10/26 – Wednesday
Afternoon
Student Council Room

Akechi closed the door behind him, blocking out the bustle of student busybodies trying to peek behind closed doors. Ren waited for the facade to drop, for that pleasant plastic smile to slip from his lips, for the appropriate abandonment of peasantry in lieu of honest vitriol. No such luck. Akechi simply gave a tight-lipped smile to the room. "You're all here, excellent. I would say our ploy is a resounding success so far, wouldn't you?"

"That would depend on the outcome," Makoto said, flatly.

"Ah, shrewd as ever," Akechi chuckled. "Yes, of course. I did say 'so far,' but I suppose you have no interest in such assurance."

"None," Makoto replied, cold brown eyes sharp as anything.

Akechi glanced away with a dismissiveness that seemed almost natural, if not for the strained leather of his gloves giving away the white-knuckle grip he had on his briefcase. "Amamiya. I assume your...outreach is going successfully."

Ren shifted from his spot in one of the room's only chairs and waved his phone back and forth. "Still waiting to hear from Ohya, but I called in the favor. She'll agree though, I'm betting on it." He rolled a grumble into his cheek. "Mishima took it well." Half a euphemism. She had, but the implications of the speech had clearly still made her pretty shaky. Probably more Ren's fault than Akechi's, but it still burned behind his eyes like a branding iron pressed into his skull. "She's going to throw a message onto the Phan-Site tonight about, like, how bullshit your speech was. Get more eyes on it."

"Cell phone footage made it online," Futaba noted. "About five different angles, even. Youtube, LiveLeak, Niconico; it's all over the place. Catching like kindling."

"Excellent," Akechi said, a triumphant little note stretched across three syllables.

Ann stretched her arms to either side, almost clipping the back of Yusuke's head, who was too engrossed in his sketchbook to notice. "And now you pretend to blackmail us, right?" she said, a bitter note half-stifled beneath what must have been her better judgment. "You tell Shido that you threatened us with getting Mishima arrested, and we agreed to work with you."

Akechi tutted his tongue. "Carrot and stick, Takamaki. The threat is half the story. Recall, my goal here is not only to force you into working with me, but to weasel my way into your good graces enough to extract from you information on your associates. Therefore, I provide an alternative to simply turning yourselves in: help me change the heart of my co-worker, Sae Niijima, to prove your justice to me firsthand. Now, you all have incentive to trust me, as I hold the keys to your freedom." He chuckled, and the sound hit Ren's shoulders like a ton of gravel. "That is what I will convince him of, at least."

"That's clever," Kasumi mumbled, rocking back and forth next to Futaba. "It's...good. That we're working tog-together." Was she trying to convince them, or herself? Ren shook his head. Stop that. They weren't actually being blackmailed, this was something they'd all agreed to. Unanimity didn't stop existing just because Ren had hesitations.

"Why Sae?" Morgana asked, poking his head out of his bag. "I know why we want to change her heart, but why would Shido agree to that?"

"Because sis isn't working for him," Makoto said, slowly. "I'm guessing he wants to change that. Or...get her out of the way." Her fingers clenched on the edge of the table she was seated on.

"Very observant," Akechi said, his voice a low mimicry of praise. "You're entirely correct. Shido has long had his eye on Niijima as one of the final actors within the justice system that he has no control over. Considering her lofty reputation, this is far from ideal. Using her Palace as bait will likely end with the woman either dead or his ally, and either outcome would satisfy him." He said it all so simply, like it was nothing, like...no, not quite. Not nothing. Like it was obvious. Simple. There was an exhaustion woven into every breath, words drenched in malaise.

"I assume you don't share his view," Haru said. "And that you don't plan on using Miss Niijima as a sacrifice for your own purposes." The sharpness beneath her tone was as evident as starshine. Like it had always been there, like it had never left. Once again, Ren found himself wondering if there hadn't been more to her conversation with Akechi that the detective hadn't disclosed.

A flicker of what might have been anger in those matching crimson-like irises, and then it was gone. "Of course, I wouldn't dare. Please don't mistake my bluntness for endorsement." Akechi adjusted his tie, returning Haru's frigid expression with an empty and pleasant smile. "While you have not yet deemed it necessary to grace me with the details of your plan for her Palace, I will continue to defer to you all on our coming approach. I have no motivation to cause that woman harm." A single speck of hesitance. "In fact, my time as Sae Niijima's coworker, false though it was, was far more pleasant than unpleasant by far. I doubt she considers me more than perhaps an object of amusement, but I cannot speak to a single instance of mistreatment I incurred at her hand."

