Chapter 26
Akira is uncertain what to do next. The feeling is not new, but feels overwhelmingly so, given the situation. Communicating with others has never been a strong suit of his. No matter how quickly or neat his handwriting is, or how slow he signs, people find him to be inconvenient. In the face of that inconvenience, Akira has learned at least one thing: continuing to bother the people he's inconveniencing only leads to worse situations. Unfortunately, none of his prior rules seem applicable to the their situation.
If we don't intervene, Kitagawa-san is likely to die. The truth seems to slip across his consciousness without him so much as considering it; yet he knew it to be true.
Kitagawa was in danger. And the Phantom Thieves of Hearts were meant to stop it.
When he first agreed to taking Madarame as a target, he'd been under the impression that their interaction with him- the real Madarame- would be kept to a minimum to avoid suspicion. Now Morgana is telling them that they not only have to find a way back into the shack, but to do so with Madarame just behind them in order to change his palace.
There was also one other matter that had Akira's attention as he rides back to Yongen-Jaya. The empty canister of Takemi's medicine rolled between his fingers. It still has echoes of his presence on it, long, bloody marks in the shape of his hands that have soaked into parts of the label. The inside is empty, but stained pink where Takamaki's blood had mixed with the pale, white salve it held.
Her screams echo in his head without him attempting to remember them. Ear-piercing and loud enough that he thinks others might be able to hear it if they sit close enough to him.
Takemi is someone he also has to talk to. Her medicine saved their teammate, though he had no idea about how to tell the doctor that or where to start without informing her of what they are.
This is too much. Akira's brain supplies and not for the first time. Everything was starting to be overwhelming, not that he thought becoming a phantom thief or moving to a foreign location would be simple.
Sakura-san is standing behind the counter when Akira steps into LeBlanc and orders him to sit down with a wave of his hand. Akira is nearly asleep on his feet and falls, rather completely, onto his preferred seat. The leather and metal seem to creak in surprise at the sudden weight, but neither of those noises is enough to drown out the yelp his bag emits at the sudden drop.
He thinks about apologizing, but knows that Morgana wouldn't be able to see it and possibly wouldn't understand anyways. Instead, the bag remains zipped mostly closed as he drops his teammate in the seat next to him. There isn't much time to reconsider what he just did before Sakura-san drops a plate of curry onto the counter in front of him along with a cup of water.
"Your school called." His guardian says, suddenly enough that Akira fumbles with pulling the spoon towards his mouth. Curry splatters back onto his plate, staining the rice and sending droplets onto his school blazer. His stomach threatens to fall out from under him just as much his throat urges to vomit.
"Grades came out today." Sakura-san explains next, just as quickly.
Is he upset with me? Akira has no way of telling. His caretaker doesn't look pleased, quite the opposite, with a deep frown and the ever piercing expression half-hidden behind his glasses. Things he only catches in glimpses when he works up the courage to glance up at the older man.
"I spent all day thinking about what a delinquent might want as a reward." The older man continues, striding to the far end of the counter and away from him, "Then I started thinking, 'how would a delinquent even get grades that high anyways?', which brings us here."
Sakura-san finally returns and slides a square piece of green cloth towards him.
"Well?" Sakura-san continues after a moment, all of which Akira has spent staring at his reward. "Open it." He commands.
As tired as his arms are, Akira moves quickly to comply. Unfolding the piece of fabric to reveal nothing but itself. The material, he supposes, is one that he should have recognized sooner as the man across from him is wearing an identical piece of it. The namesake of the cafe they're both sitting in is fastened onto the front of the apron in white, petite lettering.
"I figure if you're smart enough for that school, you're smart enough to learn a thing or two from me. Not tonight, of course, but whenever the cafe is empty I can give you some pointers." Akira isn't sure what to make of his reward, not that he isn't grateful, especially if it means he hasn't upset the older man, he just has no idea what it means.
"But, if your grades start slipping, you can forget about the whole thing. Coffee isn't something an idiot can learn, anyways. So if all of this was a big prank to get me to look the other way, you got another thing coming. Got that?" Akira nods quickly, even if he doesn't fully understand. Regardless, Sakura-san seems placated by his response and turns his back to him to head towards the cafe's small kitchen.
Akira attempts finishing his meal, but is both too tired and too anxious to eat anymore, and instead, scrapes the remains down the sink before cleaning off his dishes. Only then does he return to his seat to pick Morgana back up. Quietly, he slinks back into the attic.
That was strange. He can't help but thinking as he sinks into bed.
Arsene snorts quietly inside of him, a noise his brain is already filtering out as he falls asleep.
Akira wakes up the next morning with his uniform still on, which cuts off part of the schedule he'd set up. It only bothers him a little bit, not enough to change into something else so he can get dressed into what he's already wearing. Morgana, he notices, is still sleeping, even through the alarm and he wonders if he should find it odd; his teammate, for the most part, goes to sleep and awakens on nearly the same schedule as he does.
He considers leaving the other in the attic, at least for the day. He has no intentions of going into the MetaVerse today, palace or otherwise, so it wouldn't be harmful for Morgana to stay behind.
