... The team's gone, gramps."
"Oh." Is all the other man has to say to that at first, "Did- N-no, never mind, that's none of my business. I'll get that food started for you. It's good to see you around here, though."
Ryuji makes a noise that Akira can't identify, "Y-yeah, you too."
"Two Tonkatsu!" The older man yells loudly, just as he, the only behind the counter, heads towards the cooking appliances. He's not sure to make of that either.
Ryuji leans in closer and nudges his shoulder with his own. "Sorry 'bout that."
Akira shrugs, confused about a lot of things all at once, including why his teammate felt the need to apologize.
"I'll uh, start talkin' after we eat. Kobayakowa pulled me into his office durin' lunch and I didn't get a chance to get anything after school. 'Kay?" Akira nods, unsure what, if anything at all, he should say in response to that.
Kobayakowa... Ryuji had mentioned talking to him before about something, though the specifics were more than a little lost since it'd been so long ago since the blond had last brought it up.
A massive, over-sized bowl clatters onto the bar in front of him, which makes him jump. The elderly man behind the bar just smiles down at him and Akira averts his gaze back to the meal- the feast- in front of him. The situation reminded him a bit of his interactions with Sakura-san, especially after his visit with Takemi. But Akira has spent almost a month around him, skirting around him and doing his best not to get kicked out, and despite his efforts, Sakura-san rarely smiles.
"Two Ogikubo specials!" The man across from him says loudly while he slides over napkins and chopsticks.
Ryuji snorts, "You say that about every dish."
"Of course!" The guy booms in return, "Every dish I make is special, now eat!"
Ryuji snorts once more, then claps his hands together. Akira copies the movement.
The ramen is good, great even. It's certainly the best he's ever had, though that wasn't saying much considering his experience with the dish. There's a lot of chewing, which doesn't help how tired he is, not to mention how it much it fills him up so quickly even though he only takes a few bites. Ryuji, who'd eaten just as little as had apparently, wolfs down the meal in a way that's almost disturbing to listen to. A torrent of splashing hits his ears, clapping over the background noise of the restaurant and the outside noise.
Somehow, his teammate finishes the dish. Akira watches, more than slightly bewildered if he's being honest.
"Did you already eat?" Ryujis asks once his bowl is empty. "Sorry, I shoulda asked before I dragged you all the way out here."
Akira shakes his head, but doesn't move to eat any more.
"So uh," Ryuji starts up quietly, "I guess I should talk to you what I wanted to... talk about."
He nods mutely.
"I dunno. It just. It pisses me off!" Ryuji explodes. His fist collides with the bar, making bowls and chopsticks- and Akira himself- jump in place. "So, Kobayakowa pulled me into his office, right. An' ya know how I told you that he wanted to give me back my scholarship so my ma doesn't sue Shujin? Well, after school, he called me back again and started spouting this bull about my future. How doing somethin' like that would ruin my chances of gettin' into college. You know what that potato-headed bastard said next?"
Akira shakes his head quickly, swallowing down the nervous convulsions in his throat. Somehow, the nervousness and anxiousness he'd been feeling had seeped into the atmosphere and everything felt cold against his skin.
"He wants to write me a letter of recommendation to whatever school I want." Ryuji's growl is something that Akira can feel in his spine, making it shudder in dread. "What a fucking idiot. I should tell my mom to go ahead and do it, just for sayin' that to me. She's totally gonna flip when I tell her that!"
It's turns quiet after that, save for Ryuji's forceful breathing.
"Sorry, dude." Sakamoto says eventually with a huge sigh. Akira watches his tense form sink back into the bar stool. "I didn't mean to get intense or anything, s'just... I dunno. After this year, there's only one year left of school for me. An' a scholarship to Shujin doesn't mean jack to me or mom after I graduate- If I graduate. An' we could use the money. But what if it's like those movies, ya know? Where they send a hitman or somethin' so we don't take their ass to court. My mom doesn't deserve that, I might, but she's been through enough."
Ryuji looks up from the bar he's been talking at and stares right at him. There's something in the other boy's expression he hasn't seen before and doesn't have a name for.
"What do you think I should do?" Sakamoto asks, still staring right at him.
Akira, who's entire life has been decided for him for the past sixteen years, doesn't have a clue how to answer his teammate's question, or where to start with looking for an answer.
"You don't deserve it." Is all he can offer. Nobody has ever come to him for advice, or whatever it was that Sakamoto was doing, and it was frustrating that he didn't have an answer for the other boy, if only to get himself out of the situation, as selfish as it would probably sound. Not knowing frustrated him and squeezed at his heart like he was in trouble. His fingers matched, too, squeezing across his scalp and tugging at his hair as he waited for Sakamoto to yell or do something to him for not being able to offer anything but condolences.
"Deserve what? The money?" Ryuji laughs, something low and slow, "You're probably right, I'd probably end up like the student council chick with a stick in my ass or those first years who just throw money around like it's nothin'."
"I didn't mean that. You said you would deserve it if they sent a hitman after you. You don't deserve that." Akira corrects, feeling even worse that he's said the wrong thing in the wrong way.
"Oh." Is Ryuji's only reply for a long moment, followed by a snort, then, "I ain't all sunshines and puppies, Akira, I mean, neither is my mom, but she deals with my shit an'... Point is, she deserves better."
"So do you." They all did. Sakamoto, Takamaki, Mishima, and Suzui.
"Whatever." Ryuji murmurs back, "Uh, thanks, I guess, but- whatever. Anyways! Tell me about you. I know you gotta record thanks to Kamoshida's big mouth an' all, but we've been hangin' out for like, ever, an' I feel like I barely know you at all."
Akira felt like running. He was his own worst subject, not to mention how terribly he seemed to be doing at saying simple things.
"What do you want to know?" He asks. There's never been someone who's been curious about him, about his actions, definitely, but never about him; unless that was what Sakamoto was getting at.
"I dunno, dude, you know my whole sob story, my problems, and the color of freakin' socks, I just wanna know you. That's what friends do, yeah?" Ryuji goads, like it's all obvious to everyone but him.
What friends do. He had no idea what friends did, or that Sakamoto even considered him as one. Should he have known that?
Akira shakes his phone in front his teammate again, repeating the message. Ryuji rolls his eyes at him.
