Joker stands in the shadow of a god. Wind whips through his hair, and he has to dig his heels into the sleek surface of Mementos to avoid being swept away by the shifts from Yaldabaoth's great wings. The corners of his vision are tinged red, framed by the spindly arches of Mementos and his own blood leaking down his forehead and over his mask. Power thrums within him, and his personas ache against his mind, desperate to fight.
He feels impossibly small, eclipsed beneath Yaldabaoth. Even in the midst of battle, adrenaline running through his veins and heart thumping uncontrollably, he feels the oppressive hopelessness of their task, nothing but a mere mortal in the face of impossible odds. The position does nothing but reaffirm the grounding purpose newly instilled by Lavenza and the real Igor, the need to protect his teammates and the world more overwhelming than the terror. He stares up at Yaldabaoth, defiant.
Yaldabaoth looks down upon them, its blank mask revealing nothing. A parody of a laugh scrapes out of it, drowning out the shouts of the masses below. "How foolish you must be," it purrs, "to think you ever had a chance to defeat me."
"The only one getting defeated here will be you!" Skull yells back, fists clenched in righteous rage. The other Thieves let out whoops of agreement. The god of control had no claim over them, and despite everything, Joker grins wildly. An uncontrollable force pounds within him, something that feels dangerously like Arsene, but stronger, better.
Like Joker himself.
"The hubris of humanity will never cease to astound me," Yaldabaoth says, and in a moment, the tables are turned.
Yaldabaoth rises above them, blocking out the sky and casting the entire world into shadow. The Phantom Thieves' attacks bounce off of its skin and back onto them, forcing them to succumb to their own weaknesses. It casts magic that immediately sows insanity within their ranks, and Joker watches in horror as Noir attacks Panther with a deranged snarl, a deadly force with no need for the sweet package.
Between the span of one breath and another, Joker is surrounded by his teammates, curled up and gasping on the ground together. Valiantly, Joker tries to rise to his hands and knees, but his body betrays him, and he collapses. When he finally manages to look up, Yaldabaoth has eyes only for him. "Trickster," it says. "You have always been destined to fall to me. There was never another way. There will never be another way."
"What are you talking about?"
Yaldabaoth cocks its head like a curious child rather than a devastating vessel of destruction. "Would you like to see?"
Yaldabaoth does not grant him the mercy of a response.
Akira wakes up on a train. It rumbles underneath him, rattling his teeth as it bumps against the railroad. He immediately shoots to his feet, breath coming in short gasps. He stumbles over his fallen bags and crashes into another train passenger. The people stare at him, expressions ranging from concerned to disdainful as Akira whips his head around wildly.
"What happened?" he demands. "Where is everybody?"
A teenage girl and her friend stare at him warily. "Um," she says, and leaves it at that.
Akira tugs furiously at his hair and turns to the window. The outside world races by, and he can feel the warmth of the sun on his skin through the smudged glass. The view of the city is clear and bright. There is no Mementos rising in ugly spines to mar the sky, absolutely nothing to suggest Yaldabaoth's unfathomable wrath towards them all.
"Okay," Akira faintly hears himself say, and then promptly bends over to vomit all over his shoes.
The girls shriek and jump away from him, and the space around him immediately empties, passengers rushing to put distance between themselves and Akira. He can't bring himself to care as he gags. Someone puts a reassuring hand on his shoulder and rubs his back gently, and he shivers, exhausted.
The train coolly announces its arrival and people hurriedly clear a path for him as he stumbles out onto the station. He emerges into Yongen-Jaya on autopilot, the still cognitive part of his mind desperate for something familiar to grasp onto. He wipes the back of his hand roughly against his mouth and chin, fighting to stop another wave of vomit from rising within him. The lingering taste of bile is harsh against his tongue. He needs to head to Leblanc before trying to seek out his friends. Going back to their hideout is the most reliable start to figuring out what Yaldabaoth had done to them.
His phone buzzes in his pocket, and he pulls it out with shaking hands. The Metaverse app. It's opened by itself, enlarged and waiting.
Akira taps at it. Nothing.
The comforting background bustle of the city quietens, and Akira raises his head, startled. Around him, the entire world has frozen. People stand awkwardly, suddenly paused in the act of living their lives, and the familiar sounds drain away to a spine-tingling total silence.
He hasn't seen anything like this, not since April.
Across the square, something bursts into blue flames, hot enough to stinge Akira's skin from hundreds of feet away. Demonic eyes meet his own, chilling and golden.
Arsene grins, and Akira matches his expression.
As suddenly as Arsene had appeared, he snaps out of existence, taking the excruciating heat with him. The world restarts, completely unaware. The MetaNav app minimizes itself, tucking calmly back amongst the others on his phone, inconspicuous as always.
Leblanc. Akira needs to get back to Leblanc and meet up with the others.
He bursts through the cafe's door with a gusto that immediately silences the few patrons presents. Sojiro's head whips towards him as Akira pauses at the doorway, chest heaving. "Hey, Boss," Akira says, and Sojiro's eyebrows jump.
"Listen," Sojiro slides around the counter, approaching him slowly. "I don't know who you are, but you're causing a disturbance. I'm gonna have to ask you to leave."
Akira blinks up at him. "Wait, what?"
Sojiro's nose wrinkles as he finally arrives in front of him. "You smell like vomit, kid. Ugh, and look like it too."
