Chapter 32

A splash of slate grey ceilings opens up with a gasp and Akira, confused, rolls forward and finds more and more of that same grey—on the walls, the floors, all around—before he recognizes it as the Velvet Room. It looked brighter, if not exactly the same as he remembered it from all the days since he'd last been here.

Advancing once more, Akira drops his bare feet over the edge of his cell's bed and barley reacts to the chill underneath as he stands; his toes wiggle against frigid concrete, barely exposed past the hem of the prison uniform he didn't put on. Once he does this, movement flashes in the corner of his eye as Justine and Caroline swing in front of his cell door like an azure tinted curtain. Their two eyes, bright and xanthic land on his frame like two spotlights. Under their gaze is intense and warm, making him feel exposed beyond reason.

Akira swallows, glancing over at them indirectly without moving from his spot near the back of his cell, then Justine speaks.

"Our master wishes to speak with you."

Nodding in reply, Akira approaches the door to his cell. His chains rattle against the stone flooring, sounding almost like rain as they slither between his legs and under his feet. Grasping at the bars ahead, he stares at the figure beyond them. Igor sits statue-still halfway across the clearing beyond his own cell, the sapphire circle underneath him a perfect distance away from the other sets of bars identical to the ones chilling his fingers.

Igor's smile rests upon his latticed fingers, the whites of his gloves nearly identical to the straight white teeth exposed in the man's mouth. "You've done well, Trickster. You've expelled one who was stained in vanity and have broken another seal. I can sense you have progressed another step towards your rehabilitation." Igor's words come slowly, spilling over his lips in the same, monotonous timbre that he's used with him each time he's been here.

Akira recalls the man saying something similar when they managed to make Kamoshida confess and wonders how much of the real world that Igor was aware of.

"However," Igor continues, just as slowly as before, "As I read into the connections of your heart, I worry about the progress that needs to be made before you are able to defeat the coming ruin."

Akira wants to ask what he means by that, but before he could, the man continues.

"Additionally, what was said by him was also concerning. It would seem that another has discovered the power of the MetaVerse… What they are doing with its power, however, is beyond even my knowledge. Perhaps, in time, you will come to discover their intentions."

Igor's smile grows wider as he leans back into his seat, "I have high hopes for you, Trickster. I trust that your power will grow in strides as your connections grow stronger. For now, I believe a reward is in order for what you've done thus far."

With a snap of Igor's gloved fingers, Akira feels a wave of emotion wash over him and he knows without using thief vision that the snowy white connection that's scattered on the floor between them has grown wider somehow. But even more strangely than his own emotions was the swelling inside of him. Arsene and the others, deep inside of his void inside of him, were shuddering and shaking, violently enough that he felt them just under his skin, making his fingers and toes fidget where they'd been stuck frozen before.

A wash of heat burst from inside of him as his personas screamed out against him. Despite the thunderous rapture that was occurring inside of him, Akira didn't feel terrified, something about the tremors under his skin felt right as wings and claws scratched at the very edges of his soul.

After an eternity, the screaming stops and Akira drops to his knees in front of the door, gasping at the sudden lack of sensation; Arsene was dead quiet, despite his presence lying just underneath his skin, burning away at his insides like a raging fire.

Just as confused as when he had first awakened to the power, Akira takes in a deep breath and hopes that Igor will simply dismiss him back into oblivion, but when he looks up, expecting a hazy farewell, he finds Igor's desk uninhabited, the mysterious man nowhere to be seen.

Instead, the twin wardens approach his cell once more, appearing almost out of nowhere.

"I see." Justine issues softly. Akira glances upward and locks onto her singular eye, which is now glowing blue instead of its usual yellow. He blinks, once, then a few more times, dropping his gaze before looking back into it only to notice the same thing. He remembers them being that way before, when they spoke of seeing the personas within him.

"Your connections are still quite weak and few in number." Justine says finally.

"Really?" Caroline asks, leaning closer to the door of his cage. "You can tell that just by looking at him?" Her eye is blue as well, though Akira doesn't feel her gaze as intensely as he does Justine's, almost as if the warden were looking through him rather than at him.

"Yes, of course." Justine says primly, then turns to her twin suddenly to ask. "Do you… not?"

"…No." Caroline admits almost too quietly, kicking softly at the floor. "I don't see anything when I look at him like that."

"Strange…" Justine murmurs softly. "I suppose it would be a waste of strength if we both possessed the same power, though."

"Yeah!" The other replies enthusiastically after a long silence.

"Besides, we're here to assist in our inmate's rehabilitation, to do so will require both of our inputs." Justine continues.

Caroline nods at the other's words, then turns to him with a sinister grin. "You hear that, inmate?"

Akira nods quietly, remembering them having a similar conversation one of the first times that he'd shown up in this place. Part of him wants to ask about that but he refrains as Justine starts marching away from his cell.

"I suppose we should start at the beginning. Assist me, Caroline." Justine orders, stepping away towards the desk that Igor had abandoned. Akira catches her reaching over the dark wood to grab at something, but he's unable to see whatever it is. The girl returns a moment later, the item hidden in the tilt of her clipboard, then drops suddenly to the floor in front of his cell. Her legs fold gracefully under her, exposed knees pressing firmly into the grey concrete underneath them. Caroline follows after the other warden, dropping down just as quickly, but sitting in a different position, knees spread wide as her eyeline slips below Akira's.

Justine drops the clipboard between the two of them and grabs at a small box on top of the stack of papers, presumably the object she had just grabbed from Igor's desk. Sliding the container open and reaching inside, Justine reveals a deck of cards, clenched between her gloved fingers. The cards look entirely ordinary, aside from being an eye-attracting shade of cobalt, but Akira can sense that something about them is unusual; that they were different, somehow, from ordinary cards.

Digging a finger into the center of the deck, Justine splits the cards in half, the warden pulls half close to her chest and the other half she extends to Caroline, who mimics the gesture.

Slowly and noisily, the two wardens begin to shuffle their own decks and, in perfect synchronicity, exchange their decks, placing theirs into the gloved palm of the other, only to continue the shuffling process from before.

Akira watches this happen two more times before he realizes, concretely, that he has no idea what is going on.

The cards stop moving and the deck halves are piled onto only one of each of their palms; Justine's stack on her left hand and Caroline's on her right, both are extended towards the other, hovering over Justine's clipboard by several inches. The three of them sit there for a long moment and Akira watches as the wardens breathe in deeply for a few counts, their exposed eyelids closed, and their faces relaxed in way he hadn't seen before.

More quickly than Akira could see, Caroline's hand slap over Justine's sandwiching the two deck halves into a whole once more. A burst of bright light emits from the closing crease, shooting starbursts and sparks into his cell until they sizzle and die out on the stone floor.

"Ready, Caroline?" Justine questions, speaking with her eye closed.

Caroline responds in the same way, quietly and conspiratorially. It's the kind of voice that shares secrets and Akira doesn't have to listen over a roar of other students to make out what she says; the tone makes him wonder if Igor knew what they were up doing right now—whatever it was that they were doing—and if they might get punished if discovered.