"I dunno, you gotta favorite color?" The blond asks simply.
Akira did not. He shakes his head.
"Any sports?"
Again, he shakes his head.
"Video games, then?"
When he shakes his head a third time, Ryuji sighs deeply, something that makes him feel like trash.
"You grow up under a rock or somethin'? Give me somethin' here!" Akira thought he sounded pretty angry at this point.
Akira's not sure what to say, he's not an interesting person, or he wasn't at least, before he came to Tokyo. Even after he came, he's still the same person, only now he has the power of persona. "'Kay then, you're probably gonna hate me for askin', but- I know that you're not what Kamoshida said about you. Still, I've been wondering 'bout what happened before... all this, when you uh... got arrested."
Akira's almost relieved when Sakamoto breeches the subject. It had been all everyone had ever talked about since he moved, just never with him. Not even Sakura-san had asked about what he had done.
"I'll tell you." And he does. It takes a while for him to type it all out. He can't help but feel that it's weird that his first time telling someone was in a ramen place to a phantom thief. He'd be lying if he didn't think about it though, what he would have said if the judge, or anybody there that day, would have asked him his side of the story. Still, thinking about what he might have said and actually putting it into words for someone to see, for someone to judge him and tell him that it actually was his fault, that everything he told himself in that moment and every night afterwards had all been a lie.
Hearing something like that from Sakamoto, who was like him in many ways, would make him... Akira didn't know what he would feel, actually.
Ryuji reads over the message and Akira forces himself not to watch the blond as he does, keeping gaze level with the bar in front of him. That feeling, doubt and sadness and anger ride through him, so he doesn't look up, not until Ryuji says something or never speaks to him again.
The sound of Sakamoto's fist hitting the bar startles him, even in the split second that he's able to see it coming. His arms, where they're folded on the bar and close to the impact, vibrate slightly.
"That's bullshit!" Ryuji says, just as the man behind the counter appears in front of him.
"Ryuji-chan, you're disturbing the other, paying customers, can you kids take this outside?"
"I am a payin' customer!" Ryuji levels back.
The guy scoops their bowls away with a smile, "Your money's no good here, Sprintmaster, go play outside."
Ryuji bristles. Akira can see his jaw clench in what must be a painful way, but the blond says nothing and, instead, claps him on the shoulder and leads him out of the building.
"That's bullshit!" He shouts as soon as they're past the noren, a large number of eyes turn towards them but Ryuji doesn't seem to notice at all."You totally saved her and she testified against you?"
Akira bobs his head and wonders if he should have said anything at all.
"Just hearin' that pisses me off! How can you be so calm about it, that bastard almost ruined your life and he didn't even show up at the trial!"
Akira shrugs and doesn't bother trying to correct his teammate about how wrong he is. Since coming to Tokyo, he's pretty sure he can count the number of times he's been calm and not on the verge of having a break down. He just can't show it, not in front of people who depend on him or vice versa; he has no idea how Morgana would react if the leader of the Phantom Thieves of Hearts were to start crying or have a nightmare about being at home.
"Still..." Ryuji continues, guiding him towards the station, "Hearin' that made me realize how similar we are, gettin' treated like crap. Ann too, but in a different way. What I mean is, I'm glad I met you."
Akira isn't expecting anything like that, but Ryuji's words make him feel warm inside, which spreads to his face quickly enough. He's unsure how to reciprocate or how he really feels about everything. He's definitely grateful to Sakamoto for saving his life and for protecting him, both in the MetaVerse and in reali life, but another part of him is still stuck on the fear he feels when he's around other people, Sakamoto included; like he's been absent all this time and he doesn't understand what he's missing. Still, being around Sakamoto makes him feel content, knowing that they're changing people; he doesn't look at him with disgust or pity, as far as he can tell anyways. He even called the two of them similar, not to mention that the blond thinks of him as a friend, something he hadn't seen courtesy.
"Has anyone ever told you that you spend too much time inside your own head?" Arsene rumbles from within, making him shudder at his suddenness. He offers an apology but doesn't receive a reply or any sort of acknowledgement from the other.
Sakamoto sits next to him when the train arrives, despite the numerous open spots, but doesn't say much. Akira has no idea what to make of it and decides to follow the other's lead, letting the rattling of the tracks and the hum of machinery be the only noise between them before they end up at the station that the blond had told him to meet at.
"Hey uh," Sakamoto starts. His hands are behind his head, a pose that reminds Akira a little too much of when he'd first been arrested. Swallowing down a swelling panic, he tries to listen to what his teammate says instead of the sirens that he knows shouldn't exist. "I wanted to thank you, for listenin' to me bitch all night, I know you probably had better stuff to do than hear anything that came outta my mouth, but uh, thanks, dude. Forreal. See ya!"
Sakamoto puts his hands down, shoving one into his pocket and throwing the other one into the air to wave as he retreats. Akira is pretty sure his arms have long since turned into rocks at his side, hanging limp; heavy and useless in ways they shouldn't be.
He doesn't manage to sleep well that night. First, he has trouble actually getting to sleep, something that not even a bath seems to help. Then he's plagued by memories he'd been starting to forget. He's more than grateful when Takamaki messages all of them telling them that she wouldn't be available for palace infiltration that day, which would mean that he'd be free to attempt another bout of rest as soon as school finished if it weren't for his phone vibrating not long after Takamaki's initial message. Akira had been expecting a reply from Sakamoto, or perhaps an explanation from Takamaki, instead it was someone else entirely.
The clerk from Untouchable, Iwai.
"Stop by the shop today. I got a new shipment, something you'll like."
It was another situation in which Akira couldn't decline. He needed Iwai, even in a way where when the older man requested him when he felt like he did, he had an obligation to show up; if he wanted Iwai's strength, that is, not to mention the weapons he provides. Which are the reasons why he's standing outside of the shop, nearly swaying on his feet and feeling weaker than he had in quite some time. Morgana thought it was a good idea, considering the effectiveness of their gear during their most recent shadow run in. His explanation keeps him from being completely hesitant to sending a confirmation to the clerk in return.
The door, much like LeBlanc's, announces his otherwise disregardable, and otherwise unimportant, presence and Iwai looks up at him from behind a laptop that's perched on the shop's counter that's concealing everything from his nose down from where Akira is standing.