Makoto's strained expression was the loudest thing in the silent room by far. "We'll fill you in at our next meeting," she finally said. "Our plan isn't finalized yet, there's...you'll be told then."

Akechi merely nodded and smiled along, refraining from pouncing on Makoto's evasiveness, from pointing out her lack of a response to his praise of her sister. "Friday, was it?"

"Friday," Futaba confirmed. "Kasumi's got important stuff tomorrow."

The girl in question giggled and beamed across the half-foot distance between them. "You rem-remembered." The softest tone in the known universe. Futaba didn't say another word, just stared down at her own feet with a distinctly bashful smile.

"As did I," Akechi said, nearly immediately wincing at his own words and throwing on another distinctly false smile. "And speaking of business, I do actually have work to do. Appearances to keep up, all of that." He nodded to the group. "Unless you have anything further to tell me in person?"

A few glances thrown around the room. Ann's gaze in particular bored into Ren, unspoken and very clear. Yusuke, however, spoke first. "You are an excellent actor, Akechi. After everything calms down, perhaps you should consider a career in cinema or theater."

"Yeah, you'd be a hell of a villain, dude," Ryuji chimed in. "You've got the prettyboy asshole shtick down pat."

Akechi burst out laughing. Ren genuinely couldn't tell if he was more amused or irritated. "And on that note, I'll see you all on Friday." And he turned, opened the door and stepped out into the hallway.

Ren bit the inside of his cheek hard. It wasn't important. He was being dumb. He...fuck it. "Akechi, wait–" He scrambled out of his chair, grabbing his bag on the way – much to the vocal dismay of Morgana within – and slipped through the door before it finished closing. The previous busybodies had cleared out, and Ren spotted a teacher scooting a lingering girl towards the classrooms before he turned and found himself face-to-face with a distinctly blasé detective.

"Yes?" Akechi said, overemphasizing the single syllable, filling it with what was honestly a merciful modicum of irritation.

Ren chained together what he hoped was a comprehensible question behind his breath about the particularities of Akechi's situation, before discarding it whole-sale and simply blurting out: "how're you doing?"

Akechi raised an eyebrow, and threw a glance towards the distant potential evesdroppers farther down the hallway before responding. "That's a rather charged question, Amamiya. What exactly do you wish for me to report to you? My self-destructive habits, my emotional stability, my ongoing usefulness to the Thieves?" He shrugged with half his body, a little manic giggle escaping him before he seemed to catch himself. "Let's just say I'm 'fine' and leave it at that commonplace lie."

"Right," Ren replied, feeling embarrassment set his heart to a staccato beat. "I mean, I guess, you're just...you're back working for Shido, and you..." Stop thinking. Stop trying to be smart. Ren wasn't a genius, he wasn't clever, he wasn't going to impress the detective with some mastery of words or emotional intelligence. Ren was a fucking moron, but he was a moron with damn good instincts. He took a deep, quick breath. Focus. "You said you want to live long enough to kill Shido. Or, at least, make him pay for his crimes."

Akechi's yet-polite gaze narrowed somewhat. "If you're asking me if I've changed my mind, I haven't. Don't forget, the onus is on you to prove your justice to me, that is our arrangement."

"I remember," Ren said, "but that's not the point. My point is that my priorities, and the priorities of the rest of the Thieves, don't end when Shido falls."

"Ah," Akechi replied, nodding. "Your Witch's predicted 'apocalypse,' yes?"

"Right." Ren adjusted his bag on his shoulder, taking the time to catch another calming breath. "More than that, though. I can't stop you from feeling suicidal. I wish I could. I wish I could just...snap my fingers and take away all the stuff that makes you hate yourself. But not like I've been able to fix that for me, so it'd be stupid of me to try and pretend I could do that for you." Breath in, breath out. "There's no point in saving a world when everyone I care about has to die to save it. And I think I've made it clear I care about you, Akechi. That hasn't changed. So I want you to convince me you're not on a crash course towards martyrdom." He sighed. "If you can. I want that, I can't enforce it, or...you know. That's what I'm asking."