After a moment of consideration, Akira does just that. He carefully extracts Morgana's feline form from where it's still half inside of his schoolbag and quietly exits the attic.
The lack of weight that often threatens to topple him to one side is not one he thought he'd grow familiar to, yet as he heads towards the station Akira finds it almost difficult to walk without trying to adjust to the weight of another. Sitting at his desk is another matter he didn't think Morgana's absence would require adjusting to; he could actually use the inside of his desk, though he neglects storing anything inside of it.
All of the small things seem to stack up inside of him in a place he hadn't known existed, a sensation that didn't feel quite right; there was a sinking in his stomach that he couldn't identify the source of, which only amplified the uneasiness he felt about his entire situation.
I need to get into contact with Kitagawa-san. It is a thought that ghosts over him between lessons and sometimes during them. That realization is also accompanied by the feeling of warm blood soaking into his fingers. He also needs to find a way to change Madarame's cognition on a door he didn't know existed. And he needs to contact Takemi. And Iwai at some point.
This is too much. Akira is certain of that, if nothing else. Part of him doubted he'd be able to work all of these things out, that he wouldn't be able to escape the ruin that Igor had told him about, that he wouldn't be able to help Kitagawa-san or anybody else. But he had to try; Takamaki and Arsene had informed of that much.
He didn't bother returning to the cafe as soon as school is done. Instead, he walks past it and stands in front of Takemi's clinic. The nails on his fingers, which had healed at some point and were no longer painful, sank into the palms of his hands and refused to unclench no matter how many deep breaths he takes.
The door, unlike LeBlanc's- or anywhere else in Tokyo it seemed- doesn't ring or announce his presence in anyway, yet Takemi, who'd been sitting behind the counter that separated one work area from the other, looks up as he steps inside and Akira's nerve threatens to unravel on itself. Keeping his gaze locked onto the counter, his focus narrows onto an unusual dark spot on the otherwise blank plane, he approaches the other.
If she's surprised to see him, she doesn't mention anything and Akira doesn't catch anything when he manages to glance in her direction.
Her mouth opens with an audible pop, but words don't come for a long moment. Another one that makes his knees threaten to buckle underneath him.
"Head into the exam room." Takemi instructs quietly just before a long sheath of material covers the upper half of the counter, effectively creating a wall between them.
Akira moves to follow her instructions, but halts at the door to take another deep breath before heading inside. Takemi is quickly in front of him, materializing out of nothing and startling him enough that he doesn't react to her hands grabbing onto his face.
"You don't look fatally wounded." She notes quietly as she twists his head one way then the other.
Her hands still, "I assumed that would be the only condition in which you walked back in here. Either that or in a body bag." Takemi's smile is sudden and sharp, it reminds him a bit of Sakamoto's, though the blond has never been quite as intense as the woman before him.
"So, quiet one, what brings you to my house of horrors?" Takemi finally asks. "Not a social visit, I presume?"
House of horrors? His mind snags regardless, in which he attempts to sign on reflex. When he realizes it, shame courses through him, along with the weight of doubt that makes it hard to move his fingers.
Akira fumbles with his phone and wishes he'd planned this interaction out more before attempting it; he almost wished she'd turned him away as soon as he'd walked through the door. He hadn't been expecting this at all.
"Medicine." Akira tries, not sure what else to say. He needed to know how it worked, how it had replicated the near-fantastical abilities of the MetaVerse, so much so that a pain-relieving spread can close bleeding wounds in moments.
She pulls the phone from his shaking fingers and sets it on the desk right behind her, out of his reach. He supposes it's in her right, he'd come to her for help and answers, yet that didn't stop another flood of panic from spreading further into him.
"You want my medicine?"
Akira's head bobs forward once, then refuses to come back up. Takemi's boot taps rapidly.
"You shouldn't need another shipment for another month or so... Unless I miscalculated the doses, of course. That would be convenient, wouldn't it?" She says quite loudly. Akira isn't sure what to say to that and is almost grateful when she takes a seat and points towards the bed just from across from it. "Take a seat."
Akira is reluctant to remove the distance that had been created between them, yet follows her instructions without hesitation. They need this. He sits down on the edge of the bed, right across from Takemi, and only startles a little at the crinkling of the mattress beneath him.
"It's strange." Takemi continues. The doctor folds forward on herself, minimizing the distance between them once more as she rests her elbows on her knees and dropping her face into his line of sight. "The quiet basket case suddenly appearing in front of me, tugging on my heartstrings but refusing my help to the point where I have to blackmail him into coming in for a checkup is asking for my medicine. It's all pretty convenient, and you really did have me fooled."
Fooled? Had he let something slip with noticing?
"So, which one of them sent you?" She asks him.
Sent? Arsene stirred slowly inside of him, drawing closer to the surface but remaining silent.
"Well, I don't care either way." Takemi informs him, leaning back marginally, she continues in a harsh whisper, "You can tell Oyamada or Fukuda, or whoever sent you that 'The Plague' is still here."
Akira isn't sure what to say to that. He didn't know either of those people.
"Then again, they must have known that." Her fingernails, dark, purple and pointed, trail across the darkened screen of his phone. "They wouldn't send some kid to spy on me without good reason, either. I'm surprised they even care that much."
