I lived bitch!
The half-chapter that has sat in both mine and some1upoyo's google drive has finally been finished after six months!
Also after six months, I've completed my final year of uni and I'm slated to graduate in April 2021! Wooot!
Sadly also means I need to search for work and become a responsible member of society, which y'know, fun. Unfortunately also means I'll need to take another break from writing to go job hunting and whatnot.
On the positive side, my impatience is your gain cause I hadn't actually been intending to complete this chapter this year, was actually planning to update my Trails of Cold Steel story but here we all are.
'Hooray for alcohol,' Akira toyed the thought in his mind mildly as he sat in the darkness of his living room, a small glass filled three-quarters of the way with the red wine from Inokashira Park in his grasp which he was slowly working his way through. The moment he'd returned from Mementos the first thing he did was ensure Goro wasn't home, a quick call into the darkness quickly showing he was still at work which was more than perfect for Akira's next actions.
He needed a drink by himself.
Goro didn't care much about enforcing the law in regards to underage drinking especially since he already knew some of the less than legal things Akira had done in the past. And Akira himself had more than once turned a blind eye to times when he'd find Goro nursing a saucer or two of sake at the kitchen table after a particularly terrible day at work. By turning a blind eye, he meant taking a saucer and joining him in getting blind drunk off of undiluted sake.
The perks to living with no adults and having a fake identification card.
Amrita Drop had Ibuprofen beat any day of the week when it came to curing hangovers.
Without turning on the lights Akira swiftly moved over to the kitchen and opened the fridge, pulled out the chilled remainder of wine he still had from when he'd made curry during the Inokashira Park clean-up and grabbed a small glass tumbler as he passed the glasses cupboard. With his two trusty companions, a foot hooked around the fridge door and kicked it closed before he made his way over to the couch and plopped himself down with a muted thump as he impacted the leather cushions.
A quick pop of the cork sent it shooting into the darkness and Third Eye made it bright enough that he could fill the glass without it spilling over. He put the wine bottle to the side for the moment as he downed the glass of fermented red grapes before pouring himself a second glass in record time.
He wanted to get even slightly buzzed to stave off the growing grievances he had without having to resort to drinking lukewarm rice wine or sake.
...He should put a bottle of either in the fridge now that he thought about it.
With a refilled glass in hand, Akira allowed himself to sink into the couch and close his eyes, glad that he'd been too lazy to turn on the lights and took comfort in the darkness.
The metaverse in this reality was all kinds of bullshit.
He'd never actually intended to encounter Rem or the others, the sole reason for him entering Mementos today was because he'd assumed they wouldn't be there. If anything, they should've been out celebrating Yusuke joining the Phantom Thieves and them taking down Madarame but of course not, that just would have been too simple. Akira gently rubbed at his temples, Sandalphon's Amrita Drop easing his headache in the real world but also, sadly, erasing the alcohol in his system before it could get him buzzed.
Pros and cons of having magic.
He'd been under the assumption that Rem would follow the same timeline he once had, meaning that today the five of them should've been celebrating Madarame's defeat and Yusuke joining the group at Leblanc, but obviously she hadn't gotten the memo. Akira had almost had a slight panic attack in Mementos where he'd been in the middle of having an existential crisis before he could feel the empty World Arcana within him pulse and pull in a certain direction, a direction that he'd instinctively known as the barrier between Aiyatsbus and Chemdah.
He hadn't planned on having an existential crisis but things had led to him being introspective when his Personas quite literally refused to accept the Shadow-turned-Persona known as Cait Sith. Well, less that and more that the Magician had refused to accept it and more the fact that Akira had felt his Sea of Souls strain when he tried to, like filling a dam but one too many drops would invariably cause the walls holding the dam back to break and burst.
That hadn't been what'd caused the existential crisis though, that'd merely been the spark. He'd known to an extent that he wouldn't be able to add Cait Sith to his Sea of Souls like Rem was able to. He'd completed his compendium and his soul was already full. The existential crisis came right after as he realised of the twenty-six arcana that he'd come to possess, four of them were empty.
Akira had been taken over by an utter sense of wrong at the time, and even now he rubbed an uncomfortable hand over his heart as if it'd do something to abate the unease he felt.
World.
Faith.
Aeon.
Councillor.