Iwai stands as soon as the door clicks in place behind him and speaks to him quietly, "Let's head into the back."
Akira watches him go, stepping around his chair and disappearing into the room just behind him. The instructions stun him for a moment, then he finds himself weaving around display cases and towers of boxed model guns until he's able to navigate behind the counter and into the door that the other had disappeared into.
The door, like the one that separates the shop from the alleyways outside, clicks shut as soon as he steps through it and the sound makes him jump in place before Iwai is suddenly standing in front of him, tall and towering; imposing in a way that has him swallowing down nervous energy. Akira has to resist the urge to lift his hands as well and ask what was happening. The room they stepped into was poorly lit, and littered with boxes and merchandise, but nothing that looked particularly like a new shipment. Not that he would know what that looked like.
"I gotta favor to ask of ya." The man drawls, quiet and intense while Akira stares at the man's boots. He can feel the other man's gaze like a spotlight shining down on him, equally as heavy and intense as his words.
He doesn't remember agreeing to any favors in their last meetings, and he's not sure what use he'd be to someone like the clerk anyway.
"Think of it as an extension on our contract." The man says as if he can read Akira's thoughts, though it's probably more likely that the man can see his confusion with his attentive and unwavering gaze, one that Akira can't even begin to match. "You do me favors when I call you, I give you some more than fair deals. Seems pretty fair to me, right?"
Akira finds himself bobbing his head without thinking and wonders if he's going to end up regretting this.
"Alright," Iwai says, lifting an arm. With the lack of distance between them, Akira's body tells him that it's about to collide with him and he recoils without a second thought. When nothing comes, when there's no pain or punishment, Akira waits another moment before he allows himself to open his eyes. Iwai is still standing in front of him, still too close in a dimly lit storage room of sorts, with his hand on his chin. His fingers, which are stained black with- most likely- oil of sorts and also something Akira only just notices, stroke over his bearded chin. The action reminds him of his caretaker. Iwai's eyes are no longer trained on him, a fortune that Akira only soaks up for seconds before it's taken away again and his gaze, as if on auto-pilot, flickers back down to the man's boots. A primal sort of shame floods through his system like an earthquake that half mutes the next thing that the man says to him.
The clerk claps a hand on his shoulder, which may have as well been a bolt of thunder for how much it startles him. The man's grip is as firm as his voice, and just as attention-grabbing as the look Akira finds himself under. The combination of factors leaves him a little overwhelmed, like everything has suddenly increased in volume all of a sudden. Iwai is all but yelling when he's leaning further down and whispering into his face.
"You're gonna walk outta here, outta the store, and into the street. Then, I'm gonna text you an address. I expect you there in no less than ten minutes, glasses, you're gonna sit down at a booth in the back and order somethin' to eat. A hamburger, tempura, a bowl of natto and mayonnaise, whatever you kids eat these days. I'm gonna show up with a... friend, okay? You don't look at me and you don't know me, but you are gonna listen to me. When I start coughin' real loud," The clerk gives him an example of just this, bending halfway over himself as he falls into a powerful coughing fit. He stops just as quickly as he starts and overwhelming him with instructions in low tones, "Then, you're gonna take your phone, and you're gonna call me phone, then I'm gonna leave in a hurry; that's all ya gotta do, glasses, think you can do that for me?"
Akira didn't know if he could do that, any of that, but he finds himself bobbing his head, nodding, without a second thought.
"I'm trusting you." Iwai says, hands low enough that Akira can see them when he does. It's not so much as the things that the clerk tells him so much as the way he tells him that leaves him feeling calmer and a little more comfortable with whatever they were doing.
"Now scram, I'll text you the place." The other orders him out loud.
Akira obliges, checking off one step on his list of instructions once he's leaving the musty storage room, then another once he's stepping out of Untouchable. It takes a long moment for his phone to light up with Iwai's message that instructs him on where to head next.
Ten minutes. He reminds himself, copying the address into the real world navigator and following its instructions.
The diner the address ends up being is on the second floor of a take-out place. The smell is almost enough to deter him; starchy foods that steam up and slam into him like a force of nature make his non-existent stab wound. Morgana squirms against his ribs and butts his head through the gap in the zipper, his nose peaks into the sky then pivots towards the stand to one side of him.
"That smells good, Joker. Are we going there?" His teammate asks. Akira can feel purring, the other vibrating against him through the thin material of his school bag.
Akira answers by walking up the stairs of the building, away from the smells that were starting to burn holes in his stomach. It's one of the first times he's walked into a restaurant with the intentions of ordering food- even if that wasn't the only thing he was doing- and most certainly the first time he's been in this situation without someone else guiding the interaction between him and the server; he would remember the gross feeling on the palms of his hands as he types out what he wants after seating himself and how his phone almost slips out of his hand twice while the waiter reads the tiny print on it.
He follows first Iwai's advice and orders a hamburger, though he doesn't have any intentions of eating any of it, regardless of the number of adjectives in its description. His talk with Sakamoto and the nightmares that followed, had flipped a switch inside of him, where he didn't feel all that hungry and the thoughts, smells, and textures of food only made him more adverse to eating again. Then the thought that he can eat only piles on top of that, he could have anything he wanted, can go out and buy anything that he might want to eat.
Maybe that's what makes it worse. Akira ponders morosely while he checks the time. There were too many options, too many chances for him to get back into trouble- with the law or otherwise- and end up doing something he ends up regretting. His thoughts did not fill him with confidence about what was about to happen.
Akira is mindful to follow the clerk's other instruction and doesn't look up when anyone enters his field of vision, though he can't say he isn't tempted. If only to see the older man was actually coming and not just
"Enjoy your food." The waiter says suddenly, startling him. Akira jumps in place as it happens, then again when his food clatters onto the tabletop in front of him. The man is gone before Akira can offer his thanks.
A sharp, barking laugh interrupts his not looking and draws his attention, even Arsene, who usually feels like a blanket of consciousness resting over his own shifts at the sound, sending a sharp spark down his spine. Akira's head jerks just in time to spot Iwai with the friend that he'd mentioned, or that's what Akira figures is the case. The man is dressed blindingly bright in a white suit that is just as attention-grabbing as the sound coming out of his mouth.