Akechi didn't say a word, not for a long few seconds. "Would you revoke my autonomy if I were to report to you that I planned to die at the end of the year?"

A wave of nausea swept over Ren, but he swallowed it, shoved it back down, and shook his head. "I wouldn't. I promise you, I won't. I'd try to change your mind. I'd try...a lot of really stupid shit, probably. But I wouldn't force you to stop." Right hand finds left wrist. "I know a little too well what that kind of force can do to someone. I don't wish that on anyone, especially not you."

"I see," Akechi said, quiet as anything. Another pause, another space for thought. Akechi tucked his briefcase under one arm and adjusted his cuffs. "I have promised Kasumi I will try. I owe you nothing, Amamiya, but at least trust that I owe her...far more than nothing."

Ren found himself nodding before his brain could catch up with the words. "Okay. That's...thank you." He took another breath. "Uh. You look good, by the way."

Akechi raised an eyebrow at him before letting out an amused little chuckle. "Well, you did see me in my pajamas for a week. And I suppose I do clean up nicely; makeup and a sharp outfit does wonders, no?" Sharp. The word caught on his synapses.

Ren shrugged. "I mean like, not...the suit's fine. I don't really think tan is your color, but it's fine. I mean, you look ready. Like...focused. Like you're where you need to be." Maybe that was a stupid assessment, maybe he was just looking for ways to justify agreeing to a plan he still sort of hated, but...he wasn't lying. It was the truth, best as he could articulate it.

Another laugh, and this one seemed...almost genuine, maybe. A legitimate sparkle of mirth somewhere in that plastic smile. "Ah. Well, I suppose there's no accounting for taste." He turned slightly, making to leave, and then paused. "I've never been a fan of the color either. Nor the suit. But, as I said, no accounting for taste. What women twice my age think I look handsome in is no business of mine, I suppose." An ounce of bitterness, of discomfort. Of legitimate and real anger.

And Ren found a shadow of a smile on his face. The real Akechi had come out to play, even for just a moment. And that made the conversation feel all the more worth it. "Yeah. Fuck them, though. It's fucked up to like...try and decide how other people get to look, right?"

Akechi laughed once more. "Indeed it is, Ren. Indeed it is."


10/26 – Wednesday
Evening
Yongen-Jaya

"Still kinda grumpy we had to spend so much festival time on Akechi," Futaba grumbled as she and Ren walked back towards Leblanc together. "Pretty boy kinda ruined the mood."

Ren gave his sister a sympathetic smile. "You still had some fun though, right?"

"Oh, yeah, tons," Futaba replied. She shook her hand in a motion that might have been dismissive or simply idle or both. "But I could have had more fun without him there."

"Harsh," Ren chuckled. He couldn't help but admit that he was probably on the same boat. As much as he cared for Akechi, the detective could often tend more towards wet blanket than active participant. Not implicitly, just...anyone would be miserable to be around with that much bullshit on their shoulders at any given moment. Ren knew firsthand how hard it was to–

A dull pain in his arm, and he glanced down to see Futaba poking him in the limb. "Space cadet," she said, halfway to teasing but there was something almost legitimately hurt behind those words.

"Sorry," he said, and rubbed his arm, drawing an eye roll from the girl. "Hey, I've got a lot on my mind, you know that."

"And a really fun little sister here to hang out with!" Futaba crossed her arms and huffed out a breath. "Come on, it's not like you don't spend all your time moping around in your own head already."

"She's right, you know," Morgana chimed in from inside the bag.

"Et tu, Mona?" Ren muttered.

"So, I mean," Futaba continued. "I'm here. You don't have to keep all of that in your head." She shrugged. "You said you trust me, so..."

"I do," Ren said, as quick and firm an assurance as he could manage. "I trust you with everything, Taba. Anything. I just...it's not lack of trust, I just don't want to dump all my stress on you. I don't want to make you deal with all of...this."

The girl didn't protest further, but her distinct frown still shone far brighter through the dim evening than any streetlight could hope to.

Ren bit back further justification. That wasn't what she needed. More excuses only made him feel better, it didn't help her one bit. He cleared his throat. "I know we've got plans tomorrow, so we shouldn't stay up too late, but...maybe we could watch something together tonight? Me, you and Mona. Sojiro too, maybe."