This wasn't like when he'd once been filling his compendium long ago, the Arcanas of his soul waiting for more Persona to house and contain. To eventually be led by a Persona forged through the unshakeable bonds of the soul.
These four were empty and would stay empty.
Like voids gnawing within his soul, blurring the lines between Arcanas. It was discomforting to know a part of his own soul would be empty forever. This then led into darker thoughts that Akira had been more than glad to have his existential crisis interrupted by Rem and the others, and all too soon, the part of himself he'd taken up slid onto his face.
Remnant took the reins while Akira sat in the backseat, watching… observing…
Before he'd even stepped foot onto the seventh floor of Aiyatsbus he could tell that Rem had sensed him, the sound of feet shuffling uncomfortably letting him know that she'd told the others.
She'd grown since the last time they'd met, albeit in the barest sense.
Odin had almost erupted from the depths of the Emperor Arcana, sheer force of will containing the father of the Norse while he'd seen to Yusuke's determination.
Then he'd told them to fight him with everything they had. They did. They hadn't been strong, in fact, they'd been downright weak . But they were better than he and his own friends had once been, less flailing about, Rem not needing to give commands, the Wild Card in fact taking a backseat and sticking to support while Ryuji and Yusuke had taken to the front while Ann and Morgana stayed back acting as ranged-firepower.
Of course, they hadn't done much better than their previous encounter, Akira allowing himself to be tied up by Rem's chains to see what she would do and found himself disappointed by the fact they'd essentially repeated the same thing they'd done last time, with the addition of another physical attacker added to their repertoire of skills.
He'd ended up using Rem's own chains to catch Yusuke's katana, knowing that the blue-haired reminder of his old comrade would have yet to learn how to properly use it. The katana was a sword, not a brush. The strokes of the blade needed to be precise and swift rather than flowing and adaptable. He'd used a small chink between the chains to catch the blades and send it upwards before sending Rem whirling around the station floor akin to spinning-top with her hanging like a leaf in the wind.
Then the metaverse decided to stop making sense.
It decided that apparently, it was the time to allow the laws of physics to take effect, in particular the laws of thermal fusion and conduction. That and the fact that Ann and Morgana had combined two goddamn spells in the process to create what was essentially a bootleg fire spell that was somewhere between an Agidyne and Inferno.
Akira groaned as he placed his glass to the side and grabbed the bottle of wine, in its place downing the whole thing in one go, simply hoping for things to make sense again. The metaverse was using real-world logic now, and that hadn't even been the end of it.
Nope.
After absorbing the coming hellfire sent by the Phantom Thieves' two support members, Akira had found himself summarily soaked in water from the ice that'd melted in the fire and consequently finding his body to be an excellent conductor for who knows how much volts of electricity. It hadn't been damaging, but more surprising than anything even as bolts of electricity had been crawling across his form which he'd ignored.
He'd mentally ordered Jack Frost to freeze them in place with a Mabufu because he was petty like that. He should've used a Mabufudyne and frozen them solid so he wouldn't have needed to continue dealing with their bullshittery.
Ann had melted their icy constraints slowly before she and Morgana had sent another of their bootleg fire spells at him, the fire sent by Ann feeding off Morgana's wind and growing stronger as it approached. That kind of unison would certainly be devastating once they reached Agidyne and Garudyne in terms of strength, and ludicrous once they reached Inferno and Panta Rhei nevermind Titanomachia used in conjunction with Vacuum Wave which would become world-breaking.
The most bullshit thing about the fight, however, had been the fact that Ryuji had summoned Kamoshida's treasure and dumped its contents on him.
Akira had been so confused when Ryuji shouted out "Champion's Cup!" having been unable to recall a single spell even remotely similar to it, confused enough to order a Bufula rather than another Mabufu. He'd had a small heartache since he knew if it made contact with Ann it would severely injure if not outright kill her with how strong his spells were. That headache turned into outright heart palpitations when the blue liquid-like contents of Ryuji's Kamoshida's Treasure-thing was poured onto him, boosting his strength and sending out fractal pillars of ice on par with a standard Bufudyne.
He'd almost summoned Surt from the Magician's Arcana and used Inferno to stop the ice pillars from striking her.
"Bleeding Dry Brush."