Takemi turns back to him and seems to acknowledge his presence for the first time since he'd walked in. "Seems rather merciful, sending me warm body to experiment on. Though you'd look much better with a ribbon tied around that useless neck of yours."
Akira's heart sinks, along with his stomach and wondered if it was possible if he'd made a mistake in coming here.
"How's this sound?" Takemi offers, "You play as my guinea pig every few days or so, I write you a little note on what 'The Plague' is doing for your boss, and I'll sell you a few of my remedies."
He glances towards the phone still locked between him and the doctor between him.
"A simple yes or no will do." She instructs as if she was able to see where he was looking and what he was thinking.
Akira nods out of desperation to leave more so than getting his hands on what he came for. He's had more than enough at this point.
"Everything is settled then." She smiles then finally hands him back his phone. The temptation to bolt is still strong, the door isn't that far away either, yet he can't manage to get past the wall of confusion that's been built inside of him, blocking him off from running out and never looking back.
"I don't know who Oyamada or Fukuda is or what the plague is. Sorry for bothering you." He's not sure why he apologizes other than he knows he should and his hands, along with the rest of his body, seem to continuously tremor in fear as he hands it over hoping that it'd be enough to sate the doctor into forgetting about this interaction completely. Even without saying anything, he'd somehow managed to turn another adult against him.
Was he truly that disturbing?
"What?" Takemi says. Her hand curls around his phone but then retracts as she continues once more, "You're not here to spy?"
Spy? Akira shakes his head quickly.
Takemi stares at him for a long time, seeming to be at a loss for speech. "You just want... medicine."
He nods, though he wasn't sure about that anymore.
Takemi leans forward again, messy black hair tumbles forward and brushes against his leg. She doesn't say anything and doesn't pull herself up for a long time. Akira wonders if that means he's meant to leave but when he shifts to step away from the other, the doctor's form pulls straight back in her chair until she's upright once more and staring right at him.
"I... Owe you an apology." Takemi announces, "I was so certain that you were with someone else and I lost myself because of it. I said horrible things to you because of that; I am deeply sorry. I hope that you can forgive me." She bows forward in her seat.
Akira isn't sure if he should and Arsene remains quietly present at the forefront of his senses, refuses to answer for him. He has no reason not forgive her. Up until today, she'd helped him out without asking for anything in return. He wondered, instead, if it should be him asking for forgiveness and not the other way around, it certainly wouldn't be the first time someone had accused him of being something he wasn't and he doubted, for the next eleven months- and maybe for a long time afterwards- that it would be the last.
When he nods, Takemi sighs and seems to deflate in her chair. Like this, Akira can't help but look at her, the uncomfortable sensation when he stares into her eyes is all but absent for reasons he can't grasp nor wants to. The doctor stares back at him with wide, brown eyes.
"You- um, you should leave." She says quietly, "I need to be alone for a while. Come back in a few days if you still want some of my medicine."
Akira nods in reply, then pulls himself to his feet. They feel uncertain under him, like they might collapse as he stumbles towards the door to the exam room. He does not turn around to say goodbye, and Takemi doesn't comment on it, and continues walking until he's just outside the doors of the clinic until he finds himself suddenly standing in beams of bright sunlight. He finds himself unable to take another step forward and collapses onto the stony steps just outside. There's an unusual sensation at the bottom of his stomach, nothing like guilt or shame; he's unable to point a finger to what it might be, and finds himself feeling even worse because of it.
Did I do something wrong? Skims across his consciousness again and again. Arsene, nor any of the others residing with him, deign him with an answer. Suddenly, he wished he could return home.
The feeling does not fade, no matter how long he sits there, no matter how many clouds wash through the sky.
When he returns to LeBlanc, Sakura-san is standing behind the counter despite the lack of customers and frowns when he steps inside causing the cigarette in his mouth to flick downwards. Akira considers leaving again, but Sakura-san waves him over before he can maneuver himself out of the cafe.
"Shop's empty." The man says as Akira walks towards his seat. He's about to deposit himself in when Sakura-san waves him over once again. "I figure now's a good time to start those lessons, eh?"
The words ripple coolly against his neck, making the hairs stand on their ends. Akira hates lessons, but realizes he doesn't have much of a choice and quickly- or as quickly as his legs can manage- joins the other man behind the counter, not sure what to expect.
"There's probably not a lot of time before a few of my regulars show up, so we'll hammer home some of the basics and then you can run off wherever, okay?" Still lost, Akira nods anyway when his guardian looks over at him. Sakura-san leans his back against the counter and stares at the racks of shelves behind the counter. Akira draws his attention to them as well. Each rack is filled with glass jars, each jar has a different label that he can't quite make out; he doesn't dare step closer to read them though as the older man continues speaking.
"There's three different type of coffee roasts, that you need to know about anyway. It goes like this, light, medium, and dark. Simple, right?" Sakura-san asks, turning his head towards him again.
Akira nods once more.