"Yes, Justine."

Akira watches, curious despite the trouble that they might get into, as the two wardens' posture grows rigid, both of them sitting up ramrod straight on either side of the cell's door. Their previously blank expressions lose their serenity and scrunch up in concentration. It seems almost private, what he's witnessing, though he has no idea if that is the case, yet when they're like this—sitting on the ground, concentrating—Akira finds himself with much less reservations about looking at either of his wardens directly, taking in the swaying of their breathing, the too pale skin across their faces that glows under unseen flames.

Another burst of light flickers from the deck, making him flinch as it sizzles against his bare foot. Another shoots off, piercing through the air like a spear and smoldering lifelessly on the floor beneath the three of them. Another set of miniature comets fizzle off on Caroline's shoe, on Justine's clipboard and skirt, but most of the tiny sparks jut harmlessly into the floor's rough edges until the deck between the twins' hands is glowing with pale blue light as if everything before it was nothing but a preamble.

"Ready?" Justine asks once again, though much louder this time.

Caroline nods quietly and despite both of their eyes being squeezed shut, Justine seems to get the message as they both take in another huge gasp of air. Caroline pulls her hand upwards, and Akira watches, transfixed, as the cards slowly rise to follow after the warden's departing fingers; the paper thin and still glowing sheets chained after one another, bridging the growing divide between Justine's and Caroline's hands.

"Okay, Justine." Caroline says after a few pauses, finally opening her eye when her arm is extended as far away from Justine as it can without having to stand. "It's your turn."

"Right." Justine replies quietly, sucking in a quiet breath before unfolding her body from the floor, fluidly moving into standing with half the deck of cards hanging from her fingers. Caroline mimics the motion, using her free hand to scramble to the same height.

Justine takes a step back and the cards fall to the ground with a sharp plop. The cards that had been strung up between Caroline's fingers bounce through the air, falling like cobalt leaves and slide across the stone floor. Two of them slide through the bars of his cell while the others sink around the wardens' feet, their glow gone, leaving the area darker than he remembers.

"That's not right." Justine says to herself, sinking back to the floor quickly. She holds her gloved palm over a small trail of cards, but they don't react; not like they do when Caroline does the same thing beside her.

"Different powers, remember?" Caroline says.

"Yes, I know, but it's strange." Justine replies.

"Strange? How so?" Caroline questions, crawling around Justine's feet while she uses her power to draw the cards to her.

Justine makes an odd noise, "I remember doing this, though. I know this power."

"You must have been dreaming things, Justine. I remember this power, too, and it's like you said, it'd be pointless for us to have the same powers." Caroline advises, though she looks just as pensive and confused as the other warden as she takes to her feet, the deck piled into her palm except for the two that had drifted past the door to his cage.

"I suppose you're right. I must have been imagining things." Justine says quietly. Akira's not sure whether she actually believes it or if she's trying to coax herself into the truth.

The situation has him confused and curious as well, he hadn't met with Justine or Caroline that many times, but from their identical garb and status, he had—incorrectly—assumed that they wielded the same powers as the other, possibly the same as Igor, though he had no idea if that were true or not. It was odd, though, that they seemed confused about their abilities and duties, almost as if they were as new to them as he was to the power of persona. Yet, at the same time, they were still infinitely more knowledgeable about either of their powers as well as his and seemed impossibly old for people—if they were people—who looked so young.

"Regardless," Justine continues, speaking as if she hadn't taken as long of a pause as she had. "We can't get distracted from our duty to our master. You'll need to do the spell, Caroline, and I'll focus on the interpretation."

"R-right!" Caroline blusters for a moment before falling silent, both of her hands stack on either side of the incomplete deck in her hands. With a pulse of energy, the deck begins to glow again, and the cards begin to separate, chaining together like they had before between Caroline's expanding fingers.

The warden stretches her arms as far as they will go, and the deck's expanse is finally revealed to him. Each of the staggered cards reveal a shiny, blank surface. If Akira were able to get closer, he's almost positive he'd be able to see his own reflection in each of the cards.

A few of the cards in Caroline's spell fall away, yet neither of the wardens react, and Akira got the impression that it was intentional this time. The blank cards fall swiftly to the stone, sliding straight down like falling rain. Another wave of them follow, pinging on the floor then falling flat and restless upon it. The process continues and Caroline's expression grows more and more tense behind the thinning veil of cards, her face turning purple under the pale blue light of the Velvet Room.

Nineteen cards remain in Caroline's web, floating into two neat rows of ten.

"W-wait." Caroline vociferates, eye scanning over the cards suspended by her touch. "There's two missing!"

Akira feels his stomach sink a little, hoping that his failure to point it out earlier wouldn't cause any more issues with whatever the wardens were trying to do. Reaching forward, Akira plucks up the two cards that had drifted into his cell, ignoring their glossy, yet prickly texture. He stares down at them, attempting to examine them, as soon as he does this, however, the cards spring out from between his fingers as if they were acting on their own and lined up along the other cards floating in Caroline's gravity.

"As you can see, inmate." Justine begins, gesturing towards the net of blank cards. "These show us the status of your bonds. I believe our master was right in being concerned with how weak you are."

Akira wants to be embarrassed or outraged, but his confusion supersedes anything else.

"I don't see anything." He tries, the noise of the chains around his wrists more distracting than his words.

Justine looks over at him and Akira points towards the cards.

"Ah." She says, "I thought we were forgetting something."

"Use our master's gift, inmate!" Caroline grunts out from behind the cards glow.

Master's gift? Akira questions for a moment, thinking back to the painful heat of Igor's snap, but recalling nothing being left behind.

"Your thief vision, inmate, awaken your third eye and observe." Justine points out severely, sounding more like Caroline than herself.

Akira bobs his head quietly, then exhales quietly, trying to manifest that power. His power. Exhaling again, Akira shivers against the chill around him, suddenly hyperaware of each sensation against his skin; the chain's weight against his wrists and ankle, solid and icy. There's weight on his soul too, the personas inside of him jitter against the chasm inside of him, unexpectedly awake and curious. Akira can feel them prying towards the surface, almost as if they were trying to manifest themselves.

He waits for the shift and opens his eyes. The things that were blue before were still blue, but the steely gaze of Justine's eye is acrimoniously yellow, the power from before faded and missing. Turned off and controlled in a way he couldn't.

Closing his eyes, Akira tries it again. Everything slows down. The hum of the personas turns into a slow, hearty rhythm. Each of them pound against his head, against his heart, hammering against his insides. The chill rolls over him once more and Akira feels himself sinking inside of himself, sliding closer towards Arsene and then he feels everything shift. Somehow, everything slows down again and Akira can feel his body expand as he breathes in and each thread of his prison scrubs rubbing against his back.

The next time he opens his eyes, everything is blue, a shifting river running over everything, staining everything except for drooping threads tying him to the wardens on the other end of cell door exposing his faint relationship that he shares with them. When he looks up, Justine nods down at him, then gestures towards the array of cards in Caroline's spell.