Akira groaned as he leaned back in his seat, the memories of seven strokes of paint flashing in front of Ann moments before the ice struck, the colours reminiscent of a rainbow before they shone an iridescent reflective shade of pearl. The strokes of pearl had promptly absorbed the spell before shooting it back at him, once more catching him off guard.
It didn't take too much to figure out what had happened.
He'd watched as the skull-seeds were taken from the rooms of distorted cognition from both Kamoshida and Madarame's Palaces. Or at least Ongyo-Ki and Odin with Huginn and Muninn had seen it happen since they were able to go unnoticed rather than Akira himself in close-quarters.
He'd noticed the strange rings that stood out against the yellow and blues of Ryuji's and Yusuke gloves, made even stranger by the three skulls that adorned them fashioned into a triangular formation. Rings that Jose had made. They'd crystallised the desires of two Palace-owners into a pseudo-treasure that they could use with the help of a robotic child that was still in the midst of learning about humans and emotion.
What the absolute fuck.
Even despite it being a standard Bufudyne rather than his own powered-up Bufudyne being reflected, it would have left a mark if it hadn't been for Jack Frost's applied null to ice. Fortunately, he'd been able to walk it off with little more than frost clinging to his shoulders and watched as the Phantom Thieves succumbed to mental fatigue from too many consecutive mid-tier spells.
Comparing Rem and the others compared to Akira in the past was like comparing a baby to a child, Rem and the others seemingly growing at a much faster rate than he ever had. Add in the fact that there were changes to the Metaverse such as the respawning of ammo cartridges within his firearms, differing Personas, the Metaverse seemingly using physics and the fact they were using crystallised Treasures, Akira found himself the slightest bit miffed at their exceptional progress.
While he stayed by the thought that they were weak in terms of strength, they made up for it by being much more resourceful in comparison.
Even though it did leave him feeling miffed, it honestly left him impressed with their growth. They were still getting help from the reality around them, but it didn't change the fact that they were at a point where Akira could easily tell that they were better than the Phantom Thieves had been at the same point in time.
Rem herself became akin to a powerhouse even if she only stayed as support for the majority of the fight. Unlike Akira who didn't gain any bonuses to his strength since he'd already long since peaked the strength of his personae, Rem gained every single bonus growing stronger and stronger with each time they fought and the World Arcana ranked up.
And then Rem asked about the one with the Black Mask that Madarame had likely mentioned and her automatic assumption had been to him, his own black-mask being the reason behind her question.
Her question had left him at a crossroad.
There was simply too much risk in outright telling her despite how much he wanted to, half of him wanting to help them as much as possible while Metatron warred for Goro's safety. Even when the many things Goro had done were despicable and while Akira had allowed him to run amok without interference, there was still good in him and he wasn't going to be selling him out, unwilling to throw him to the wolves. In the end, he compromised and gave Rem a vague hint before leaving, before she could continue asking.
Which brought Akira to how he found himself sitting in the darkness of his own home, drinking enough wine to get himself slightly buzzed but not enough for him to accidentally burn down the house when he inevitably had to make dinner and the part of himself that was Remnant having been slipped off.
"I don't know if this is a bloody mess or not…" he murmured, allowing the bottle of wine to drop back onto the table with a clink before pinching the bridge of his nose.
He allowed a grunt of annoyed exasperation to leave his lips as the feeling of Amrita Drop worked its way through his system followed by a sense of quiet chiding ringing through his skull courtesy of Cybele.
"Thanks…" Akira eventually murmured grudgingly as he stood and began to clean up the glass and now empty wine bottle.
COLD
Cybele, despite being formed in the image of a Phrygian Goddess, was formed from a fragment of his own soul and moulded from the High Priestess bonds he'd forged so long ago and as such carried a small amount of Makoto's own personality. He gave a piece of his soul to Makoto, just as he did with everyone else, and the piece of himself returned in the form of the ultimate Persona Cybele.
Or at least most of it. A small part always stays with those he's bonded with.
It was why each Ultimate Persona held utter control over their respective Arcanas. They were fragments of himself that he gave away to be moulded and shaped as his bonds grew, at the end they always returned. The High Priestess fragment had been formed into the image of the Phrygian Goddess, moulded by the bonds of the High Priestess and even keeping remnants of their contractor's personality. It wasn't any surprise then why Akira felt almost as if Makoto herself was chastising him.