"Light roast." The older man steps forward and grabs a jar from the topmost shelf and places it onto the counter behind him. "It's the most acidic of the bunch, the beans aren't cooked very long before they ship it out, is what that means." Sakura-san pulls a device made of glass from underneath the counter, then another, before uncapping the jar. Spoonful after spoonful is scooped into the top end of the first device before Sakura-san turns his attention- as well as Akira's- to the second one. With a flick of a switch, the device seems to roar to life, spluttering and releasing puffs of smoke or steam; he isn't sure which.
Sakura-san remains quiet for a period, staring intently at the machine as it continues quietly humming. The older man remains statue-like until the machine finally makes a different noise and finally turns quiet. Akira watches as the older man lifts up the second device and tips it over the second device, releasing a wave of steaming water. It catches at the top of the device and slowly, drip by drip, dark water catches in the bottom of the glass chamber.
It seemed quite complicated for making coffee. He'd seen it made at home quite a few times, but with only through a single machine. Compared to that, Sakura-san's process was endlessly perplexing.
Coffee pooled in the glass chamber until the container was completely full of a light brown liquid; it was nearly see through, but not quite. It carried, of course, the same aroma that remained perpetual in LeBlanc, though much stronger than it normally was.
Sakura-san moves towards the sink and Akira watches him pull two cups from where they were kept, stacked neatly on a large shelf above the sink. The older man returns to their shared space and places them on the counter to quickly fill them with the still steaming liquid.
One is slid towards him, making the liquid stir and twist upon itself. Akira grabs onto the handle the same way he catches Sakura-san doing and lifts it to his lips. It's warm- hot even- and slides over his tongue in bitter trails.
Sakura-san sips once more, then turns to face him. Akira keeps his stare firmly into his cup of coffee. "Light roast has distinct qualities, you know. It has more caffeine in it, since it's cooked very little. It's also much lighter than the others, so it's easy to tell the difference between this one from the others."
The coffee jar is put back onto the shelf and Sakura-san replaces it with another one, pulled down from a shelf just below it. "Medium roast." His guardian points out as it brews. It's darker and not as bitter than the one before it; Akira finishes that one more quickly than the previous one. The older man is about to take a third jar off when a loud noise makes him freeze.
"So-chan!" A lady calls from the door. Sakura-san sighs and, not turning back towards him, waves him towards the attic. Akira does as he's told, thinking that it hadn't been as bad as he'd thought it would be. Sakura-san wasn't a nice man, but that didn't mean he was a mean or bad one, or he thinks at least. There's a lot he doesn't know about his guardian, something that could he could say about everyone in his life, but the older man hadn't been cruel to him as far as he could tell.
Truthfully, he was still reeling from the things that Takemi had said to him; the accusations and glares that made him want to find a way to reverse time. Perhaps that's why he found Sakura-san's demeanor less hostile; a part of him was convinced that dealing with the doctor, someone who knew about his past and confronted him about it, would be easier than dealing with guardian.
He had been wrong in both cases.
It was frustrating, but more than anything, it left him lost in how to approach the situation with Kitagawa and Madarame. If Morgana was to be believed, infiltrating the palace itself would be even more difficult once the cognitive change was made, but even before that, Akira had only interacted with the man once and had no clue how he'd convince the artist to view a cognitive barrier as non-existent.
Akira was out of his depth. More so than he was comfortable with. That knowledge made his skin crawl in foreboding way, thoughts of Suzui flickered forwards from his memories, replaced with Kitagawa's face and form.
Morgana's greeting pushed those thoughts away, dampening the picture enough for him to resume functioning. He continues across the attic's landing and lets himself topple against the mattress in the corner and narrowly avoids crushing his teammate while doing so. He feels tired; drained. He hadn't done much, there was no dashing across cognitive landscapes or flooding his body with flight-or-flight hormones- at least for the most part- he didn't walk any more quickly than he had to, yet Akira couldn't deny the distinct heaviness that had started in his head and somehow filtered downwards without notice.
"Joker." He hears faintly as he climbs fully onto the bed and under the covers. Akira finds himself unable to respond, having fallen over the edge of sleep.
Akira spends the next day- Sunday- recovering. His mind more so than his body, though the latter is still sore from sneaking and fighting through Madarame's palace. Something he definitely feels when he bends over into the washing machines to clean his uniform or when he scrubs at his back in the bathhouse right next door, though he'd rather spend hours doing either of those activities than explaining to Morgana why he'd abandoned him the previous day. Each question, and sometimes insults, left his head pounding and added to the distinct feeling that he'd done something wrong, that he was living quite incorrectly without realizing it. Ever since Takemi had cornered him the day before, he couldn't quite shake the impression and wondered if Morgana resented him the same way the doctor seemed to.
Iwai, another adult Akira was nervous about talking with- though much less so than either Takemi or Sakura-san- wants to meet up with him soon, the clerk tells him as much with a text late on Sunday, long after the trains have stopped running. Despite his tentative trust, or whatever it was that he had, for the older man, Akira found himself lingering outside the alleyway that lead to Untouchable after school the next day. People careen past him, some wearing uniforms, some not though he finds himself counting them in an attempt to pass the time. Iwai had never said what time he should show up, only that he should, and Akira found himself wondering if this, too, would end up being a door he wished he'd never walked through.