Don't look. Akira reminds himself, forcing himself to look down at his plate, then down at Morgana, who had, at some point, started crawling out of the bag again and is staring at the meal on the table with wide eyes.
Even with his head down, he's able to track the pair's presence as they take the booth directly behind him. With the minimal distance between them, Akira is able to pick up every word that Iwai and his friend say.
"A diner, huh?" Iwai's friend starts up, his voice is lower than Akira thought it would just from hearing his laugh. "I thought only old farts came to place like this. I gotta say, you've really changed, Mune-san!"
"Hey," Iwai retorts. He sounds softer than Akira has ever heard him, it sounds like how Takamaki or Sakamoto talk him when changing hearts isn't the topic. "Don't knock this place, Masa-san, it ain't half bad; and cheap too!"
Masa-san laughs again, high-pitched and loud enough that Morgana's ears fold downwards on themselves when Akira feeds him another portion of the hamburger between them. "That's rich comin' from you! Same guy who beat up fifty of the Oyabun's private guards! I can't even start believin' you're the same guy from back then!"
"No need to exaggerate." Iwai says a little more quietly.
"Yeah, yeah, you always were too ah, what's the word? Modest? Always too modest, is what you was, Mune." Masa-san replies, "Anyways, what did you bring me out here for anyway? Nobody's givin' you trouble, is they?"
"Nothin' like that." Iwai responds back. It leaves Akira a little more comfortable when the other man says that. "But uh, how's Tsuda-san doin'?"
"Same as always." Masa-san says quickly, "Why, what's up?"
Iwai's voice drops even lower, "Nothing, honest, I just saw him 'round the other day and I was just thinkin' about everyone."
"Didn't you two cut ties when you left the family, though?" Masa-san snaps back, "Whaddya worried about him for?"
"I was just thinkin', maybe it's time to bury the hatchet between the two of us. An' it's not like I can go up n' talk to the guy, y'know?"
"Oh." Masa-san drags out loudly, "I getcha! Still holdin' up that ol' code of honor, huh?"
Iwai snorts from a table over. "Somethin' like that, Masa."
"I got it, I got it." Masa-san continues, "I'll call 'im right now, set you up with a meetin'!"
"Nothin' like that, Masa, it's gotta look natural- like a coincidence- me an' him, at the same place at the same time."
"Yeah, I getcha, I getcha, I'm listenin'!" Masa-san says back brightly, "Well, if that's the case then, don't tell him I said anything, okay? Shibaura might work out, we've been talkin' about redeveloping up there."
Iwai starts to cough. Loud, wet hacks that make him worry a bit for the man's health, acting or not. Akira pulls up Iwai's contact and lowers himself in the booth before putting the call in.
"You finally dyin' or somethin'?" Akira hears Masa-san say through one ear, just as his phone- and Iwai's- start ringing in the other.
"Hello?" Iwai says formally into both of his ears. "Wait what?! Your order's all wrong? Listen, I'll come over right now and check it out for you."
"I gotta go. Work shit. We can talk another time, yeah?" Iwai says to Masa-san before walking towards the door without having received an answer. In his ear, Akira hears, "Don't hang up the phone, glasses, try to get it as close to him as possible without makin' him suspicious, got that?"
Akira leans back in his seat. Even while he feels panic starting to flood his system, starting to slow everything down so he has a chance to make sense of what's going on, his hand tilts back on his own, letting Masa-san's voice flow through his phone's microphone.
"Tsuda-san" Masa-san starts, speaking low, nothing like he'd sounded when Iwai had been in the room. "It's Masa. Mune was just askin' about you. Yeah- I did exactly what you told me. 'Course, I did! I just said I did! Anyways, he probably heard about that special deal of yours and now he's tryna squeeze some money out of you; get paid some debt he thinks he's owed or somethin'. Ye-yeah, I understand. I'll be- I'll be right there."
Masa leaves in a flash of white, storming down the diner stairs while still talking on his phone.
"A deal, huh..." Iwai mutters into his ear, "Sounds like somethin' fishy is goin' down. Hmm. Oh, and, Glasses, my little fly on the wall. I wasn't expectin' much when you first showed your mug in my shop, but I gotta say, I'm impressed; you kept your cool, followed my instructions. Hell, I dunno what kinda luck I stumbled on, but I'm counting on you, glasses. Listen, it's kinda late, why don't you just finish eating an' head home, I'll thank you in person and show you my new stock some other time; might even throw in somethin' extra for doin' this for me."
Akira was at a loss for words. If he had the means to talk back into the phone, to say something to the other man, he had no idea what would come out of his mouth. Nobody had ever complimented him like that, and never so many times in a row; he'd been useless, he'd been a waste of space, he was barely a human being sometimes, but if Iwai was to be believed- and Akira wanted to believe him so very badly- he was more than that, more than a phantom thief, too. He mattered to someone. The word friend sprang back into his mind like something he'd forgotten and wondered if that word would apply to this, his relationship to Iwai, or if he was just misjudging everything like he tended to do.
He didn't have an answer on the train, or when he reached LeBlanc. And when tears start rolling down his cheeks while he keeps as still as possible in fear of waking his roommate, Akira doesn't mind not having an answer. Unlike the previous night, he doesn't have any trouble falling asleep or staying asleep and he wakes up the next morning feel rather refreshed, the residual exhaustion from the night before seems to have folded in on itself until it was impossible for him to find.
Despite the, albeit tenuous, happiness that he's feeling, Akira doesn't want to get up, rested as he is. He doesn't want to put on his school uniform and return to Shujin, where he's meant to conceal himself, where he's made out to be one of the monsters that he wants to stop. But he does it anyway, he gathers his school clothes and changes in the bathroom of the cafe he lives in and hides faded scars and medicates for ones that should be there but aren't.
School isn't the worst thing that's ever happened to him, nor is being bullied, yet for some reason he feels this something under his skin at the thought of going. This pressure in his veins and chest that wants him to crawl back into bed and test if Sakura-san would actually have him arrested.
The rain makes his stomach hurt, too. The droplets wash away his mood as well, dragging it down into sewer system with blades of grass and wilting cheery blossoms, but he continues walking until he's back at the place he doesn't want to be.