Futaba slowly nodded, and a little smile wound its way onto her lips. "Yeah. Okay." And she sent a smirk towards Ren. "But I'm picking what we watch."

"Of course you are," Ren chuckled. "You've got a lot to catch me up on, right? My parents had crap internet access and I missed a whole year of stuff."

"So much, yep yep yep," Futaba confirmed. She flapped her hands with a chuckle that turned partway from mischievous into gleeful. "Come on, let's see if Sojiro will let us use his TV." And she scrambled towards Leblanc with a skip in her step.

"She's asking for you to lean on her more," Morgana said, poking his head out of the bag to press his skull into Ren's shoulder. "You realize that, right?"

Ren just shrugged. At the feeling of Morgana's frigid stare, he replied. "Yeah. I know." Breath in, breath out. "Futaba's a kid. And she's been through enough awful stuff already. Even if she wants to help with all my bullshit, it's still...I don't think it's right to put that on her."

"She's only a couple years younger than you," Morgana replied in an unimpressed deadpan. "And we've all been through some really dark places." He let out a little huff of breath. "I know it's hard for you to open up to people like that. To share your struggles. But maybe tell her that? I think Futaba might be worried that you think she's too weak to handle it."

Ren swallowed his protests. It did him no good to get into petty arguments with his best friend. "Yeah. Fair, fair. I'll keep that in mind."

"We all do better with honesty than deflection," Morgana said, before stuffing himself back into the bag.

He let out another breath as he reached the door to Leblanc. The lights were on inside, though the sign had been changed to 'Closed.' Huh. Sort of early for Sojiro to close up shop. He pulled the door open, slipped inside and almost immediately barreled into Futaba, who was standing stock-still in the middle of the walkway. And it didn't take him more than a second to follow her gaze and freeze in place himself.

Sojiro was sitting in one of the booths, with a half-empty coffee cup in front of him, holding a small square object the approximate size and dimensions of a postcard. An object with a very familiar logo of a red and black mask and matching top hat, one eye engulfed in white flame. And the text, arranged in ransom note letters: 'Take Your Heart.'

"I was cleaning your room, and I found this on your desk," Sojiro said. "You can be mad at me for snooping around, that's fine. But we need to talk about this first." He raised the calling card, Futaba's calling card, with slightly shaking fingers. "I've seen the news. I know what this is."

Ren's words failed him. His breath failed him. His head spun at nothing.

"It...I...I didn't..." Futaba stuttered. She lowered her head. Shuddering as if she was seconds away from falling apart. "Please don't be mad. Please."

Sojiro winced, running a hand back through his hair. "I'm not mad," he said, quiet but firm. "At either of you. You aren't in trouble." His gaze flicked towards Ren. "I just want an explanation. That's all. I'm not kicking you out. You're still...you're my responsibility." Ren felt his throat tighten. Responsibility. Not family. Not son.

"Okay," Ren managed. Hesitation. He reached out, placing a gentle hand on Futaba's shoulder. "Taba. It's okay. I promise, it's okay."

She nodded, and it seemed like even that motion was a struggle. He gently, carefully, guided her into the booth across from Sojiro. Futaba neither moved with nor against him. She simply, limply, allowed him to move her. He could only dare to imagine what was going through her head, and the thought spent a pulse of dread into his chest. The moment he sat down next to her, she grabbed his arm in a hug tight enough to start cutting off circulation. Not that he'd push her away. Not ever, and especially not now.

Sojiro took a deep breath, and Ren forced himself to mimic it. "I know that you're Phantom Thieves," he began, and the simple statement threw Ren's impending panic into overtime. "Ren at least, and probably you too, Futaba." He chuckled. Maybe it was meant to be honest, but it came off more strained, awkward. "You all keep meeting right above my head, after all. I'm not oblivious to what goes on in my own cafe. Especially after Youji called me out of the blue to apologize." Futaba winced at that, and clung tighter to Ren.

"All I really had to go off was the news reports, talk shows, all that gossip about the Thieves being evil criminals. But by the time I really figured out that you were them, well, I trusted you enough to know that was all lies. Criminals, maybe, but not evil." Maybe Ren was projecting, but it felt a little more directed at him than his sister. He still felt a little like bolting, but that assurance did help, just a little. "It didn't feel right to call you on it, so I crossed my fingers that you were all being safe, and pretended I didn't know."