"There is little point in stalling the inevitable, little thief." Arsene's baritone growls without malice. His voice makes him jump regardless. Akira knows the other is right, yet finds himself warm in the face at having been caught; he'd nearly forgotten that others dwell within him aside from himself. Fortunately, it was only Arsene that spoke out about his behavior.
With a gulp, one that rolls almost painfully down his throat, Akira pushes the shop's door open and steps towards the counter. Like the last time he'd been in, the clerk stands and waves him around the counter. He navigates around dusty displays and piles of boxes until he's reentering the backroom.
It's brighter than it had been last time, with bright ceiling lights and multiple lamps adorning the waist-height counters that circle around the room. It's dusty, like the shop itself, though Akira finds himself not minding at all. He wonders when that had changed; his mother was particular about a clean, dust-free home and had instilled in him- or so he thought- the same practice quite fiercely.
Rubbing at his neck, Akira turns his attention to the clerk, who has his back to him and had, without him noticing, moved to stand in front of one piece of the wall-wrapping desk. Akira stays by the door, not sure if he should join the other man or not.
"They're nothing special, market value stuff, but after a few minutes back here, I whipped 'em into shape pretty good I gotta say." The man says suddenly with a sniff, nearly making him jump. Iwai takes a step back and extends a gloved hand towards the desk. On it are several un-packaged weapons- models- that looked quite real, as far as he could tell anyway. Morgana, hanging from his shoulder, whistled and drew Iwai's attention away from him.
"He an enthusiast, too?" The other man asks, something he only half hears through the loud pumping of blood all across his body. Impressive as they were, with trimmings made of silver and gold- though Akira couldn't tell if it was real or not- and shiny, straight plates of gleaming metal, the guns -models, he reminds himself once more- stand quite imposing and definitely realistic, more than enough to remind him of his apprehension in bringing one, or more, back to LeBlanc.
"Er," Iwai coughs, making him realize that he hadn't responded to the man's question in any way besides staring.
Akira bows, both in thanks and in apology, and Iwai seems to accept it by handing him one of the guns on the work desk. It refracts under the numerous lights and is nearly blinding. It's also surprisingly heavy when he finally steps forward and takes it into his hands. Akira doesn't know a lot, almost nothing, about guns and weapons, fake or not, but he couldn't help but wonder if Iwai had been dishonest with him. The gun was small, bigger than the one he currently used, but still quite small. The back part, where his palm rested when he wielded it, was ridged with black plastic that made the weight from the metal pieces seem almost negligible. The sides were etched in uniform patterns of vines with large, angular thorns that curled around the barrel's boxy casing.
It looked incredibly artsy and new, like something that might belong in an exhibit and not in Akira's hands, and certainly not in the MetaVerse.
"You look like you're enjoying yourself." Iwai says. Akira's gut starts biting at him. He didn't belong here. "It's an American model, if you didn't know. I trimmed the sides down on the grip safety, side lock too. Replaced the sights with a custom design, glow in the dark for all that matters. Slide is reinforced for rapid-fire precision, pretty sure you could shoot a fly with this thing, even if it is a bit girly- not that that's a bad thing- but engraving a gun affects the weight in ways you wouldn't believe."
There's something in the way the other man speaks that makes Akira feel quite strange, and not in a bad way. Though it's not until he manages a glance upwards at the clerk that he draws some understanding. Iwai was smiling while saying all of that, smiling at him, or the model in his hand. He didn't seem displeased with him at all, didn't stalk forward and say things that left him confused, for the most part. The clerk talked about his work, with him, and smiled while doing so.
The price had been unexpected, both higher and lower than what his brain was estimating. The gun was customized beautifully, perfect in ways that made Akira feel unwelcome to touch it, and was one a kind of Iwai was to be believed, yet made for him and made to be used, to be rolled around his hands and admired. Using part of the money they'd picked up from Madarame's palace, Akira purchased it and quickly offers his thanks.
"See ya, glasses." Iwai nods. Akira exits the shop surprised; the other man hadn't brought up their strange meeting from the other day, they just talked about guns that was it. The clerk was intense and seemed quite dangerous, yet was easy to be around in the same way that Sakamoto and Takamaki were. There was still a lot he didn't understand about him- or his teammates- but the feeling of belonging he felt near them was not something he could argue against. Compared to Takemi and Sakura-san, or being at school or even at home, spending time with the Untouchable's clerk was almost mundane, and if the man wasn't years and years older him, Akira might have considered the interactions quite normal; the older man hadn't suddenly turned on him either, hadn't offered him help or suddenly gave him rewards.
People are strange. He can't help but comment to himself, but Arsene hums in answer anyways. Akira pays little mind to his other self, though, and takes his time returning to LeBlanc.
The cafe is partially full when he steps inside of it and a number of customers look up when he steps inside. It's an uncomfortable sensation and one that he quite desperately escapes by crossing across the cafe and climbing back into the attic. There, he cradles his recent purchase for a moment before tucking it under the bed and into the far corner along with the other model he currently had, then climbs onto the mattress with Morgana just in front of him.
"That guy was something else." His teammate comments while bending forward in a stretch, "There were so many... and the one you bought was something else, too."