The cards are no longer blank and, instead, reveal strips of images that he doesn't quite understand. Each one was titled, words that should have been too small to read glow under his gaze, exposing themselves to him.

The Chariot. Akira reads one off, the name sticking out to him for a reason that takes him a moment to remember. Chariot was something that Caroline had called Ryuji once, with the same red eye she was using when she did it.

"As I've said before, inmate, these cards represent the bonds that you are able to nurture and the ones that you've already begun to consummate." Justine explains, confirming his small realization. "The ones in the reversed position indicate that the bond has yet to begun. The power that you're able to draw from them in non-existent."

The warden gestures to a number of cards, all of their depictions hang upside down with their words in a similar state. They seem faint in their glow as well, appearing nearly grey against the sea dwelling in his gaze, exposing their lack of power.

"You should seek to develop these bonds if you wish to grow stronger." Justine repeats, glancing back at him.

"These ones," She continues, gesturing to the few right-side up cards, which sink lower to the ground for a moment before lifting back up. "Represent the connections that you have started to nurture—"

"None of them look that impressive, inmate." Caroline rasps from behind the array as it bobs lower once more.

"Focus, Caroline!" Justine snaps as the cards start to slide against the pile that had fallen earlier. Only when the rows are floating above his head does the warden continue, ghosting a finger along one of the upright cards. "Our master has said this before, but it may be important to remind you that the power of the wild card comes from the bonds that you develop. They will be more important to you than anything you could do alone."

Akira stares at the grid floating in front of him, at the numerous shaded cards—the connections he's meant to form—and wonders how he's supposed to meet any of them. Looking at it as it was, the task seemed more than monumental and was supposed to, somehow, stop the ruin that was coming.

Then again… Taking his time to observe the upright cards, he wondered if his teammates were represented in any of their motifs, for they, as Justine had said, had helped him more than he could help himself. Without Morgana and Sakamoto, he never would have made it out of Kamoshida's castle alive, not to mention their trips into Mementos; Takamaki too. And, as new as he was, Kitagawa had proven himself just as capable in that world.

Akira could see their point, but he found it odd that over twenty people, according to the cards, were going to help him with the MetaVerse, even now, with three others, he didn't feel like much of a leader, never mind trying to control more than double that many.

"These relics are meant to depict the journey that every trickster is meant to take." Justine explains, gesturing to the first card in the line-up. "From beginning to end, it is important for the trickster to develop not only himself, but the people around him, to the nurture his soul. That is how the tricksters before have defeated the ruin and it is how you will do the same."

Silence stews for a long moment before Justine speaks again, this time to Caroline, "You can drop the spell now."

The cards drop to the ground right after she says this and the images in front of him are lost, leaving only Caroline's panting form for him to observe before Justine ducks in front of her and plucks one of the cards from the floor.

Akira watches as the warden studies the card, twisting its blank form around in her hand for a moment before turning back to him.

"I suppose that we should aide you in your rehabilitation as well but know that it will not come easy inmate. If you wish to gather the strength necessary to defeat the ruin, then you must be able to overcome the obstacles that come before it." The warden says cryptically, bending forward again to snatch up her clipboard. "As such, I will assign you your next, if you manage to complete this assignment, we will enhance our connection to you."

Akira isn't left much time to consider this information or ask how catching a persona for them would deepen their connection before Justine pulls off another piece of parchment from her clipboard and slides it through the bars of his cell.

It was nearly identical to the one she had given him the last time the two wardens had mentioned their list; a yellowed piece of paper that was slightly crumpled. It looked quite old, yet the inky image depicted was distinct and, like the cards they had been showing him before, was labeled.

Ame-no-Uzume. The name—or title, he wasn't certain—was scripted neatly below the blackened image of a human-shaped figure with long hair and several adornments obscuring her face.

Akira wasn't sure what to think about this task, he had never seen this persona before and worried about how strong she—or it—might be for him to capture and return here.

"I believe that is all we have to discuss tonight, inmate." Justine concludes and he barely has time to register her words before he's thrust back under the cover of darkness, losing his awareness until something else pulls him back into consciousness.

Akira reaches over and turns off his alarm. Doing so awakens a desire to sink back into the attic's thin mattress and fall back asleep. Despite having climbed into bed at a decent hour and having slept for the entire night—if Igor's words were to be believed—the rapid-fire events that had occurred in the Velvet Room whirl around his head so quickly that Akira isn't sure what to make of any of it.

Finally sitting up, Akira moves to wipe a hand over his eye as it starts to itch against the morning light but finds the piece of parchment from Justine's list rubbing against his face instead. The painted face of Ame-no-Uzume stares—assuming it had eyes—up at him with its inky face and Akira drops the paper off the edge of the bed and rolls over the edge of the mattress to join it.

Taking to his feet, Akira stares out across the dusty attic and feels himself startle in surprise. Forcing himself to blink, Akira looks out once more, only to find everything the same: blue. It wasn't the first time he had activated his Thief Vision in the real world, though the only time it hadn't washed away instantly. A wave of static floated behind his eyes and didn't go away when he rubbed at them, nor the blue cast the was cemented over everything.

He supposed this only cemented the fact that he didn't really understand the MetaVerse at all. A world parallel to the real one, inhabited by inconceivable and somehow tamable monsters, where desires that grew into monstrous structures and allowed people to have inhuman abilities, including him.

Thinking about it gave him a headache, the static turning into a dull ache that made him clench his teeth as he brushed them.

Sakura-san waves him down before he can duck out of the café and drops a plate of curry in front of the last seat on the bar for him. The older man doesn't say much. Or maybe he does and Akira doesn't hear anything after he notices the thin glowing line that's drooped between the two of them.

Regardless, after washing his dishes, Akira offers his thanks, folding over slowly from his place at the door. He stares at the bare thread between them, glowing dimly across LeBlanc's pale flooring.

Sakura-san doesn't acknowledge him on his way out but he doesn't find that to be a bad thing or something to think too much on as he was still shocked that the two of them shared a connection at all.

Caught up in that revelation, it's not until he's at the next station that he realizes that he's forgotten Morgana behind, at which point it was too late to back. Akira hopes the other wouldn't be too upset about it.

"Hey, stranger." Takamaki says, making him jump.

Akira glances to his side and spots his teammate, standing close by, pale blue and glowing under one of the station's lights. She has a thread hanging from her chest as well, looping tightly in the minimal distance between them. It's just as pale and thin as the one shared between him and Sakura-san, glowing weakly like the spell that Justine had shown him last night.

She doesn't turn to look at him and talks to the empty tracks in front of them instead, "Did you sleep okay?"

He shrugs in way of response, not wanting to draw too much attention by pulling out his board or phone. Even if he could, he wasn't sure what he would say. Despite everything that they had witnessed together in the MetaVerse, Takamaki—nor any of the others for that matter—had mentioned seeing the Velvet Room or either of the wardens.

Since they don't have the 'wild card', I guess that makes sense. Akira assumes, unsure if he should bring up that everything he was seeing was now blue.