Sojiro fiddled with the calling card, bending it ever so slightly as if to test it was still real, before fixing his gaze once more on Ren. "I need you to explain what a change of heart is, right now. Because if you've put Futaba through one, if you've put my daughter through one, I need to know exactly what it is."

Ren forced himself to respond. "It's...I mean, uh, it, when someone's..." Fuck. He couldn't quell his fear enough to form a complete thought, let alone a complete sentence. Focus. Focus.

A flicker across his gaze. Brief as a breath. Jade and gold. A pendant necklace shining bright between his fingers.

"How much of Wakaba's research did you read?" The words came quicker than thought, slipping fully formed through his ephemeral lobe. He felt Futaba stir next to him, raising her gaze towards him. A spark of curiosity shining in her eyes, just out of the corner of his.

Sojiro raised an eyebrow. "I copy-edited her reports. I'd say I read quite a lot of her research."

Ren nodded, letting instinct take the wheel, drive him towards what he could only hope was a comprehensible explanation. "What we do, what the Thieves are capable of, requires a person being stuck in a...uh, False State. We call that 'distortion.' Someone ignoring a part of themselves they don't want to see, shoving it into their subconscious. Strong enough distortions grow into something called a Palace, and we're able to travel into those and induce a Cognitive Overhaul. For people like Kamoshida, Madarame, Okumura, that makes them guilty enough to confess their crimes, prevents them from justifying it any further."

"And for Futaba?" Sojiro asked, both tone and expression stoic.

"She..." The explanation died in his throat. It wasn't his place to tell. They weren't his scars to show. "Futaba did nothing wrong."

"I know she didn't do anything wrong," Sojiro said. Unyielding. "I'm asking why you changed her heart."

"Because I asked him to!" Futaba blurted out. Her voice was somewhat muffled, her face once again buried in Ren's sleeve, but the words rang clear. "I asked him to. After mom, after Kana, I couldn't...I couldn't. It was too much for me. I tried everything, but it didn't...nothing worked." Her tone flooded with what must have been a choked sob, but the girl powered through. "I thought I killed mom. That was my distortion."

Sojiro's stoicism broke. There was something so deep and melancholic trapped in his irises. A grief that had yet to abate. "That note, huh? It got stuck in your head."

Futaba nodded. Silent, a shudder racking through her with every other breath.

"Fuck." Sojiro ran a hand back through his hair, letting out a strained breath. "Fuck." He shook his head. "So then you...you asked him after I introduced you two?"

"Before," Ren chimed in. He could answer this one. "The bug in Leblanc." He paused as Sojiro smacked himself in the forehead.

"How do I keep forgetting about that?" the man grumbled, sending an unsteady smile onto Ren's face. "Sorry, go ahead."

"Futaba overheard us through it," Ren continued. "And then texted me, asking us to change her heart. I didn't know she was your daughter until Sae said her name."

"I see," Sojiro said, nodding along to Ren's words. "You and your friends went into her...'Palace,' and overhauled her Cognition."

"My friends did," Ren corrected. "I mean, it's not really that important, and I was there for...just, uh, yeah. We did."

An honest little smile. Sojiro's gaze wandered downward towards the card in his hands. He placed it onto the table. Then he picked up the coffee cup, raised it to his lips, paused, and put it back down. "Do either of you want a sip? It's cold, but it's decaf."

"Ew but also ew," Futaba replied, poking her head out from Ren's sleeve to send what he assumed to be a glare across the table at her father's presumption.

"Pass," Ren added.

Sojiro burst into deep chuckles. "Alright. Nice to know you kids still have taste." He slipped out of the booth, pausing for the briefest of moments. "You take after me like that." And winked before bringing his mug behind the counter. "Let me just make sure I'm understanding all this; I'm old, you know, and it's been a while since I read anything Cognitive Psciencey. You're saying that changing Youji's heart made him face all the bad in him, and changing Futaba's made her face all the good."

"Kind of, yeah." Ren reached up with his free hand to twist a strand of hair between two fingers. "Distortion hides the truth. And most of the time, people who want to hide from their true self do so because they know they've done something wrong. But I think everyone's got distortion in them, at least a little bit. Not just the people who do fucked up things." He shrugged. "I guess that's more philosophy than pscience?"