Akira nods, unsure of what he should say in return to that, or what to make of Morgana's unusual tone.
"Though," Morgana continues, turning to face him. Ocean blue eyes beam up at him, "I can do stuff like that too, you know? Well, in my old body, anyway." Akira isn't sure what to make of that statement either. The black cat in his lap continues to look up at him, trying to catch his gaze, but Akira keeps looking firmly at the lock of hair betwixt his fingers and says nothing.
"I could teach you." Catches Akira's surprise. Morgana seems to notice and continues with bravado, "Better than standing around in a dusty shop! I'll teach you what it means to be a real phantom thief. One who relies on his tools more than his weapons!"
Akira nods once more, unsure of what else to do. Where Iwai had remained consistent, it seemed that everyone was changing around him and Akira was only noticing when it was too late.
Morgana hops off the bed and stalks around for a moment, spinning in circles one way while his tail swished in the opposite direction. Akira wondered if the cat was secretly two people trapped in a cat's body or if all cats- or humans turned into cats- were capable of doing that. He wasn't sure how to broach the question and found himself flinching when Morgana's voice calls out to him, beckoning him towards the corner of the room where a wooden desk was. Akira replaces his current spot for the one at the desk and Morgana is quick to fill the silence his own voice had stopped filling.
"What to do, what to do..." The cat murmured. This close, Akira could see the whiskers on his teammate's face wiggling as he paced back and forth across the small desk. It was odd. Both the wiggling and the fact that he was this close to another person.
Morgana reaches outwards and paws open one of the desk's small drawers, exposing bits of metal and dust. "Aha! Perfect." He all but purrs.
The cat turns back to him, "A gun might be proficient in combat, but a trademark of being a phantom thief is their arsenal to avoid it altogether."
Akira thought that sounded pleasant. Avoiding fights would allow them to find the treasure without the constant fear that at any moment-
"Joker, are you listening to me?" Morgana snaps, fierce enough that Akira jerks in place and offers a hasty nod. His teammate eyes him up, ocean blue gaze drifting over him uncomfortably before turning away. "Like I was saying, start pairing these up while I find- it was around here somewhere..."
Doing as he's told, Akira reaches into the small drawer that Morgana had open- the first of many- and pulls out a bundle of small, metal rods; each is about as long as a pencil and when grouped up resemble the same thickness. They're quite rusty as well, leaving residue to transfer onto his fingers as he starts making pairs of them on the desk.
"Aha!" Morgana exclaims again before dropping back down onto the surface of the desk and scattering the majority of the pairings he'd just made. The cat glances beneath him, causing the object clenched between his jaws to collide with the desk and further separating the piles he'd just made.
Dropping the object, Morgana looks back up at him with a displeased expression. "I thought I told you to group these up."
Saying nothing, Akira does so again, grouping the rust-coated rods into pairs beside each other.
Only when he's finished does Morgana continue speaking, "Good work. Now, I want you to take this and start bending one from each pair, pretty far from the edge, but not quite in the middle." Akira picks up the tool that Morgana had found, it resembles a pair of scissors but with broad, metal planes where the blades were meant to go; pliers, if he recalls correctly. Morgana eyes flit down to his hands as he picks up the first piece of metal and watches quite closely as he starts to bend it.
"Not there." Morgana calls out just as the metal starts to curve. Akira releases the tension in his hands, almost sending the tool and metal clattering against the desk. He adjusts his grip and moves the tool further towards the middle, keeping an eye on Morgana for instruction as he does so.
"That should be good, maybe a little to the left- just a bit." The cat nods. Akira lets out a breath and starts bending the tool again, curving the metal until Morgana sharply tells him to stop.
"Okay, now pick up the other one and kind of..." Paws race towards his face and Akira leans away from them. Morgana's digits wiggle back and forth wordlessly. "Like that, you know?"
Akira doesn't know; he shakes his head.
Morgana sighs, "Okay, we'll do a simple one. Close to the edge, start bending it again." He was certain that nothing about this was simple, but didn't express as much, just followed Morgana's instructions, bending one end of the small rod until it formed a small lip.
"Good job, Joker." Morgana compliments, Akira thinks it sounds quite mocking as he says this. "Lockpicks are a must for a phantom thief, and it never hurts to have a few backups, just in case. These things look pretty brittle as it is... So maybe you should just use up the rest of these now and then maybe I'll teach you something else."
Akira bobs his head forward in a nod and starts to getting to work on another pair, only for them to snap quite loudly in his hands and crumble onto the desktop. Morgana makes a noise, but tells him to keep practicing. The next pair, he manages to get one end of it curved but the other falls into pieces as soon as he picks it up.
He keeps working through the pairs, though, because Morgana had asked him to.
"I was gonna teach you all this stuff when I got my body back, it would have been easier if I could show you what to do." Morgana says quietly and suddenly. Akira chances a glance up and finds Morgana prone on one of the desk's shelves. He shifts his attention back down when his teammate continues, "All of this would be a lot of easier if that happened. I could help more in the palace, help the boss downstairs, help Lady Ann with her homework..."