It would still be a lot to explain, especially considering that they weren't supposed to be seen together, and it's not like he knew a whole lot about that place either, as the wardens and Igor both spoke only of the ruin and not about themselves or the MetaVerse.

"I feel that." Takamaki huffs, pushing her hair away from her shoulder and exposing her smile to him, which reminds him of the first time he had met Takamaki and assumed she was just a foreigner.

When the train pulls up with a squeal, Akira follows his teammate through the sliding doors, but decides, after glancing over his shoulder, to slide through to the next car instead of taking the open seat next to the blonde.

He wonders if doing so would be even more suspicious or conspicuous, assuming anyone was actually following Takamaki so early in the morning.

"Better safe than sorry." Arsene's voice grates across his soul, startling him for a moment before he nods, concurring.

Staring out the window and into the blackened tunnels, Akira finds himself thinking about the wardens' words yet again.

Was it not enough for him to have the connections that he already had? Since he'd been thrown into Tokyo, he's met and connected with more people than he ever had before. He even had friends now, teammates as well, and whatever he meant to Sakura-san.

Did he really have to look for more when he was already content with what was already in front of him? Was it really necessary to avoid the ruin?

By the time the train slows to a stop, Akira is fairly certain that there's no right answer to the questions that keep popping into his head. At least, not one that he can comprehend or accept.

Akira steps onto the station and makes sure he keeps a distance between him and Takamaki, though he never manages to lose track of her and not even because of her pale hair that glows almost white in the wash of azure and cobalt that Tokyo has turned into. Keeping his gaze pointed towards the ground, Akira follows the winding coil that's trailing behind her, tracking behind his teammate with each bounce of the invisible thread.

Even still, he manages to find his seat before she does, dropping into his desk with a small sigh. He rubs at his eyes, which are starting to grow sore from seeing everything in ways he isn't used to. He's tempted to put his head down in attempt to find some relief, but he knows that he shouldn't, that if he did, it would be the exact moment Kawakami and Kobayakowa would decide to check on him and would deem him unfit for their school.

Akira kept his eyes open and on the blank board in front of him, half his class and Kawakami were still missing, but he maintains an attentive demeanor as best as he can while trying to look as least suspicious as possible. He's not sure how much of either he's actually pulling off, but the more seconds that pass with nothing happening, the more nervous he is about stopping.

The bell rings and he jumps in his seat and bangs his knees against the underside of his desk. At the same time, Kawakami-sensei stalks into the room with a handful of his classmates trailing behind her, asking questions in hushed tones.

"We'll discuss it more during the period, for now, please take your seats." Kawakami says over the clamor surrounding her in a tone that ripples up his spine uncomfortably.

Akira stares down at his desk, which is still blue, and waits for his classmates to take their seats.

When the shuffling stops, Kawakami claps her hands together and pulls out a clipboard from under her arm. Something about the way she holds it lacks menace and hostility, even as her narrowed gaze dances over the room. He supposes it could also be because the list that she's checking off is a list of humans and not personas or that the tasks on it were related to what they were having for lunch and not about avoiding an upcoming ruin.

Regardless of his lack of fear for Kawakami's clipboard, he still finds his homeroom teacher intimidating, especially when her gaze finally clicks onto him for a few seconds, something he only notices due to the ever-present filter that's enhancing his vison, before she writes something down; which is hopefully his attendance and nothing else.

Her lesson starts with a flourish of an ancient looking book and Akira writes down everything that she says, except for the last thing, which happens right as the bell rings.

"Okay class, I'll be back after lunch and before fifth period to quickly talk about your social studies trip this week. Please make sure you sign up where you want to go before homeroom ends tomorrow, otherwise Ushimaru-sensei and I will choose for you." Kawakami announces over the shuffling of notebooks and pencil cases.

Social studies trip? Akira questions at once.

Akira wants to raise his hand and ask what that means but Kawakami turns back from where she'd shuffled to the door and talks over the noise once more. "And another thing, if you're going to try and suggest something that's not on the list, make sure you have a good reason. The second years last year tried to get the faculty to sign off on a beach trip and all they could come up with was 'historical enrichment through sand therapy'. If you're going to try and waste the faculties' time at least make a better excuse than that."

As Kawakami slides out of the classroom, narrowly dodging Inui-sensei.

"Oh, sorry, Kawakami-sensei." The man says, pressing himself against the door jamb as Kawakami slides into the hallway.

"It's my fault, Inui-sensei, I was just telling them more about their social studies trip and didn't realize that I was startling to ramble." Kawakami replies quickly from the hallway. "I'll see you later."

Inui-sensei shuts the door after her and eyes up the class from his point at the door, "Social studies trip, huh?"

Akira might be imagining it, but he's heard those words more times today than he's heard since coming to Tokyo and he can't help but wonder if there's something that he's missed while worrying about shadows and palaces. He almost wishes that he had remembered to bring Morgana along today so that he could double check with someone; but with the cat at home, he's stuck until he can text Takamaki or Ryuji about it.

"Surely nothing will top the trip you guys took last year for history, right?" Inui-sensei laughs, a greasy chuckle that Akira hasn't heard anything like before. "Right, class? The Imperial Palace? Nijubashi bridge? Unforgettable stuff!"

Inui-sensei chatters on about the trip for several minutes before a thought flashes into his head, like a switch had suddenly been flipped and Akira feels his face heat up in a type of embarrassment he hadn't felt in quite some time.

Maybe I'm not allowed to go… In truth, he hadn't thought about the reality of his criminal record in a few weeks. While he still wasn't used to the countless stares that the people wearing the same uniform as him, they had died down in the time he had been there to the point it had somehow slipped his mind the true reason behind those glares and whispers.

Not being wanted and not being allowed to participate at all were two different things and Akira was shocked to find out how much the second one stung compared to the first.

Akira sighs quietly into the collar of his uniform and starts writing down the things Inui-sensei is saying, the man had, at some point while Akira was thinking, started the lesson about Japan's historical advancements during the 1800s.

Despite the abundance of things to think about: the ruin, the quiet whispers about Madarame, and the technologies starting to evolve in rural Japan, Akira found himself fixated on the social studies trip instead, almost to the point where he had started taking notes on that instead of the things Inui-sensei was lecturing about while he listed them on the board.

When the bell for lunch rings, Akira doesn't head downstairs like he normally might; Morgana isn't with him and he's still overly full from breakfast. Instead, he stares down at his still-blue desk and tries to organize his thoughts.

The moment of reprieve doesn't last long before something—an arm— slides view, pulling him away from his attempt at comforting himself.

"Hey," Takamaki whispers, looking across the room instead of at him, "Have you picked where you're going for the trip yet?"

Akira hesitates for a moment, wanting to ask, but shakes his head in a negative.

"Hmm." She hums quietly around a mouthful of her lunch. "Well, you could come to the TV station, that's where I'm going. Unless you think it'd be too suspicious or something, but I doubt Niijima-senpai will hear about it."

Akira nods quietly at her words, not agreeing or disagreeing; he didn't even know if he was meant to choose something or if he'd be left alone at the school while everyone else left.

"I should probably ask Ryuji where he's going, too." Takamaki murmurs into another mouthful of her lunch before tugging out her phone.