"It's both," Futaba said. "The only point within human life in which we are free from the influence of the False Self is the instant we are able to achieve the True Self." Her voice came strong and words confident. Sojiro must have noticed it as well, since he turned towards her with an expression somewhere between amazement and pride. "At all other points, human consciousness is beset by internalized assumptions and reductions. Jungian psychology, the baseline of Cognitive Pscience, dictates that all humans by necessity wear masks to shield our ego from the world. As such, we train ourselves to adopt these masks constantly, to wear them at all times, to construct a consistent sense of self and an immunity from the cognitive dissonance of our mercurial worldviews."

Sojiro shook his head, a little laugh of a breath escaping him. "I remember reading that. Verbatim, I think. The forward of one of her articles, of...er..." He snapped his fingers a few times, searching for the name.

"The Shackles We Chain Our Hearts With," Futaba said. She hummed at nothing, like a thought caught in her throat. "I've read it a bunch. It was the only one of mom's articles that got published online. All the rest of them are stuck on old lab servers and...stuff like that."

"That's the one." Sojiro turned around to dump out and wash his cup, but Ren could still hear the smile in his voice. "I'm pretty sure she wrote Shackles after she had you. Don't quote me on it, but...no, yeah, Imperative was the last one she finished before she went into labor, and Shackles was the one I kept trying to talk her out of writing because she was supposed to be on maternity."

Futaba snorted out a giggle. "That sure sounds like mom."

Ren matched their smiles, but found his fading. "Uh, Sojiro, what...I mean, what happens now? That we told you, I mean."

The cafe owner was quiet for a long few seconds. "Now," he said, "I think you should stay the night at our house. I don't want to speak for Futaba, but I think having someone else there tonight would be nice."

"Um," Futaba said. "If you're going to keep on suggesting awesome stuff, then speak for me away, dear fellow."

Sojiro burst out laughing. "Well, Ren? What do you think?"

'Sleepover' was sort of a non-answer, it could have meant a lot of things. Maybe Sojiro was trying to imply an unspoken follow-up conversation they'd have at another time. Maybe a follow-up conversation with just Ren. Maybe it was just a distraction so he could go behind their backs when their guard was down – a distinct possibility for anyone who wasn't Sojiro. Or maybe this was his way of letting the topic die naturally, just changing the subject because there wasn't anything more to be said. Maybe this was his way of making it clear things weren't going to change.

Ren pulled himself away from the mental roulette of options. He trusted Sojiro. Son or not, responsibility or not, the man had earned more than his share of trust. More than his share of faith. "Yeah. That sounds good."


The only light in Sojiro's living room was the steady glow of the TV, which washed over the couch, bathing the occupants in ever-changing technicolors. Ren squinted at the screen through his glasses. "Wait, sorry, uh, weren't they just talking about stopping Black Condor? Why are they all working together now?" He kept his voice quiet. Curiosity aside, he didn't want to wake the slumbering girl latched onto his right side, nor the cat that had curled up in her lap. Futaba and Morgana both deserved their rest.

Sojiro chuckled, deep and low. "They teamed up a couple of episodes ago. I think you might have slept through it."

Ren felt his cheeks heat up, and was momentarily thankful that the near-darkness could hide it. "Oh. I didn't know I was asleep."

"It happens," Sojiro said, laughing again. He clicked the remote, and the volume dropped another few notches from low to barely-present. "I've found sleeping on this couch can give you a massive crick in the neck, but you're welcome to pass back out if you need to."

"Thank you," Ren said. Silence. He closed his eyes, and opened them again. "Sojiro?"

"Hm?"

Ren took in a breath. "Are you upset at me?" And quickly rambled out a correction. "It's alright if you are, I'm not...I just...I'd like to know, if that's okay."

Sojiro was silent for a few seconds. Just long enough that Ren was already composing an apology, though the man's words cut off his thoughts before they could leave his mouth. "I'm not angry, Ren. Or upset. I think...I am a little hurt." The cafe-owner leaned forward to rub the back of his neck. "Finding that card rattled me pretty bad. I'm alright now, but that...terrified me. Like I said, I figured you were Thieves, but changing Futaba's heart was...more of a dishonesty than I felt comfortable with."