For once, nobody is staring at him when Akira walks into the school. It reminds him, briefly, of the day the calling card had been dropped; except it wasn't raining and that vibrant red wasn't visible. Akira wonders what's happened, or happening, or maybe going to happen for something this unusual to occur.
He manages to hear fragments of conversations as he weaves himself through the outskirts of the crowd, navigating past wet umbrellas and slippery tiles until he's able to piece it all together.
Grades for their mid-terms had been posted. On the far wall from the entrance, where anyone walking in could see, were the grades of every student at Shujin Academy. It made him a little uncomfortable, if he was honest. He was already labeled as a killer, an outcast, and all other sorts of derogatory names because of his record; he didn't also need to be reminded that he wasn't the smartest person in the room.
Before he could look at his- presumably- meager results, a wave of faculty members began herding the students towards the classrooms. Akira let himself be pushed along as well until he was in his seat behind Takamaki.
The blonde didn't look at him as he entered the classroom, nor when he took his seat, but she did text him as soon as the lecture from Chouno starting lecturing.
"I can't make it today either. Sorry guys! But today is the last day of the shoot and I'm free after that!"
Akira didn't respond to the message, but Sakamoto did.
"Same. Come Saturday we're gonna kick some ass!"
He doesn't respond to that one either, unsure what to say to either message besides indicating that he'd received and read the messages that they'd sent, which the program they were using already did for him.
It wasn't until lunch that he was able to head back downstairs. And, as much as he wanted to convince himself that it was for lunch- either for him or Morgana- Akira still couldn't find his appetite and instead, after a deep breath, and steps towards the board where the grades were posted.
Starting from the bottom, he scanned upwards, until he more than certain that he'd been excluded from the list altogether.
Akira stops towards the top, right as his finger runs over the kanji for his family name.
#6 Kurusu Akira
He wondered if he should be proud instead of shocked, or perhaps walking the list into the faculty office and question if he'd been put in the wrong spot. Instead of that, and instead of feeling proud, Akira wonders what his parents would think, if they'd be proud of him for something like this. Part of him already had the answer, but the other half ignored it as resolutely as he could.
If they ever write, I'll tell them. Akira promises, then immediately feels stupid right after. He returns to the classroom without getting lunch and reminds himself that he'll have to feed Morgana extra when they get home.
Akira does exactly that, opening canned food for his teammate while he gets ready for bed. For the first time in two days, when he planned on going to LeBlanc to rest, his phone didn't light up once, and not even Sakura-san said anything to him before he ascended into the attic and climbed under the covers with his school uniform still on.
Somehow, he manages to sleep through the rest of the afternoon and the entire night. He hadn't planned on it going that way, he had only planned on taking a nap and then to study for the next set of exams or take a bath, something other than what was available for before he'd moved to Tokyo.
When he went to school that day, there were no cancellations and no text messages from Iwai or calls Sakura-san. With that in mind, Akira found himself walking in one side of the station and out the other, headed past Shibuya square and into the residential district. It didn't take him long to notice that he was the last one of their team to arrive, which filled him with guilt that didn't manage to escape him as he bowed towards the other two.
"Akira-kun, you made it!" Takamaki greets with a smile. "Ryuji was starting to think you fell asleep at the station again."
"I did not!" Sakamoto protests, huffing, "I was just wonderin' what was takin' so long."
"Yeah yeah, me too. I was worried something else might have happened at school. I heard you knocked Hayawaka-san out of tenth place." Takamaki admits, "I heard she stormed out of her last period and demanded Kobayakowa expel you."
Akira flinches.
"Oh yeah, mid-terms came out today... I'm so screwed." Sakamoto mutters.
"Ryuji..." Takamaki says softly.
Without warning, Sakamoto activates the MetaNav, giving him into a small fit of nausea that disappears as soon as his body cloaks itself in a burst of bright blue flames. His clothes shifts forms and the mask blinked into existence in front of his eyes without warning. It startles him for a moment, but it doesn't make him jump like it probably should. The silent streets of the residential district fill up with shouting figures and everything that had been soaking in sunlight is now coated in darkness.
Underneath his skull-shaped mask, Akira catches his teammate smiling back. "I'm just glad those stupid tests are over. Prob'ly rigged anyway."
"They are not rigged, Ryuji." Panther shoots back, stepping forward until Akira can't see either of their faces. "You're just an idiot." She laughs.
Skull doesn't, "H-hey! You got no room to talk, I bet your name is just as low as mine, Miss 'I'm Only Good At English'!"
Panther's arm swings back and Akira catches sparks upon sparks of orange flame starting to drip from her arm and shoulder. They flutter to the ground swiftly, not unlike raindrops, and turn into ash. "Better to be good at one thing than sucking at everything." She whispers harshly and so lowly that each consonant seems to click out of her mouth and is accompanied by the hushed roar of flames spitting towards the ground.
"Whatever." Skull shoots back quickly, ending the conversation but not the circle of ash starting to form around their teammate, before turning towards the massive wall in front of them.
Akira finds the situation uncomfortable, even more so when Morgana advises that he take the lead and he gets three sets of eyes following his every move as they move to reinfiltrate the museum. Together, the four of them return to the roof using the ropes that were still in place from the last time they'd been inside and slide through the glass dome on the roof, sliding down into the empty museum below. It's easier for him to orient himself on the rope, having done it before, but he can't shake the feeling that he's going to fall and have them all discovered.
"Woah." Akira hears Skull whisper as he slides down. When he lands on the ground, Akira looks up at his teammate and finds the blond staring towards the door.
The door is split into three pieces of blank space, all divided by familiar crimson beams shooting through the door frame horizontally. It's a set-up that hadn't been there the last time they'd infiltrated. In addition to that, when Akira strains his ears, he hears something else has changed within the museum, the painfully loud roar from outside that disappeared as soon as they were inside had somehow shifted into the building and quiet praises of Madarame's works shot into his ears from a distance away, close enough that he could make out their voices, but somehow far away enough that he couldn't actually see the source.
"There's a big enough gap that we can just duck under it." Panther points out from the doorway.
"Isn't is suspicious that this door is protected like that display from before?" Mona asks suddenly.
"You mean the trap that you set off?" Skull questions in return.
"It- T-that was a complete accident!" Morgana splutters out in a whisper.
"Not if you just followed your own advice and not touch anything!"