Akira does the same, if only to have something to do besides tugging at his hair.

To his surprise, the chat that they share with Kitagawa is already active, with Sakamoto and Kitagawa sending multiple messages back and forth regarding their schools' reactions to Madarame's confession.

He was a shocked that, according to Kitagawa, the students at his school were ignoring him because of his relationship to Madarame. His first reaction is to be a little jealous of the artist, but he also feels a gut-wrenching guilt for being the one to put him in that situation.

"Sorry about putting you in that situation, Yusuke." Akira sends quickly after re-writing the message to include the artist's first name.

"Yeah, that's pretty fucked up." Sakamoto tacks on immediately.

"A small price to pay for recovering my mother's laurels as well as her painting." Kitagawa replies, sounding more mature than anyone their age that he's met before; the words, though, seem fitting for the other boy, to the point that Akira doesn't have to try too hard to imagine them in his voice.

"Not to mention, they're quite easy to ignore if I focus on nothing but my studies, so it's not as if I am suffering too terribly for Madarame's actions."

Akira wants to disagree with him, to point out that the boy was starved and temporarily homeless because of Madarame, but he doesn't say anything, his fingers frozen in place.

"Did you decide where you're going for the social studies trip?" Takamaki asks, breaking the stillness that had taken over the chat.

"I'm not taking a social studies trip." Kitagawa replies swiftly.

"Nah, I'm thinkin about just skipping school when it comes. My ma is off work and she's been meanin to talk to me about something" Ryuji chimes in.

Takamaki makes a weird grunt and Akira stares down at his screen as his teammate starts typing furiously, "Don't you think that'll be suspicious!? And sorry, Yusuke, I wasn't talking to you."

"Wouldn't it be more suspicious if I started bein a good student all of a sudden though?" Ryuji snaps back at her.

Takamaki deflates in front of him, "I don't know, maybe, but we've all been seen hanging out, so maybe the teachers will think I'm good influence or something and Niijima-senpai will stop following me home."

"Maybe." Ryuji replies cryptically, then adds, "Where are you goin for the trip then Akira?"

Akira stares down at the message for a moment, wondering if he should tell everyone what he had been thinking about.

"I'm not sure I'll be allowed on the trip anyways." He shoots back, feeling embarrassed all over again; like there were a thousand eyes on him, even though nobody that was reading his messages were even looking at him.

"Why's that? You get in trouble with Ushimaru?" Ryuji questions, then continues typing. "Oh yeah."

Akira feels himself grimacing at his phone. Even Sakamoto had forgotten about the reason he'd come to Shujin in the first place and now he had just reminded everyone at once.

"Not sure why they wouldn't let you go… You should talk to your homeroom about it I guess." Ryuji offers quickly.

"I'll do that." He responds, though he's not sure that he wants to, if only because it'll confirm what he's worried about.

His phone lights up a few more times between his fingers, but he can't bring himself to read any of the messages, he's too worried about how the others might react to his past being brought up again and that only makes his head pulse angrily and viciously.

Kawakami slides back into the room just before lunch ends, sneaking through the door without being noticed by the few students lingering in the room. Akira tracks her trek across the front of the room, trying to see if she'll notice him and resolve his question without him having to ask.

The teacher's eyes refuse to lift from the stack of papers in her hands, though, and Akira finds himself staring uselessly at her as the bell for next period chimes across the school and is only interrupted by the trail of black blazers filing back into the room.

"Take your seats. Hurry up." Kawakami orders, "We only have a few minutes to talk about this or Chouno-sensei will rip my head off."

Raising her hand, Kawakami looks around the room, "Okay, by show of hands, who's already decided where they're going for the trip?"

Akira ducks his head down, but can't help but notice the array of movement as almost every one of his classmates raise their hands in answer.

"Oh, well, hm." She mumbles from the front of the room, "I'll come by to each of your desks then. You guys better be sure you know where you want to go, once I write it down, I'm not going to let you change it."

Mishima's desk is the first one that she stops at and he can't help but notice how quiet the room is as the other boy starts talking about his intended destination, each of his words are quiet but lively. Akira feels weird for listening in, especially considering the wire thin strand that's dripping out of the boy's back and that he's completely forgotten about Mishima's request until he heard his voice.

I still need to tell them about that… Akira lists off, along with a dozen other secrets he hasn't been meaning to keep.

Kawakami comes into sight once more as she drops low on Takamaki's desk. "You raised your hand too, didn't you, Takamaki-san?"

"Mhm!" His teammate confirms, leaning back and splattering his desk with some of her hair. "I wanted to go to the TV station."

"Really?" Kawakami asks. Akira thinks she sounds surprised. "I figured TV would be a more popular destination, but you're the first one in my class to pick that from the list."

"Is that so?" Takamaki questions quietly.

"I guess it makes a little sense, kids these days are moving away from watching TV. I barely have time to watch the news before I have to run to work in the mornings." Kawakami continues, speaking more than Akira's ever heard before, except for when the subject is on Japanese.

Takamaki laughs at what their teacher says. Akira doesn't really understand why, but Kawakami laughs as well and he figures that he's managed to miss something while he'd been unintentionally eavesdropping yet again.

"What about you, Kurusu?" Kawkami asks immediately after helping his teammate, which catches him by surprise even when he should have at least half-expected it to happen.

The room erupts with more whispers and intent gazes as Kawakami settles near his desk the same way she'd done to Takamaki's; Akira can barely hear him over the hundreds of thoughts that are barreling through his head.

He tries to shake his head, but he's not sure if it actually happens anywhere outside of his mind.

"Hmm." Kawakami hums, unimpressed. "Whatever you decide, make sure you come sign up for something by tomorrow morning. Or come to the faculty office later today if you think of something by then."

Akira doesn't realize it until long after Kawakami stomps away from his desk, until she's circled around the room and Chouno-sensei slid into the room, questioning why Kawakami was taking so long.

I'm allowed to go… The thought drifts across the forefront of his mind, almost undetectable, even as he thinks it, before it clicks in understanding.

Even if nobody told him that the trip was going to happen, he was still allowed to go and the only person—as far as he knows—that thought otherwise was him. It was a strange thing to conceptualize and even more so to accept. Ever since he'd transferred, everyone treated him differently—even Chouno-sensei, who praises him with more enthusiasm each time she calls on him—yet Kawakami approached him as if he were any other student. It wasn't something that happened very often, even at his old school.

At the same time, Akira's also mortified at telling the others that he's allowed to go after he'd brought up the idea of the contrary.

School ends with another bell and Takamaki turns in her seat to face him, camouflaged by their classmates getting ready to leave, and immediately recoils when she looks at him. "Um, are you okay, Akira-kun?"

Her ghostly whisper in the otherwise too loud classroom has him second-guessing his appearance. He can imagine that he looks worse than usual, as he's been plucking at his hair quite a bit to distract himself from his own embarrassment; not to mention the bruises that must be forming around his eyes from the pressure thudding against the back of his eyeballs as the world refuses to shift back into anything except shades of blue.