As he began to prepare dinner, Akira mulled over if that was why he felt so ill-at-ease with the four Arcanas that resided within his soul even despite how much he cared for Rem, Sumire and Jose and had taken a liking to Maruki.
He'd lost pieces of himself with each bond he made and only gained most of it back when he forged the vows in the blood of an oath. He wondered if the parts he'd lost this time would ever come back and if he'd only continue to lose even more of himself.
Memories of his tenuous control over his Persona didn't give him ease.
Of Kohryu and Ongyo-Ki fighting for Wakaba.
Of Metatron trying to force his way out of the Sea of Souls when he'd first seen Goro in the Metaverse.
Of Futsunushi's wrath when he'd whisked Morgana away from the Prison of Regression.
Of Ishtar revolting with the Lovers to save Shiho.
Of Chi-You's yearning for Akira to stand by Ryuji's side.
Of Odin's calmness that reflected Yusuke's own disposition most of the time.
Of the constant headaches and feelings of joyousness from Cybele whenever he was in Makoto's presence.
He wondered now if he'd gotten a piece of his soul back… or if he'd really gotten a piece of theirs.
"You look terrible," were the first things that left Sojiro's mouth as he looked at his probationary charge, the raven-haired girl dangling her upper body limply over the counter from her stool, normally neatly braided hair instead in a messy tangle of locks while her vivid red-eyes drooped ever so slightly.
At least the cat seemed normal with how he was licking at his paw.
Sojiro sighed as he placed his hat onto the wall rack, the morning newspaper from his house tucked under his armpit as he thought about flipping the sign to open early before deciding against it. It was better to enjoy the peace while he could and opening an hour-and-a-half early seemed like a pain.
"Sit up straight at least, you'll ruin your back if you slouch like that," the older man reprimanded as he passed Rem, a finger shooting out sharply into the base of Rem's spine to press against it momentarily, the rudeness causing Rem's muscles to seize and her back to straighten. Sojiro hadn't even bothered to stay, instead choosing to move around the counter and to take his spot behind the coffee machine.
Rem looked at Sojiro for a moment before her back muscles relaxed and she slumped over the counter again. Her guardian looked at her for a moment, a look of bemused annoyance flashing across his face before he took the rolled-up newspaper beneath his arm and swatted her on the nose like one would a particularly naughty cat.
Sojiro almost snorted as he watched her head shrink into her neck, automatic reflexes causing her to shy away momentarily. Sojiro couldn't help but think that perhaps the analogy of swatting her like a cat was spot on. He then threw the newspaper in front of her causing her to actually look up.
"Come on, I'm not going to let you become a limp noodle all morning. If you have time to be tired, you have time to do something useful," he ordered, shooing Rem from her seat who begrudgingly left it while Morgana watched on. As Rem slowly shuffled around the cafe Sojiro gave her a calculating look.
"Actually… do you know how to make coffee?"
Rem gave him a sleepy confused look.
"I can make instant coffee?"
Sojiro's face pulled into a disgusted grimace as he shook his head. With his eyes closed in disappointment, a hand fumbled around beneath the counter before coming back up and throwing a bundle of cloth at Rem. The raven-haired girl struggled for a moment in her slightly sleep-deprived state as she freed herself from the cloth before finding said cloth to be an apron.
"Here. If you're going to be living here for a year I might as well make the most of it. I'll teach you how to brew the perfect cup of coffee while you live here." Sojiro smirked as Rem dragged herself behind the counter. After lighting the flame under the siphons, Sojiro pointed out the equipment and their uses. Rem used a notepad to take notes on Sojiro's concise instructions before Sojiro pulled out some coffee beans.
"Take these. Practice with the lower-quality beans for now, alright?"
Rem nodded.
"You want to start up the flame, but be careful with the heat. Not too much, not too little. Grab twelve grams of beans and grind them. We always grind them medium-fine; consistency is key. Now, add the water into the siphon and bring it to a boil."
Rem kept jotting down notes while Sojiro continued with his lecture. He moved effortlessly, even throwing in a little trivia about the type of bean he was using: Blue Mountain. In a few minutes, she found a steaming cup of coffee sitting in front of her while Sojiro was cleaning the siphon.
This process of teaching and learning between the two continued just before the cafe was slated to open, Rem placing a steaming cup of black liquid in front of Sojiro, the two having swapped places with Rem behind the counter and Sojiro sitting on a stool on the other side of the counter.