Sojiro has absolutely no recognition in his eyes, so Akira says, "Boss, it's me." A pause, marked only by Sojiro's slowly raising eyebrow. "Akira."
"Am I supposed to know who that is?"
"You're my probation guardian? Sojiro Sakura?" Akira continues, dumbstruck.
"Oh!" Sojiro says, snapping his fingers with recognition. The guarded expression returns immediately. "They said you'd be coming today, didn't they? I was wondering what kind of delinquent they'd saddle me with, but I didn't expect," he gestures to Akira, "this."
"What's happening, exactly?"
"You tell me, brat. I'll show you to the attic now. Do you have any luggage?"
Akira had accidentally abandoned it all on the train. "No?"
Sojiro groans. "Of course you don't. I'll find you some toiletries later. Come with me."
"Alright," Akira says, baffled, and trails after Sojiro. The elderly couple unsubtly lean away from him as they pass, and Akira can already see the man hurriedly searching for his wallet. It's definitely not the first time Akira has chased off Leblanc's customers, but it makes him wince all the same.
Maybe the Phantom Thieves had been erased from the public's cognition again? He shudders, remembering the pouring scarlet rain and the screams of his friends as they vanished into thin air. But if that was the case, why was Akira still here? Shouldn't he have disappeared along with the rest?
Sojiro shows him to the attic, and it's even dirtier than Akira remembered it being when he'd first arrived. The only thing resembling personal belongings is the cardboard box containing his clothes. Other than that, the attic is nothing but a glorified storage unit. Akira only half listens as Sojiro talks about the circumstances of his probation. His thoughts are a tangled, confusing mess. Nothing makes any sense.
It's like the year has started all over again. But that isn't possible, right?
When Sojiro finally leaves Akira to his own devices - with a scowl and a demand to clean yourself up, for the love of god - the first thing he does is collapse onto his sorry excuse for a bed. He doesn't bother brushing off the grime that's accumulated from years of disuse, instead burying his head in the thin pillow.
He needs to talk to Lavenza and Igor. He has to access the Velvet Room, the place between mind and matter, dreams and reality.
Akira wakes up in a jail cell. The tattered, striped uniform is sickeningly familiar. When he looks up, his stomach drops.
Staring back at him are Caroline and Justine, their twin eyepatches doing nothing to mask their disdainful expressions. Beyond them sits Igor, sinister in his glee.
Akira moves to grasp his head, but finds himself stopped by shackles. He tugs on the heavy metal chains furiously, an act that accomplishes nothing but to shoot daggers of pain down his arms. The trio observes him uncaringly as he struggles to stand.
"Please be more respectful," Justine murmurs, gripping the edges of her clipboard tightly. "You're in the presence of our master."
Caroline bangs against the prison bars with her baton, seeming immensely satisfied when Akira flinches back at the harsh clanging of metal-on-metal and stray sparks of electricity. "That's right! Stand up straight, inmate!"
"Now now, girls," Igor says, voice rough and that's - that's not Igor, is it? "Let him breathe. I know you must be confused, Trickster. Know that there is nothing to fear here. Welcome to my Velvet Room."
"It's not yours," Akira is speaking before he can think better of it. "It's not yours, you stole it!"
Yaldabaoth rears back in shock. "What?" it asks.
Akira turns his attention to the twins. "Lavenza, right?" he prompts them. "You remember, don't you? The real Igor was locked away by an impostor. You were split in half to be made complicit. You were never meant to be wardens."
Caroline stumbles away from his cell as Justine drops her clipboard with a noisy clatter. "No, we-"
Akira rounds on Yaldabaoth, slamming his chains against the cell door. The angry metallic ring echoes throughout the room, surreal in the stiff air. "What did you do?" he demands. "What's going on?"
Yaldabaoth's eyes narrow, scrutinizing him, before its face splits into something resembling a grin. Its eyes gleam dangerously as it leans forward, hungry. "I see. The Ruin has already befallen you, Trickster. No matter. The game continues on."
"Start making sense!"
"Girls!" Yaldabaoth commands with a snap of his long, grotesque fingers. The twins immediately straighten to attention, conflicted expressions clearing in the blink of an eye. "It appears that the inmate is beyond rehabilitation. He requires execution."
Their faces are horrifyingly blank, as if they're nothing but puppets. Akira's cell doors wrench open, but before he can even think to attempt to escape, the twins latch onto his chains, dragging him out with a supernatural strength and ignoring his panicked thrashings. "Let me go! You know I'm right!"
They force him onto his knees, and Caroline silently wrestles a thick bag over his head. In total darkness, Akira's breath shortens, on the edge of hyperventilation. He desperately scrounges for the familiar presence of a Persona, something, anything, to come to his aid, but he finds nothing in the recesses of his mind.
Akira is completely alone, and he has no idea what to do.
The thing about guillotines is that the execution happens neatly, faster than the blink of an eye, quicker than a single thought.
The time waiting before the blade slices down, however, is a completely different story.
Akira wakes up on a train.
Y'all thought I wasn't gonna write about the previous loops? Say it ain't so!
This is the first one of the codas, which will basically function as one shots about Akira's past loops. I'm currently only planning on writing nine, which will be scattered at various points throughout the main fic. That number may change later on, but I'm trying to focus on the ones that had a definite impact on Akira's current mindset, rather than ones that were more mundane.
Also, you can find me at frigidlyauthorial on tumblr! I'd love to chat with you all.