"Your eyes are…" Takamaki cuts herself off and she glances across the emptying classroom. "Just… please come to the TV station with me, it'd be kind of awkward to go alone, you know. I gotta go, I can pretty much hear Niijima-senpai scratching at the door."

Akira feels his mind stuttering to follow the girl's words and the board tucked under his arm remains blank as he fails to find something to say. Instead, he watches his teammate push away from her desk and follow after the sea of students trailing towards the staircase, leaving their classroom door open. He watches from his desk for a moment, his eyes hurting just enough to dissuade him from standing up too quickly, and that's when he spots her.

As Takamaki had said, Akira spots Niijima, definitely the same girl he had caught staring at him at the station, though that had been all but confirmed, trailing past their classroom door almost immediately after Takamaki had left. Her short, now blue, hair bounces from her fast gait as she follows after his teammate and Akira can't resist the sinking feeling in his gut as he watches this unfold, fearful that today might be the day that she manages to confirm whatever suspicions she has about them.

Breathing deep, Akira tries to calm himself before he takes to his feet to follow after them. He manages to spot Niijima slipping around a corner, presumably still in pursuit of Takamaki, and he feels another part of him become irredeemable as he recognizes himself as the cause of all of this. He wants to do something, to help in some way, but he's not sure there's anything he can do without drawing extra attention to Takamaki or himself.

There's a weight on his shoulders that follows him down into the subway, one he's about to carry with him to LeBlanc when he gets a text message. He's scared enough to consider not opening it; Takamaki could have finally cracked, in to Niijima's stalking presence, and wanted him to turn himself in. Kitagawa could be danger with Madarame; Akira's pretty sure the artist was taken to prison, but he wasn't entirely sure, which meant that it could be a present danger.

He doesn't ignore it, though. He's not sure why, even as he steps out of line to prop himself up against a wall to combat the tremors that are filtering through his fingers and toes.

"I need you here." It was from Iwai, someone who knew nothing about his connection to Kamoshida or Madarame.

Akira sighs in relief, then huffs a little laugh as a fraction of the tension is sapped out of him. When did it become like him to react so harshly to a simple text message?

Isn't this a sign we should stop what we're doing? He can't help but wonder on the way to Untouchables. If he is acting this way, thinking this way, he can't imagine how Sakamoto and Takamaki are feeling, being pressured by Kobayakowa and Niijima in the aftermath of what they did.

The alleyway to Iwai's shop is empty of people and Akira notices very much the same as he steps inside of the man's store, aside from the owner and now himself. The ringing bell announces his presence as he makes his way from the doorway and past a column of weapon boxes to get to the counter where Iwai is leaning back, looking at ease with his boots up on the glass counter. A magazine and the low brim of the man's hat separates them from each other, something Akira is grateful for, as he didn't quite know why he was here and he still hadn't steeled himself up to deal with the gruff man; though it did remind him that after they had brought Madarame to the point of confession, that he wasn't able to find his gun in his bag. Which, he admits, should have been expected when he threw it at Madarame and didn't make a move to retrieve it.

Face burning, he wonders if Iwai will say anything if he asks for a similar model.

"Did anybody see you come in here?" The man asks as he pulls his feet off the counter, startling him from his thoughts.

Akira quickly shakes his head once the shock quells down and stares down at the tiny thread between them as the man speaks again.

"Hmm." The shopkeeper grunts. Akira catches him glancing towards the store's nearly covered windows. "Let's keep it that way, yeah?"

Despite not knowing why, Akira nods along with the man's words.

"Let's head into the back, I got some chores for ya." Iwai instructs as he pulls himself to his feet and skulks into the back room himself, leading the way.

Chores? He doubts that the man would have texted him over to help with his dishes or taking out his garbage. Circling around the counter, Akira is pretty certain that it would be gun-related in some way, but beyond that he's not quite sure what Iwai is expecting him to do.

Akira had only been in the back of Iwai's store once and he hadn't gotten a very good look at it. He still couldn't, as the room was almost entirely blanketed in blue shadows, save for the bright beam of a work lamp that was lighting up a messy work surface across the room. Iwai took a seat in front of the desk, blocking a little more of the light from stretching onto the walls.

"C'mere, kid." Iwai says gruffly before dragging a stool out from under the desk with his foot.

Unsure when he stopped moving forward, Akira sinks into the darkness of the backroom, which gave the same pressurized feeling of traversing Mementos, and swallows thickly as he takes a seat across from the shopkeeper.

"Job for today is take these apart and wipe 'em down. Every last screw." Iwai explains as he tugs out a few black containers from the same place he had pulled Akira's seat. "Think you can handle that?"

Akira looks down at the black cases, then back up at the clerk and nods quietly.

"That's my enthusiast." Iwai chuckles, then asks suddenly. "Uh, you wearin' contacts or somethin'?"

Contacts? Akira feels his face scrunch up in confusion at the question but reminds himself to shake his head in answer.

"Hmm." Iwai grunts, climbing to his feet once more. The man was now towering over him and Akira would have been scared—or more scared—had the glowing white thread hanging from the man's chest not risen with him.

"Must be a glare or somethin', should probably get more lights in here if you're gonna be stickin' around, huh?" He chuckles. Akira catches him reaching for something above the desk but, even with how close they are, Akira can't see what it is until Iwai drops it onto the lit-up desk beside them.

Cleaning Wipes.

"There's a coupla screwdrivers on here, so you shouldn't need to dig around for anything." Iwai continues, plucking a blue-handled one from the messy desk and dropping it back down. "Text me when you're done."

The man crosses the small room and drops a hand on the door's handle before turning back to him. "Don't want anybody knowing who you are yet, so I'm gonna keep this door shut. If you gotta take a piss or somethin', go through there."

The man gestures towards a doorway Akira hadn't noticed before disappearing through the door to the shop, leaving him alone. The clicks shut and Untouchables' back room grows even darker, less blue and almost black.

He's never had a job before and as he tugs one of the cases Iwai left for him onto the desk, he wonders if this is what it's meant to be like. Thinking back to his time with Sakura-san, spending his afternoons writing down orders and walking them over, he wants to think not. Even when Sakura-san left him with a task similar to this one, the older man was right beside him the entire time.

Pushing away thoughts about his guardian and boss, Akira slides closer to Iwai's desk and examines the blue-black box in front of him. Akira hadn't seen anything quite like it before. It was almost like a briefcase, but made entirely of plastic, with two thick bands clasping it tightly shut. They click even louder than the door Iwai shut behind him when he pops them open.

Akira's not very surprised when he finds a gun inside. A handgun, not dissimilar to the one he had thrown at Madarame a few days prior, lies in a pool of black stryofoam-like material. The gun catches the desk's light, glowing yellow in a see of blues and blacks, drawing his attention more than it had already. Like all of Iwai's products, the gun looks beyond real—not that he had a lot of experience with weapons, real or not—and it's surprisingly heavy once he peels it away from the case. He takes a minute to examine it, more than he probably should, but he's also thinking about things he probably shouldn't and staring down at the gun in his hand is like looking into a window of his own thoughts.