"So you think Madarame knows we're in here then?" Skull continues, looking first at Morgana, then at him.
"It's more likely that setting the system off made him more suspicious in general, so we need to be more-"
"Shh!" Panther suddenly hisses back at them, cutting off what Morgana was saying. "I think there's a shadow!"
Akira feels his heart sink at that, pulsing heavily against his chest, then his stomach, all the way down to his feet. Over that pulsing, he hears the slow clicking of feet against tile in just the room over with the only thing separating it from them is the twin red wires in the doorway.
"Clear in room one-dash-six." A man's voice calls from the other room, just as a splotch of yellow light swims across the doorway. Akira's breath catches in his throat and waves them away from the door just before a beam of light pierces across the room and walls. He moves as quietly as possible, kneeling against the side of the doorway with Morgana right under his chin. The next seconds, as the light swims across the far walls and floor of the empty gallery, are the longest of his life; his heart pounds away in his chest, nearly in sync with the rapidness of his lungs.
"Room one-dash-seven; clear" The man- the shadow- reports before the room is dark again.
Akira waits, though, pressed against the wall and panting for a few more moments, listening to the retreating footsteps of Madarame's guard. Once he can no longer hear them, he finally allows himself to push off the museum's wall. Next to him, Skull, Panther, and Mona form a circle around him.
"That was close." Skull sighs out, now whispering. Akira finds himself unable to respond, even when he agrees.
"Agreed." Mona concedes, "We need to be on guard at all times and avoid setting off any more alarms."
"Isn't that going to make finding the treasure take forever, though?" Panther questions. Her arms are folded, but, fortunately, not on fire.
"Most likely, but... It's important that keep Madarame and the shadows from discovering what we're up to or things will become even more complicated." Mona advises after peering his head through the gap in the lasers.
"I guess... It's not like standing around in this outfit will help Kitagawa-kun. Let's go!"
Akira is sent through the trap first, since he's the leader of all them, thus he's the first one to discover the next shadow they cross paths with. He does his best to coordinate the four of them around one of the partitions in the room, waving them behind him as he ducks behind it himself.
Except there's a blowing whistle and suddenly a light is cast upon the four of them.
"S-shit!" Skull hisses out beside him, just before he jumps forward and attacks the shadow's arm. The whistle drops to the ground and disappears in a flash of smoke, along with part of the guard's uniform. It shifts into another being entirely, with orange skin and radiant wings that flutter loudly as it sends waves of fire towards them and leaving scorch marks on the walls and paintings behind them. It does seem to notice though, as the same is dealt back from its side, an equally large burst of red flame crashing into its side and grounding it.
"P-please spare me." It cries in a deep, masculine voice.
Akira does, letting the beast's body and essence disappear as it floats into him. It purrs from inside of him, vibrating against his brain and grating against Arsene's presence.
Akira is able to navigate them through the first floor without much difficulty, though when he pushes through the low-cognition room by the stairs leading to the second floor, he feels himself all but melting into sofa on the far end of room. The others, he notices, don't seem quite as drained as he is, but their faces shine in sweat and seem as if they needed the break just as much as he did.
Unsure how much time passes in the MetaVerse, Akira remains prone until he feels like he can continue; still tired and with a heaviness in his bones, he takes to his feet and watches the others do the same. With that same coordination, they follow him out of the room and towards the stairs, sneaking behind him as quietly as if they were his own shadow. He finds the whole process unnerving; the silence, the trust in him to lead them correctly, the way Morgana smiles at him each time they pause around corners.
The four of them pass the display they'd reached yesterday, though the only thing left under the multiple spotlights was the podium that the vase had been perched on. Even still, he arcs around it, fearful for what might happen if he's too careless. The room beyond that is another corridor that houses a variety of display cases, but no shadows.
"Joker, wait!" Mona says almost too loudly. Either way, Akira stops in his tracks and finds Morgana standing on top of one of the cases. A flood of panic threatens to wash over him at the sight.
"I feel something in this case." His teammate explains while unsheathing his sword and shoving in between sections of the glass casing.
"You mean you feel another trap?" Skull grunts out.
"It's not like that, it's not alive at all." Mona responds just as the front of display jerks open.
Akira, despite himself, leans forward. The others do too. Inside the case is a thick, red cushion that shines despite the lack of light around it, in the middle is a divot that curls downward to house a smooth looking stone. The stone itself is quite small, with multiple flat faces that make it gleam ever more so.
"It's a rock." Skull points out, rubbing a yellow finger over one of the stone's flat faces. Panther's elbow jerks sideways, eliciting a sharp yelp from the blond on her other side.
"It's a gemstone." She corrects, pushing Skull's glove out of the way with both her own. The pink appendages draw forward, enveloping the stone around both sides. Slowly, she pulls her hands away from the case and lifts the stone up for Mona to observe. Akira watches his teammate as he prods the stone, stroking claws around the angles of the faces with a sharp, feline smile on his own.
"What is it, Mona?" Panther questions, "It must be valuable, right?"
Mona simply nods, staying quiet for a few more seconds, "It's real. It has Madarame's scent all over it, so it's likely something that he has in his house."
"But you saw that dump! An' he was talking about how owning nothing matters. Why would he have a fancy rock sitting around that dump then?" Skull bites back.
Panther shakes her head, "I don't think that's it, Ryuji. I think this means that Madarame has another house... Right, Morgana? That's what this means?"
Morgana's smile, if anything, grows wider before he's bobbing his head. "Very astute, Panther." The cat praises, finally taking the gem stone into his paws, only to throw it right at him.
Akira jumps back half a step as the gemstone is lobbed towards him, it thumps against his chest before his hands can react and his blood-red hands fumble with it before he's finally able to clasp his fingers solidly around it. Morgana continues to smile at him. Akira takes a moment to observe the light purple stone for himself, bringing one hand up so he can look at it in the museum's dim lighting while the other rubs at the painful spot on his chest. Then he pockets it and turns his attention back to his teammates.
Without words, the four of them continue down the hall of Madarame's palace. Akira made sure to remain quiet, softening the click of the heels on his boots as much as he could and keeping his ears open for any unusual noises. The hallways's end opened up to a balcony that looked over another gallery; a dead-end of sorts, as there was nowhere left to go and no more corridors or stairs to climb up.