He threw a sympathetic smile towards Ren, the briefest melancholy shining clear in his eyes, before he turned back to the television. "I know why you kept it from me, both of you. You've both been put through hell by the grown-ups in your life." Sojiro shrugged. "I didn't want to believe that either of you could think of me as one of them. But, that was just dumb optimism on my part, and I shouldn't – won't – make either of you pay for that."

A thousand complaints swam in Ren's throat before he finally choked out "you're not. It's not...I didn't..." His breath shuddered, and he forced it to steady. "I trust you. I trusted you. I just...I didn't...I didn't want you to hate me." And the dam in his lungs collapsed, both breath and words leaving him freely. "I was fucking terrified, I couldn't, I mean, you'd taken me in and you, you called me your son and all, and I just didn't, I don't want to do badly by that. I went behind your back with, with all of this, and I knew it wasn't, like, I didn't want to freak you out, cause all of this is fucking crazy and scary all the time, and I wanted...I just wanted to do good. Be good."

Silence fell, besides for the low and distant sound of televised violence. "I couldn't hate you," Sojiro said, finally, the soft sorrow in his voice shoving another knot into Ren's throat. "I couldn't ever hate you, Ren. Even if I tried, even if I wanted to, I couldn't. You're a good kid. You're...I mean, you are my son." The man shifted on the couch. "I haven't changed my mind on that, nor will I. And you're sixteen, after all, not like you'll be under my care for that much longer. But that doesn't change how I feel."

Ren just nodded dumbly. He couldn't find a single word to speak to the tears that prickled at the corners of his eyes, the joyful sob caught in his throat.

"You know," Sojiro continued, "I kept Futaba from you, at first, because I thought she'd be scared of you. She always seemed so fragile, and I couldn't bear the thought of her getting hurt again. Not even careful, just...worried, constantly worried." He chuckled, and there was a sheepishness in the sound. "I never could have imagined she'd been the one to reach out to you. Or that you'd help her in a week more than I'd done in two years." He glanced towards the sleeping Futaba, still clinging tight to Ren, before raising his eyes to him with the softest, kindest smile Ren had ever seen. "I'm so insanely proud of both of you, I hope you know that. And for what it's worth, I'm glad she has a brother as good as you."

Ren swallowed hard, holding back the saline tide as much as he possibly could. "She's got a good dad too," he choked out. "And you shouldn't...sell yourself short. Like, she couldn't...she wanted to get better because of you. I think that's what she was clinging to, for most of it. Just...wanting to be a good daughter, wanting to get better so you wouldn't worry anymore."

Sojiro didn't say a word for a long few seconds. The man turned back to the screen, pushed his glasses up onto his forehead and wiped at his eyes, letting out a little sob-laden laugh. "You're both little miracles, you know that? Fuck." He laughed again. "What did I ever do to deserve you kids, huh? Tell me that, genius." Sojiro lowered his hands and flashed a grin towards Ren.

He just shrugged, finding his own smile amidst the tears now blurring at his vision. "Well, when I go fist-fight God during Christmas, I'll ask him about it."

Ren's father snorted with quiet laughter. His dad, his dad, smiling as bright as the sun. Laughing with him, in the dark living room, somewhere between the late hours of the night and the early hours of the morning. Somewhere like home.

New Year's Day?
Morning
The Grave Of Shibuya

The day after the end of the world was quiet, as if the city itself was mourning the people that had filled it for decades, that had fought for it mere hours before. There was no laughter in the streets, no bustle of the eternally busy, no sake-laden commiseration between strangers.

There was ash. A blanket, covering the city like unswept snow. Thick in the air. And a pair of young men, ankle-deep in it, on the crosswalk corner nearby Shibuya central square.

The walk signal flicked from red to green. Ren felt the momentary compulsion to cross, but he resisted it. "The lights are still on," he noted.

"They'll burn out, eventually," the Trickster said. The young man adjusted his red gloves, staring up at the 104 Building through his white mask. "A couple of electricians decided to stay behind during the evacuation order, to make sure the grid was up and running. Just in case."

"Wishful thinking, right?" The words came to Ren unbidden. Running on instinct, like an engine in his head left idling. "Evacuation. Did that...help, at all?"

The Trickster didn't respond right away. "Do you want me to lie to you?"