Being a phantom thief means taking someone's heart. Akira had used a gun like this one to do that a few times now; Kamoshida, Nakanohara, the girl who was like him but he didn't know her name, and now Madarame.

They weren't doing anything wrong. The Phantom Thieves pointed out what was wrong and move to stop the people that hurt others.

But what about those people? Akira thinks without meaning to.

Could Madarame or Kamoshida have changed before they stepped in?

The question burns a hole in the back of his mind and Akira struggles to find an answer.

They needed to stop Kamoshida before he caused something like what happened with Suzui to happen again.

They needed to stop Madarame before Kitagawa died.

He knows these things to be true but are the reasons good enough to justify what they're doing. To justify what's happening around them.

Akira plucks the same screwdriver that Iwai had put down, determined to shut the window that the gun had opened up. He struggles for a minute, unused to handling tools despite the practice he had from helping Sakura-san, and manages to dissemble the gun into two shiny pieces. From there, taking the model from a complete unit to a pile of screws and springs wasn't very difficult, screws seemed to hold everything together, something he didn't really know about until now.

He takes care in wiping down each piece, just as Iwai had instructed, cramming harshly scented cleaning wipes into every groove of the disassembled toy until it his fingers burned as much as his nose did.

The second case held a gun similar to the first one. Akira didn't hold this one for very long and set about dismantling it as quickly as possible and giving it the same treatment until it was in a small pile on Iwai's disorganized desk.

The third case was twice the size of the first two and the model inside was different than anything he'd seen before. The barrel was long and skinny, with a telescope attached to the top. Despite its appearance, it was quite heavy to pull from the case and it made the screws from the other models jump when he dropped it onto the workspace. He tries his best to work it into smaller pieces, but when he's run out of screws to pile up, the model is still as tall as he is, though not nearly as heavy anymore.

He wipes down what he can, plugging the barrel with wipes until they come out the other end, presumably where he'd put the bullets in if it were a real gun and piles the pieces onto the table along with the other two guns. Staring at them, Akira finds himself filled with doubt and wipes down every piece once more before texting Iwai.

The man doesn't reply, leaving Akira sitting in the back of the man's shop wondering if he should wipe them down a third time. A few minutes pass before the shopkeeper pushes the door open and shuts it behind himself.

"Done?" Iwai asks, gruff as usual, despite smiling.

He nods in answer and slides his stool away from the desk as the man steps into the light.

"This one's a bit tricky." He mutters, grabbing a couple of the used wipes and using them as gloves as he takes up the large model. Akira watches closely as the man yanks both ends of the gun away from each other, then slides them together before pulling away two pieces. The parts were still consumed a lot of space when Iwai put them back down onto the bench, but were much more manageable to clean, at least.

"Wipe those parts down again." The older man orders, tugging a clean wipe and offering it to him.

Akira does what he's told, cleaning the newly exposed parts of the gun twice over before dropping back down.

"You sure they're all clean?" Iwai confirms, sounding serious.

Akira nods once more, he wasn't entirely sure as there was no way to tell with his thief vision refusing to turn off, but he was certain enough. He just hoped that he wouldn't regret it.

"I'll bag 'em up then." Iwai says, tugging on a pair of gloves before sweeping all of the screws into a plastic bag he'd pulled from his pocket. The shopkeeper steps out of the light and Akira can only see their connection dangling in the darkness for a moment before he returns with a couple of more bags.

"Dig in there real quick." The man requests, spreading the bag open in front of him.

Reaching his hand into the bag, Akira tugs out a take-out box. Its smell permeates the air around him quickly, more strongly than whatever was in the cleaning wipes.

Coughing, Iwai nods down at him. "Open it up."

Once more, Akira does as he's told and lifts the lid open, but looks away instead of inside, watching as Iwai slides the pieces from the two handguns from the table. He feels their weight sinking into his palms as they're piled into the take-out container in his hands. It's a strange thing to do, Akira realizes, but he's not in a position to ask questions as more parts get shoved into the smelly container in his hands.

"Go ahead and close it, make sure it doesn't spill." Iwai tells him, opening the bag back up.

After dropping the box back into the bag, he wipes his hands across his pants, feeling gross, and glances up at Iwai. The man is staring down at the table where the long pieces of the other model is still sitting. They wouldn't fit in a take-out box, that much was obvious, though Akira had no idea why they were doing this anyways.

"I'll take care of that separately." Iwai mutters quietly, closing the bag and shifting into one hand so he can scratch at his chin. The movement reminds him quite a bit of Sakura-san, even if they weren't that much alike.

Iwai's hand falls from his face and the man turns to him with a grin wrapped around a piece of candy. "You hungry?"

Akira is stunned by the sudden shift in conversation, something he's notices happens almost every time the man speaks to him. He shakes his head quietly in response.

"I think you are." The shopkeeper insists, sliding around him to reach into the dark shelves above the desk. He doesn't get a good look at whatever it is before Iwai's drops whatever it is onto his head, making him jump.

"Why don't you head to that burger place across the street and get us something to eat. You know the one?" Iwai suggests. "And while you're out, you can toss this in their can."

Big Bang Burger. He's pretty sure that's what Iwai is referring to while the older man slides the plastic bag into Akira's hand.

"Just keep your eyes low, like you've been doin'." The man instructs. "Play it up if you gotta. Buy us somethin', dump the bag, take a walk, then come back. Got it?"

Akira nods despite himself, once again lost in the shift in Iwai's demeanor.

"I'll make sure the shop is clear, just keep that hat on and don't stop for nobody." He continues, patting him on the shoulder as he pulls away from him, heading towards the door once more.

He stays where he is, holding onto the plastic bag in one hand and adjusting the cap Iwai had dropped onto him with the other, and tries his best to figure out what was going on.

Something secret. It was the best that he could come up with. He'd never been in a situation like this one and, as Iwai calls him up from the counter, he's not sure that he wants to be. The pressure in his chest, spidering across his skin and squeezing him, it feels like it does when he's in the MetaVerse. Only this was the real world, where there were no shadows, only real people who could get him in trouble.

Trouble… That's what this was.

Akira pulls the cap down low until it's covering half of his view with the same tint of blue, much like he's seen Iwai do, and slides out of Untouchables with a sinking feeling in his chest. The bright light of the Velvet Room lingers in the alleyway as he steps into it. The walkway was still empty, just as it had been when he went into the shop, but it doesn't do anything to alleviate the chill that's attached itself to his spine.

The walk to Big Bang Burger is a short one, nowhere long enough for him to calm himself down, especially in the constant jostling of the moving crowd squishing him in, and as he steps through the sliding glass doors, he can't help but take respite against the closest wall. A deep, shuddering sigh deflates him and makes him want to sink into the floor. His heart was pounding and he didn't even know the reason why.

Somehow, though, in the midst of another moment of his guilt-filled pause, he got the inkling that if he did ask Iwai why they were doing this, that the man would tell him everything.

That scared him even more.