Akira slides onto the railing and follows Mona as his teammate leaps onto the floor below. The impact shudders up his legs and into his knees painfully, but his drop didn't seem to trigger any alarms of guards. That is, until he stood up. Taking to his feet, Akira feels a loud, shrill blaring echo through the room they'd just dropped into. The blackness of the ceiling shifts with a dangerous looking red glow. To one side of him, a shrill crackling- like thunder- starts up; when he glances in that direction, he spots the doorway being cut off by continues bolts of electricity, like the lasers they'd encountered before but louder and, most likely, more dangerous.
"Should we try to go back up?" Panther suggests, leaning back to look at the balcony they'd just abandoned, a move they'd only made because Akira had done it.
"If the alarms went off the moment we stepped in here, then that means we're getting closer to the treasure!" Mona whispers back at them hastily, despite the loud siren announcing their presence.
"Look for the intruders over there!" A female's voice calls out, just before a beam of light shines around the corner from the partition the four of them are hiding behind.
"Fuck, fuck, fuck!" Skull hisses harshly. Akira turns towards his teammate just in time to see a flash of yellow and black rushing around the corner the light was coming from. He hears a grunt from his teammate and a noise of impact before he's able to get to his feet again and rush after him. Around the corner, Skull has his weapon out and is bludgeoning one of Madarame's guards. Akira moves into position to assist, driving his weapon into the things side until it falls completely quiet then disappears completely, falling into piles upon piles of ash and black slime around his knife and feet.
The next shadow appears behind them, carrying another flashlight that disappears as soon as Panther disarms him. It doesn't have a lot of time to alert the others, or make any noise, before Mona is leaping at it and creating a silver arch in the air is his sword strikes downwards quickly and silently. The shadow disintegrates into a small pile, leaving behind a small wad of cash that Akira doesn't have time to consider picking up before another shadow emerges from the other side. Together, he and Ryuji silence it before it can say anything.
The process continues, shadows emerging from his left and right at an increasing pace until he's getting slow, tired, and sweaty. There's a pause in which he moves them across the room, behind a partition in one of the room's far corners. Only then does he allow himself and the others a reprieve.
"The treasure must... Be right behind that door... If there's... This many shadows... Right, Morgana?" Skull pants out, using his pipe as something to lean on while they hide, his other bright yellow hand is rubbing beneath the plate covering his knee, leaving Akira further guilty about getting them into this situation before he'd seen it.
"It must be." Mona assures, heaving in deep breaths.
After a period, the shadows seem to have lost track of them completely, though Akira did still see their flashlights and silhouettes searching out the room when he chances a glance around the partition's corner. He turns to his teammates, looking for an answer or just hoping they'd flat out tell him what he should do, but he just finds them staring back at him, saying nothing, waiting on him to decide. He hates it.
Eventually, when his legs start working again, he leads them around the perimeter of the room, concealing them behind the corner of partitions and waiting for the shadows to walk far enough away to not notice them before they advance. They manage to get to the other end of the room, right before a set of doors, guarded by electricity and a stationary shadow, before he orders them to stop again; he's pretty sure he at least one more fight in him, especially if it means securing the treasure and, more importantly, getting out of this place.
Pointing at the shadow, his teammates don't hesitate before running towards it, using their weapons as leverage over its vitality. Despite the onslaught and Akira's desperate slashes at it's shape, the shadow refuses to go down. To make matters worse, whatever force that guides his connection with Arsene and the others seems uncooperative, despite residing just within him, he can't seem to call any of them forth to help them with this fight.
The shadow, a massive snake with twin, human-like torsos sprouting from its tail, only falls after striking forward one last time, embedding it's twin swords straight through Takamaki's torso and thigh. The beast lets out a wail as Takamaki does, but has the fortune of starting to dissemble upon itself. Starting from the scales on its tail, the shadow starts turning into slime and ash while screaming all the while, it's harsh, hoarse voice seems to penetrate through him, vibrating everything inside of him. The very last thing to disappear are the fang-like weapons piercing through Takamaki's flesh, once they fade from existence, her form drops to the floor and Akira isn't quick enough to catch her before she drops completely.
"Ann!" Ryuji shouts out, rushing to her side but not quickly enough to stop her head from connecting with the floor. He lifts her onto his lap as she cries.
"Ryuji." She sobs out, trails of clear tears run dribble down from the inside of her mask. "It hurts!" She screams loudly.
"Zorro!" Morgana tries, "Zorro!" His persona flickers into being for all of a second before fading out again, leaving behind faint traces of blue fire as it does.
"I can't heal her!" He shouts, sounding just as pained as the girl on the floor.
Akira tries too, kneeling by his teammate as he tries to force that connection with his personas and summon their aid, but they refuse to manifest. To heal his teammate when he needs to.
I need to do something! He shouts at them, trying to get a response, but nothing comes.
"I can't summon her... She won't come..." Takamaki chokes out. It sounds painful for her to speak and he wishes that she'd just stop.
He needs to heal her, or find her a way to Takemi. He needs to do something. Akira is so stuck trying to panic that he doesn't feel the hand on his shoulder until it's almost crushing his shoulder, and he doesn't notice the weight in his pocket until it drops onto the floor and tumble onto the ground. At this point, he's willing to do anything to stop looking at the puddle starting to grow wider and wider around Takamaki's shaking form.
The thing that had fallen from his pocket was not the gemstone, like he'd been expecting, but something else entirely. Which, he supposes for an instant, could have been possible; his phone spawned from his bag and into the pocket of the jacket that appears when he enters the MetaVerse, and the things he takes from this place end up in his school bag.
With a gasp and trembling fingers, Akira lurches away from his, possibly fatally wounded, teammate and grabs at the container that's started to roll away. The edges of it are coated in Takamaki's blood, leaving streaks of crimson behind as it tumbles across the gallery's floor, and the label is almost too saturated in liquid that it's difficult to read, but Akira already knows what it is.
Something to take the pain away.
Unscrewing the cap, he crawls back to his writing teammate and shoves his fingers into the concoction, hoping that, if nothing else, he'd be able to stop her from crying while she bled to death. The smell of mint pierces through the scent of blood and the tingling quality of the salve is something he can feel through the gloves on his hands. Akira pushes the Takemi's medicine through the gaping hole in his teammate's side.