"I guess not." Movement out of the corner of his eye, and Ren's gaze flicked towards the other side of the crossing. A blur of indistinct motion, walking slowly through the ash. An approximation of humanity. "How are we here? How are you here? Didn't you–"

"It's not my world," the Trickster said. "Not my memory, either." And he nodded towards the blurred figure walking through the ash. "It's hers. I don't know if she gave it to me on purpose, or if it just...happened." The young man shrugged. "If you have your fingers in someone else's head, you're bound to leave some residue, I'm guessing."

"Residue," Ren repeated. The figure stopped in the center of the crossing. As much as he squinted, he couldn't make her out. Blurred over. Like something eldritch and unknowable. Like a redaction in motion. A dozen names spoken at once, drowning each other out. "What are you trying to show me?"

The Trickster sighed. "It's not my subconscious in the driver's seat, Ren. It's yours. I'm just along for the ride."

"Oh," Ren said. The figure, the woman, leaned down and plucked something out of the ash. Small, golden. He could feel something like power radiating off that tiny shard, like a corpse of divinity rotting between her fingers. And then the world blurred away, a brush swept over a canvas, swirling the grey together until nothing else remained.

The stool beneath Ren was uncomfortable, but he struggled to stay still. Good muses didn't budge. "You're not the most helpful, you know."

The Trickster leaned over the shoulder of the dream of an artist, watching the young man paint. Admiring every brushstroke. "My sincerest apologies, your majesty. I would assume repeatedly saving your life would be enough, but I suppose my presumption knows no bounds."

Ren rolled his eyes hard enough to catch a glimpse of the shack roof through the back of his own head. "Don't be an asshole. You know what I mean. You've got all this skill, all these memories of shit I should be avoiding, and you just keep drip-feeding cryptic bullshit into my head."

"Because it worked out so well when I raised the floodgates on you last month," the Trickster replied dryly. The young man chuckled. "I know we've got a self-loathing problem, but arguing with yourself like this? That's got to be a new low."

"Shut up." And the world blurred again.

Blue. A familiar desk, impaled through with iron bars torn from the nearby cells. A hole blown into the ceiling, and an endless sea of stars above. "She really did a number on this place," the Trickster noted, reaching out his foot and tapping the discarded and broken guillotine blade that had been plunged into the floor.

"Who?" Ren asked. He forced his gaze away from the nausea-inducing celestial plane directly above his head.

"The kid." The Trickster paused. "Or the Witch. Or both. I guess it doesn't really matter."

"Yeah," Ren mumbled. He reached out to grab one of the prison bars from the shattered desk, and yanked at it. It didn't budge, and his hand slipped off of it almost immediately. "So, what, is this just a joyride to you? You're just fucking around because this isn't your world, and you don't care what happens to it, and you're just–"

"A tumor?" the Trickster finished. "Yeah, maybe. But if you're going to get pissy at your magic talking tumor because he's just as messed up in the head as you, I'll make it my personal mission to tattoo a big old 'hypocrite' across your forehead." The young man flashed a smirk across the distance. "C'mon, Ren. You've got a whole lot to be angry about, but at least save that fury for the people who actually deserve it."

Ren considered that. "Shido. Yaldabaoth. Oxymoron. Right?"

"Bingo and bingo and bingo again." Another smirk, and the Trickster tapped his temple with a red-gloved finger. "And hey, once you're done using me to tear them apart? Take a scalpel to me if you want to, I won't take it personally." He reached up, adjusting his mask, something unknowable caught in his grey eyes. No, not grey. Something like golden fire suspended there. "This tumor still has a purpose to serve. At least let me serve it first, hey? Keep me around, and my strength will still be yours to use as you see fit. Sound good?"

Not a bad deal. Ren nodded. "Alright. Where do we start?"

The young man laughed, an honest mirth twinged with something dark, something wild and demonic. "Start? Oh, Ren Ren Ren, you once and former Fool." He placed his hand on Ren's shoulder, and the contact burned, a sharpness like talons digging into his flesh. "We're already well on our way. Stay the course, my friend. And when the time comes to set this world aflame..." Two eyes aflame beneath the brim of that hat. "I think you'll find that gods, demons and witches alike make for damn good kindling."

And Ren woke up.


So much thanks to Jane for her help with motivation, inspiration, accountability and, of course, beta reading notes. I also wanna give some advance thanks to Ralu, who helped me brainstorm some future plot points for the late Niijima Arc and Shido Arc. I'll probably thank them again when those moments come around but just in case, thanks!