Akira stares at the menu for a long time. His neck cramps up at some point, but he continues to stare up at the brightly lit menu from his place in line. He's not sure what Iwai would like, or if the whole point of getting food was for when he dumped off the garbage into the bin.

Akira uses the whiteboard in his bag and gets two identical burgers in a plastic bag, which is identical to the one that's already in his hands. He climbs into one of the tables and pulls one out to stare at it. The more he does, the less hungry he gets. Something about the smell is completely off-putting, more so than the smell the other bag at the table, so he packs it away after a few minutes of staring at it, dropping into the bag with Iwai's food. He hopes the older man finds it more appealing than he does.

The trashcan is by the entrance, which is also the exit. Akira stares at that too, probably longer than he stares at the menu, though he has no reason to. Other than his inability to approach it, the bin is nothing out of the ordinary.

Is someone coming to pick them up? He questions Iwai's directions for the first time. Akira glances towards the bag at his table. The one with the disassembled models in it. It was identical to the other bags being stuffed into the can by the door, smelled just as strongly.

That can't be it… Frowning, Akira grabs onto it, and an immediate tremor runs through his hands.

He doesn't risk opening the container inside. Even with Iwai tucked away across the street and the cap over his own head, there was still too much risk of being seen, of whatever he was doing being connected to him.

It must be just to get rid of it then. That makes more sense. Though something about it still irks him, like it's not quite right.

Dropping the bag into the bin doesn't make him feel any lighter or any less guilty, but it does get him away from Big Bang Burger. He slinks out the way he came and into the streets of Shibuya, following behind a woman in fancy clothes. When she heads down into the subway, Akira doesn't follow after her, instead, he leans against the wall and wonders what was happening to him. Every day in his life seemed to grow stranger and stranger and he was powerless to stop it, not without succumbing to the ruin or being thrown in jail.

Another few minutes pass before he makes his way back to Untouchables, he makes sure that the brim of the cap is lowered over his eyes the entire way there, following Iwai's instruction the best he can, even if they burn guiltily inside of him the entire time. By the time he makes it back to the alleyway outside of the shop, the sun is already turning the sky into a milky orange color, sinking the clouds into a fluffy pink shade and making him worry about how much time he'd spent staring and worrying.

Iwai glances up at him as soon as he steps inside and drops the magazine in his lap. "Done?" He signs quickly.

"All done." Akira responds, making his way towards the counter to drop the man's food off.

"Atta boy." Iwai praises him, filling him with a different kind of guilt. It was warm and alive, but shouldn't exist. "Think you can head home then, unless you wanted to shop around first?"

Akira's hands pause by his sides, unsure if he's meant to say anything.

Iwai must have read something in his expression or lack of answer, though, as the man drops his feet off the counter once more and addresses him quietly. "I got some new stuff, but I ain't put any of the displays together yet. You ever done a model straight from the box?"

"No." Akira responds with a clip of his fingers. Each of the models that he bought for the team were already put together. Part of him figured that they were already like that when Iwai sold them, but that didn't seem to be the case.

"Hmm." Iwai hums around the stick in his mouth. It swivels to the other end of his lips, then back again before Iwai speaks again. "Well, I guess I can give you a demonstration for workin' hard today. How's that sound?"

Akira nods quickly. Being able to put together their weapons, or putting them back together if they somehow get destroyed, would be undoubtedly useful; Akira was surprised that he hadn't considered it sooner. And when Iwai scuffs into the backroom, Akira is just as quick to follow after him. The man wrenches open a cardboard box that's covered in dust and shadows and pulls out an even small box.

"Supposed to be pretty good lookin' if I remember the order right." Iwai mentions, twisting the box to read at the label in the low light. The man approaches the still lit workspace in the back and Akira follows after him. They both take up the same places they were hours ago, only now Akira doesn't feel as nervous or sick, even if what they were doing was still as dangerous.

The long pieces of the model Akira had cleaned earlier were missing, leaving a place open for Iwai to put down the box. The box's face reveals what the gun is meant to look like, small and black, but as real looking as any of the other models Akira has had, but when Iwai rips open the tab, opening the box, the only thing inside are pieces of the whole product.

Iwai hands him a folded-up piece of paper from the box's contents. "I've been doin' this for a long time, so I don't need 'em. But make sure you always read these things through. Twice just to be sure. You'll get yourself into a real shitshow if you can't follow directions. How's that for some advice."

"I'll do it slow so you can get the feel for it." Iwai offers, tugging apart plastic pieces until the only thing on the workbench, aside from the mess that was there when they started, were the pieces of the model. The man pulls a tiny screwdriver from his pocket and Akira leans closer as the man hunches over the gun's pieces and starts putting them together.

He makes it look so easy… Resonating with the man's words, Iwai's movements make it obvious he's been doing stuff like this for a long time, and despite his assurances that he would be moving slow, the gun's frame is pieces together quicker than Akira's mind can keep up with. The gun's handle is assembled with tiny screws, giving it its realistic resemblance. The barrel is glued into place, along with a few other tiny parts that Akira can't name yet, then with a grunt, Iwai attaches the cover over the barrel, which is so dark it doesn't even appear blue under his thief vision.

"It's meant to be modeled after a Shield-Nine, so it doesn't have a safety switch." The man informs, sliding his calloused thumb over a smooth patch of plastic. "Looks pretty much like the real thing, though. I think they'll sell pretty well."

Iwai slides the product back into the box and without the packaging, it rattles when the older man hands it to him.

"For comin' on short notice." He says, all but shoving it into his hands.

"Thanks." Akira says. Iwai being nice was surprising to him. The man looked as mean as anyone had ever met, yet this showed him things that were beyond that.

"Shut up." Iwai signs over his own smile.

It should feel wrong, how normal it makes him feel to talk with Iwai. The man exuded danger and trouble in everything he did, everything he had him do, yet he was the only one Akira could talk to, even if it was only in bits in pieces.

"You should head home for the night." He says this out loud and Akira nods in reply.

The café is closed when the train drops him off at Yongen and Morgana is waiting for him at the top of the stairs as soon as he returns. The cat follows him to the bed as Akira drops in front of it to stash the model Iwai had given him.

"Why'd you ditch me today?" The cat bemoans, whining through every word.

"I forgot." Akira jots down, tugging the tiny board from his schoolbag. "Hungry?"

Morgana doesn't look happy, though Akira finds it hard to tell for certain.

"Boss fed me some fresh fish today." The cat says happily, "So I guess I can forgive you just this once."

Akira nods slowly along with the cat's words. He hopes that Sakura-san hadn't seen anything while he was up here.

"Are you feeling all right, Joker?" Morgana asks, sliding into view and breaking the minute-long silence that had drifted over the attic. "Your eyes are looking pretty weird. You're not sick, are you?"

Weird eyes… That's three people that have said that today.

He nods. He feels fine, oddly normal, despite everything.

"I heard more stuff on the TV while you were at school, about Madarame…" Morgana articulates, his words quietly following him as he gets ready for bed. The cat talks all the way until Akira tugs his glasses off and climbs under the covers.

"I missed you today." The cat murmurs, wiggling into his arms as he's falling asleep.