Takamaki screams.
Akira tugs his hand back, afraid he's caused her even more pain, but watches, terrified, as the flesh starts pulling itself back together. The reddened insides pieces together with a hiss and trails of smoke start emanating from her torso.
"W-what" She howls out. Her glove, now red like his, latches onto his arm and he almost drops the container. "What is that?!"
"It's healing her..." Skull whispers. "Keep going!" The blond pulls Takamaki's hand away from his arm and Akira follows the other's direction, dipping his fingers back into the mixture and turning it pink with blood. Takamaki gasps and squirms when he presses into the wound on her leg, the appendage jumps off the floor and nearly kicks him and Morgana in the face.
"You're doing good, Panther." The cat soothes, holding onto her other hand while she flips to her side. He presses the rest of the medicine onto the backsides of the wounds where the swords had pierced through his bone and flesh, the wounds sizzle and hiss, but her skin stretches out into pale, unscarred skin.
Despite her lack of wounds, Takamaki remains on the floor, gasping, with tears running down her face. The four of them remain silent as she does, though Akira does screw on the cap of the medicine, ignoring the squelching sound the cap makes as it swivels into place, and shoves it back into his pocket along with the gemstone.
"We need to get the fuck outta here." Skull instructs eventually. "We can't keep goin' like this."
Panther shakes her head, "I'm fine! The treasure is right there!" She points out, pointing towards the door that's no longer being guarded, either by shadows or pillars of electricity. When Akira turns back to his teammate, he finds her attempting stand, but her hands are tremble where they're planting against the tiles covered in her blood. Skull maneuvers around and under her, butting his head through the gap between her chest and arm before climbing to his feet. Akira can see his leg threatening to buckle, but he manages to help both of them to their feet before Akira can get to his own to offer his own assistance.
"She's probably right, it'll just be worse the next time we come here, won't it?" Skull asks, looking down the nose of his mask to stare at Morgana.
"Most likely." The cat respond, barely above a whisper.
"Let's go then, then we gotta get outta here." Ryuji adjusts the girl hanging over his shoulder and Akira moves towards the door, holding it open while the other walk through it. It snaps closed behind them with a click and Akira steps forward hesitantly, moving around the group of his teammates helping Panther walk towards the end of another long hallway.
The corridor is different than any that they'd been through thus far, it opens wide, with small fountains running along both walls then curling sharply around the corners, they splash quietly and constantly with running water below motifs of bamboo and gold etched into the walls. The light is dim, but golden and constant, bright enough that Akira doesn't worry about tripping or running into shadows as he leads the others through the walkway. The walkways goes on for some time, a long path that drains what's left of his energy, then turns into two directions before he knows it. One path is cut off by a glass partition and the other opens up to an even larger set of fountains and motifs, with actual bamboo bending into the path before two large sets of doors.
Beyond the scent of blood and mint, Akira smells fresh grass and water, something he hadn't experienced since he'd left the countryside. It reminded him of his walks home from school, one of the few times he was ever truly alone. Beyond the massive doors, giant sliding ones with dark wood for handles that nobody could possibly reach let alone operate and soft, blue panels with golden flowers expanding outwards across them, Akira knows that the treasure has to be there, just behind these doors.
"S-shit." He hears from just behind him, right before the sound of bodies collapsing hits his ears. Quickly, he turns around, expecting the worse, but only finds Skull and Panther collapsed, the former is rubbing at his leg with an unpleasant expression on his face. The other is attempting to pull herself to her feet. Akira moves quickly, doing what Skull had done and putting himself under her shoulder for support; she was heavier than he'd been expecting, even more so when she leans into him.
"Thank god." She murmurs right into his cheek with a laugh, "Ryuji's just tall enough that it felt like he was dragging me over here instead of helping me."
Akira doesn't say anything, not that he could with both of his hands occupied with supporting his teammate, but follows her lead as she steps forward. He keeps his feet lined up with hers as she advances towards the massive door. When they finally step in front of it, he worries about how they might possibly get it open without their personas and without any energy to climb, the door slides open as if on its own, startling him as it grinds against the floor loudly. Behind it, what he's expecting to be a treasure, is just another, identical door to the one they'd just passed through. It, too, opens when Panther urges him forward. The one after that does, too.
Together, they pass through a series of identical looking doors, with no sight of the treasure. Maybe even a hundred. He has no way of knowing and is too exhausted to count.
Finally, the door open up to reveal something else. A field of red lasers, crisscrossing upon each other and almost as tall as he is guarding yet another massive door just beyond with no sign of a treasure.
"There has to be something..." Panther pleads right next to him.
"It's about fuckin' time those doors ended." Skull says from behind. In his arms, Panther jumps at the noise. "Only to reveal another door. This guy is seriously fucked in the head, or heart- whatever."
Mona walks past them and towards a pole he hadn't noticed until just now and begins reading from the plaque at the top. "All personnel: This door can only be opened via the security room that lies beyond it. Please be cautious as it is impossible to open from the outside."
"You gotta be shitting me!" Ryuji explodes suddenly, "So it's never s'posed to open then?"
"W-wait a second, Ryuji." Panther rasps into his ear, "Haven't we seen that door before?" She lifts her blood soaked hand towards the door just beyond the grid of lasers. The door is different than the set they'd just passed through. It has the same style, with a dark blue background and handles made of dark wood, but instead of bamboo and flowers, golden feathers are curling over each other and onto its twin, spreading themselves tall and wide.
Akira has never seen a door like this before.
"Oh yeah! It was in Madarame's house- the shack!" Skull analyses, also explaining why he hadn't seen it.
"Oh..." Mona states quietly.
"What is it, Mona?" Panther says, turning her head away from him to stare at their other teammate.
"Nothing good..." He promises, "It means we'll have to change Madarame's cognition before we can continue."
"Isn't that the point of stealing the treasure, though? To steal his heart." Panther counters loudly.
"Y-yes, but with some palaces... You have to change their real-world cognition to get further into their palace; in this case: it looks like we have to get Madarame to view that this door is open."
"That makes sense." Panther admits, just as Skull murmurs, "I thought you said you lost all your memories."
Akira doesn't hear what Morgana says to either response, too busy dealing with one thought.
We have to go back into the house.