Homework? Had Takamaki said anything about having troubles? He wasn't sure; nor was he sure why that thing had him stuck. Morgana had helped them plenty, even saved their lives.
"I just feel..." Morgana growled suddenly, cutting himself off. "I'm not sure how I feel, actually."
Akira crosses the attic, but returns just as quickly with his cell phone in hand.
"You help plenty." More than enough, if he's being honest, though he's not sure why he didn't say exactly that. The cat didn't need to stay with him, didn't need to help them in palaces or combat, he didn't need to stay at LeBlanc and teach him these things.
Morgana gasps, drawing Akira's attention away from himself. "Joker..." Nothing comes out of his teammate's mouth, even as Akira continues working through the other to-be-formed lockpicks. Nor does anything come out of his mouth when Akira finishes with the last of them and gets ready for bed.
The next time his teammate speaks to him is the following morning when Sakamato and Takamaki end up on the rooftop with food in their hands.
"Lady Ann!"
Takamaki takes a seat to one side of him and Sakamoto sits in front of both of them, half exposed to the sunlight beaming down onto the roof. Akira shifts a little away from both of them, space that Morgana immediately takes up as his own. He's not sure what to make of the behavior, but chooses to ignore it for the time being; the others had a reason for coming up here, otherwise they wouldn't.
Maybe they're finally quitting. Akira wonders silently, glancing between the two newcomers. He wouldn't blame them if they did.
"So I been thinkin'." Sakamato starts. Takamaki jumps in as soon as he does, "We've been thinking." She stresses.
Ryuji's foot slides back. "It's about phantom thief stuff, 'course. So I- We were thinkin' about ways we could get into Madarame's place with him in it, 'cause it's not like he lives there, so he must not show up that often."
"That's just a theory, Ryuji, maybe he has a safe or something that we just couldn't find. Or maybe whatever is behind that door is where he keeps his jewelry and stuff." Takamaki interjects once again, tearing open a boxed lunch as she does so.
"That makes some sense." Morgana agrees, "That jewel was pretty close to where we found that door, so that could be true... That still doesn't explain why it wasn't behind it, though."
"It also explains why it'd be locked." Sakamato continues, "Hey, maybe that's where Madarame keeps all the food, too!"
Akira's stomach gnaws rather painfully at that. He's forgotten that Madarame's kitchen had been completely empty. Or perhaps he'd just chose to ignore it. He wasn't sure, but the reminder felt as if someone had punched his stomach quite hard.
"A-anyways, Akira," Takamaki stammers, "It would make the most sense if either you or I made contact with Kitagawa-kun. He told me when we went to that exhibit that Madarame comes by everyday after the it closes to check on him."
"So we need to be there when he does show up..." Morgana finishes.
"I'm not sure how comfortable you'd be modeling for him again, if it were me, I'd be freaking out." She confesses with a huff, "But he's seemed really... taken with you, I guess is how I'd put it."
"Don't say it like that!" Ryuji splutters. Under the sun, Akira can see his teammate's cheeks and ears starting to turn red. Scratching at his neck, Ryuji continues, "But... It might work, if we could get that door open somehow and show Madarame. I think our best bet at getting through that thing."
"If Joker's going to be the bait, though, we'd need someone to be inside the palace to get through the door as the cognition changes." Morgana advises, drawing into a low stretch that has him curling against Takamaki's leg.
"You mean it won't stay open, Morgana? Even after we show Madarame?"
Morgana shakes his head, rubbing against the floor, "It's unlikely. What would you do if someone opened a door you never wanted open?"
Takamaki sighs, "Close it..."
Sakamato leans forward, something Akira only catches when the blond's hand lands on his leg and makes him flinch. His teammate's gaze is hard, with wide-open eyes. Akira can't even look in the other boy's direction. He fixates on a half-crushed can a few meters away, slowly swaying in the breeze and listens to his teammate as he speaks in low tones.
"You're the leader, dude, but I really think this is our best shot, y'know?" Akira doesn't know, not at all.
"I'll stay with whoever is going to open the door, I know my way around a lock or two, don't you think, Joker?" He wonders if Morgana knew this was going to happen.
"I've never picked a lock before..." Takamaki admits. Sakamato chimes in as well, "Same."
"Rock, paper, scissors?" Takamaki suggests.
"Seriously?" She hums quietly in reply. "Whatever."
Ryuiji's hand pulls of his leg and Akira watches as the game unfolds next to him.
"It's probably for the best. I am his manager, after all." She laughs as she wins.
The blond leans back with a sigh, stretching further into the sunlight until he's flat on his back. Akira thinks he looks quite like Morgana like this. "Yeah, yeah. Stupid asshole would probably call the cops on me anyway."
Takamaki leans back too, her shoulders colliding with the stone wall behind them. She lets out a sigh as well. "When should we do it, though? The exhibit is only open for another week, I think. Who knows when Madarame will check on Kitagawa-kun once that's finished."
"Probably when he finishes another painting." Ryuji answers towards the sky, "Or when he finally croaks."
Takamaki's leg juts out quickly, surprising him just as much as it seems to Sakamoto. "Don't say stuff like that!"
"He is right, Lady Ann." Morgana stammers out, "The longer we wait, the more danger he's in."