Morgana hadn't moved his furry butt during the whole hour the two had been making coffee.
Sojiro's long fingers grasped the handle of the porcelain before him, slowly bring the cup to his lips and taking a small sip, tasting the flavours of the carefully ground beans.
Rem watched him carefully, waiting as the contractor of Hierophant continued to come to a decision of her first try of brewing coffee.
"I'm glad we started on the low-quality beans," a slightly disappointed sigh left Sojiro's lips as Rem's shoulders slumped and Morgana let out a silent snicker. "No one living under the roof of my store will be this terrible at making a good cup," Sojiro gave his crestfallen ward a light glare, however, there was the slightest tinge of amusement in them.
"By the end of your probation I'll have you able to make a cup of Leblanc coffee, you hear me brat?" he stated rather than asked, Rem only able to do little more than nod and accept her fate as a soon-to-be coffee maker.
The sound of chains shattering echoed in Rem's soul, the Hierophant Arcana ranking up with Rem's acceptance to learn how to make coffee with Sojiro.
"By the way, you're planning to do something today, right?"
Rem was broken out of her thoughts by the sudden question, caught taken aback by the nature of it. "Pardon?" she double-checked to make sure she'd heard correctly.
Sojiro merely grunted as he picked up his cup, drained it with one quick gulp and began to move over to the sink to clean it. "You had a look on your face when I entered, it seemed like you had something you needed to do today," his voice rose over the sound of rushing water and scrubbing before he eventually rinsed it free of soap suds before letting dry to the side on a dish rack.
It took Rem a moment to process what he was, and even then it took her a moment to even understand what he'd been talking about. As far as she knew she didn't have anything planned today except for-
"Yusuke's celebration- !" the words tumbled out of Rem's mouth as she realised what she'd forgotten. She'd been too caught up in the revelation that her teacher worked part-time as a maid that she'd lapsed her memory with the fact that they'd moved the celebration of Yusuke joining the Phantom Thieves to today rather than yesterday.
Sojiro gave a snort as he looked at the momentary flicker of panic that flitted across the occasionally calm girl's face. "Well that's a new name… a new friend I take it?" he asked curiously, vaguely recalling a conversation where Rem had told him about her friends at Shujin but this new one seemed a tad unfamiliar.
"Yeah, we're celebrating with him today," Rem said, a hand running through her unbraided hair and feeling all the kinks and knots from their escapades in Mementos the day prior.
It seemed that Rem's unkempt appearance hadn't escaped Sojiro's notice either as he gave her rumpled clothes and all-around unprepared figure a pointed look. "Not like that you're not," Sojiro shook his head. "Go to the bathhouses and clean yourself up, I'll take care of cleaning the rest of the equipment. You can bring them over after you've cleaned yourself up, wouldn't mind finally meeting these friends of yours."
Rem hesitated from her spot behind the counter, Morgana finally deigning to move his head and look at the two residents of Leblanc, or more accurately, one resident and one owner. "Are you sure?" she asked to make sure.
"Yeah, I'll clean up, don't want you trying to clean this stuff anyway until I run you through it, might accidentally break something," Sojiro grunted, but even with the gruff exterior he presented, she could still see the barest hint of a grin pulling at his lips, almost as if he was trying to hide it.
With another hesitant glance at Sojiro who was deep at work cleaning all the different equipment used, Rem finally relented and took off her apron to hang it up on its hook near the downstairs toilet. She rushed up the stairs to grab a change of clothes and her towel before heading back down.
Just as she reached the door she paused for a moment before turning to look over her shoulder at the elderly cafe owner.
"Thanks, Sojiro."
She was out the door the next second.
In the cafe Sojiro stared at the door to his cafe, the jingle of the overhead bells still tingling as he watched Rem turn left to the head to the bath house. When he'd finally gathered his bearings, a small ungainly snort left his lips as he shook his head.
"First time the brat's actually bothered to properly address me…" he murmured, a smirk on his face as he pulled out a small notebook, identical in nature to the one Rem carried on her person, Sojiro's own probationary notebook.
He began to write.
Off to the side, Morgana's head laid on his paws, an eye cracked open as he watched Sojiro write. He observed the smile on the man's face before snorting.
"The two of them, I swear," Morgana muttered before closing his eyes and drifting back to sleep while he still had some spare time.