"Don't you think I know that?" She explodes. "I was the one who said we needed to hurry and find this stupid treasure!"
Akira shrinks into himself the best he can without drawing anyone's attention. It seems to work.
"Don't you think I feel guilty enough about Shiho? How I couldn't do anything until I followed you guys? Now it's my fault that Kitagawa could die?" She sniffles through her yelling. Akira still can't manage to look over at her. Though he knows he should, Morgana would just have to yell at him for his lack of leadership later though.
"You got stabbed, Ann!" Ryuji explodes just as suddenly. The blond rockets into an upright position, "You coulda died! You might have if it weren't for him!" His teammate barks, throwing a hand up and pointing it towards him.
That didn't work. Akira judges, tries to sink even smaller into his uniform.
"I'm okay now." Takamaki whispers quietly enough that he wouldn't be surprised if Sakamato had heard it at all. The sudden shift has his head spinning. It seemed that, all of a sudden, Takamaki wasn't angry. She wasn't yelling and neither was Sakamato. She continues, taking in low tones as if they'd been thrown back into the MetaVerse. "I am. I've been talking with someone. I just want this to be over. I want-"
Ryuji picks up where the other had trailed off, "You told someone?" His voice cracks with the accusation.
Takamaki's form jerks up. "You mean about us being phantom thieves? How we fight monsters nobody else can see and change hearts?"
"Uh... Yeah?" Ryuji retorts.
Takamaki huffs. "Do you think I'd be here if I did? That I- that we wouldn't be in some hospital somewhere or maybe even jail?" Akira's chest seizes painfully as she says this and forces himself to sit still, to not run. Again, he wouldn't blame her if she had done that. Takamaki didn't deserve what had happened, Sakamato didn't deserve it either; they were just trying to help people, either Morgana or Kitagawa-san. Their actions shouldn't have resulted how they did.
"He's just... I talk to someone about my life, about Shiho mostly. You three don't even come up most of the time. I just need someone to talk to about everything and it's not like either of you-" She trails off abruptly with a sniffle. One that is immediately followed by more pronounced ones. Suddenly, he's even more uncomfortable than he had been just moments prior; he'd officially lost all control over the situation, if he'd any to begin with.
"Ann..." Sakamato says softly. "I- er, I'm pretty shit at talkin' about feelings an' all, I didn't even know you felt... like that. But if you need to talk, or like, someone to feed you ice cream, 'Kira an' I are here for ya, you know?"
Kira? Akira thinks at the same time Takamaki questions it out loud, her voice catches as her body shakes.
"Y'know, 'Kira-Akira, him right there." He catches Sakamato's hand lifts from his lap to point at him. Akira keeps his gaze firmly away from his teammates, still attempting to grasp the conversation going on around him.
"'Kira, huh?" Takamaki sniffles. Akira feels her looking in his direction. "Yeah, I guess... Maybe I should have said something."
"Yeah." Sakamato agrees quickly.
"You should have too, you know!" She crows suddenly, throwing a finger to point at the blond, "You didn't even ask if I was okay!"
"M-me?" Ryuji stutters, "I knew you weren't okay! I could see right through you!"
"Still, you could have asked!"
Ryuji groans, throwing his body back until he's flat against the rooftop again, "Fine, next time you get stabbed, I'll ask if you're okay before I start freakin' out, okay?"
Takamaki, for reasons unknown to him, laughs when Sakamato says this. "Really? I figured you'd just take the easy way out and take it for me, just to save yourself the trouble."
Sakamato is quiet after that, then he sighs. "I would, you know."
"Would what?" Takamaki questions.
"I'd jump in front of a sword, or a spear, or a gun or whatever." The blond says to the sky.
"Ryuji." His teammate croaks out. Ryuji cuts her off. "I was scared shitless, too, Ann. When I saw your face and all that blood, I was- I couldn't do anything to help. I'd rather be on the ground than see you like that again."
Something in his chest squeezes painfully at his teammate's words. He'd felt it too, in that instant; knowing that his teammate was going to die. If he hadn't thrown Takemi's medicine in his bag that day, if he hadn't managed to summon it or hadn't stopped the trembling in his hands, she would have. For that, he feels it sharply when Ryuji suddenly expresses that doubt. It makes him think back to when he'd met up with the blond and he'd told him that they were similar after all, that they felt the same things.
Was this what he meant? Akira asks himself. Surely it must be. He thinks back to the other things that his teammate had said, about truth and life, and comes to another conclusion as well. He would do the same thing that Ryuji had just confessed to, for either of them, and for Morgana as well. If only to avoid the fear that would happen next, that maybe they wouldn't have the tools to save each other if something bad were to happen in a place where nobody could find them.
A sudden warmth spread through him starting in his veins and expanding outwards until it seemed to consume him as he thought about his teammates, that he'd throw himself into the way of harm to avoid seeing them injured and having to deal with what happened after. Akira wondered if that's what it meant to be selfish, completely and utterly.
The bell rings before he has an answer, but he spends the rest of the afternoon working towards one, even risking distraction on the train towards Yongen-Jaya to continue thinking about it.
What does it mean when you're willing to get hurt for others?
