CONTENT WARNING: This contains implications of sexual assault and mentions of attempted suicide. While not graphic, this content still may be difficult or upsetting to read, so please take breaks or skip sections as needed. Stay safe.


10/27 – Thursday
Morning
Sojiro's House

Breakfast was quiet. Sojiro cooked and served omelets and coffee, enough for all three. Futaba kept stealing glances towards Ren between bites, some sort of silent question caught in her eyes, any one of a hundred things she could have wanted his permission on. Morgana kept stealing bits of omelet off Ren's plate.

"Stop that," Sojiro said, reaching over to tap the cat's sneaky paw as it crept onto the table. Morgana responded with a grumble and retreated his efforts.

"Morgana's a magic cat," Futaba chimed in. "He's helped us out a lot in changing people's hearts–"

"Yeah!" Morgana added.

"–so I think he should get some omelet."

Sojiro raised an eyebrow. "Magic, huh?" He turned his stern gaze towards the indignant feline. "He looks like a normal cat."

"I'm a special cat," Morgana muttered, and Ren had to stifle a grin at the adorably stubborn tone.

"He says he's a special cat," he echoed, a few snickers slipping past his better judgment. "And, I mean, he is. Completely right there." Ren ruffled Morgana's head fluff, dragging a throaty purr out of the fuzzy creature. "Very special. And I don't mind sharing, so..."

Sojiro mumbled something into his closed mouth, folded up his newspaper, and stood. "If he's so special," he replied, with a faux-grumpiness not aided by the slight upwards lilt to both voice and expression. "Then he should get his own omelet."

Morgana's posture straightened in an instant, nearly falling up onto the table in his haste to stare at Sojiro with wide feline eyes. "I love you, Boss," he whispered, a purr beneath every word.

"He loves you!" Futaba dutifully reported.

"Right back at you, cat," Sojiro replied. Even the nickname, which ordinarily would have ruffled Morgana's fur somewhat, didn't seem to shake his excitement.

"Does he have tuna?" Morgana asked, though his attention was rapt towards the cafe-owner's amble across the kitchen. "Tuna omelet would be good. Egg whites though, yolks are too fatty."

"What kind of ingredients to put in a cat omelet..." Sojiro mumbled to no one in particular as he popped open the nearby fridge. "He still has a cat palate, right? No salt. Egg whites, probably. I've got some leftover tuna, that could work. I mean, I wouldn't serve it to a person – human person, I mean – and I wouldn't eat it myself, but..." He extracted a resealed can of tuna from the fridge and waved it back and forth. "Tuna omelet?"

Morgana didn't say a word, but his purring could probably be heard across the street.

"That means yes," Ren translated, unable to keep the grin from his face.

"Sojiro, you're kitty-psychic," Futaba whispered, similarly grinning up a storm.

"Nice to know magic runs in the family," the man quipped, chuckling as he escorted the tuna to the stove. "If both my kids are more special than me, it'll really hurt my reputation." He glanced over his shoulder and winked towards the table. "Not that I really mind. I already know you're both crazy special, I've got a lot to live up to."

Something in Futaba's expression shifted. Like a balloon leaking air, draining the joy from the air until only the stale taste of hesitation remained. "Hey, Sojiro?"

"Yeah, kiddo?"

Futaba took a deep breath, and shot a glance towards Ren. Okay. Be the key item. Whatever confidence she needs. He sent a nod back, and hoped the unspoken words would travel the distance. The unspoken permission. He didn't need to know what she wanted to say to know it was worth saying. Futaba turned back to their father. "I need your opinion on something. I mean, maybe we both do, but especially me."

"On what sort of something?" Sojiro asked, busying himself with the stove.

Another breath. Ren could see her shuddering across the table, ever so slightly. "We're going to catch the man who killed mom."

Crack.

Eggshell splintering messily on the side of the pan. The spluttering of broken egg against the hot metal. Sojiro swore under his breath, scraped up the mess with the spatula, and escorted it to the nearby trash can. "Okay," he managed, a single word that held a universe of pain behind it. Ren could hear it in his hesitation, in the strain he placed on that one little syllable.

"But to do that," Futaba continued, her voice unsteady, "we've gotta...the guy who...there's someone we have to work with. Or, we've decided to work with." She let out a sharp, pained breath. "He got someone else to do his dirty work."

"A fixer," Sojiro said, the word leaving him immediately.

"An assassin," Ren corrected, and winced at his own bluntness. "Kinda. It's...complicated."

The man chuckled in a forced way. "When isn't it?"

Futaba pursed her lips, but kept going. "He's the one who, I mean, metaphorically, he pulled the trigger. He made her–" She choked on the word, cleared her throat, and pushed onwards. "He's not a bad guy, I think. Maybe he is. I don't know." She frowned at nothing, eyes clouded with thought. "He's hurt a lot. That doesn't make what he...that doesn't make it okay. But he wants to take down his boss, the guy who, he, who told him to kill...the guy actually to blame. The one who called the h...hit." Another shaky breath. "I...you and mom were really...I mean, she loved you, and you loved her, and I just, I don't, I don't want to be...are you...is that okay? To...to do that?"

Crack went the second egg. A careful, precise sizzle as he held the eggshell over the pan, keeping the yolk back as the whites made their dripping descent. "I'm going to say a name," Sojiro said, his voice unnaturally steady, uncomfortably calm. "If I'm off-base, that's fine. No need to correct. But if I'm right..." Breath in, breath out. He placed the remaining yolk to the side. "Masayoshi Shido."

Ren's blood froze in his veins. The sound of Futaba's tense breathing vanished. Even Morgana's thrumming purr fell silent.

The egg spluttered away in the pan.

"Fuck," Sojiro said, finally. He ran a hand back through his hair. "Fuck." He shook his head. "Fuck." The bitter curse might as well have been a gunshot. "Shido. That...of all the bastards in the world, it had to be him."

The silence returned with a vengeance.

Sojiro wordlessly folded the omelet around a dollop of tuna.

The heartbeat in Ren's ears was thunderous.

Flip. Splutter. Scoop. Serve. Turn. Step. Pull out the chair. Sit. Push the plate across the table.

Morgana didn't touch his omelet. "Thank you," he mumbled.

"He says thanks," Ren said.

Sojiro didn't say a word. He leaned back in his chair. Futaba was staring at the ground. Ren felt like his heart might eject itself from his throat. "Just to make sure that I'm on the same page," the man finally said. "Shido hired an assassin to kill Wakaba. And now, that assassin wants to work with you to take him down."

"Kinda," Ren managed. "It's–"

"If you say it's complicated, I'm disowning you," Sojiro grumbled, though the slightest of smiles made its way onto his lips.

Ren choked on unexpected laughter. The valve on his chest loosened a little. "It is, though! But yeah, okay." He reached up, twisting a strand of hair between two fingers. "It's not hired as much as, like...coerced. He found someone with the same powers as us, two years before we got ours. And he..." Ren's throat felt tight, and he cleared it. It didn't do much. "He fucked with his head. Pretty bad. He's like, I mean, he's...not much older than us. And Shido...made him into an assassin."

"I hate to say it," Sojiro said, his tone quiet and cold. "That doesn't surprise me. Not about Shido. That he'd be capable of that, or...that he'd do it." He shook his head. "I've heard a lot worse about him, when I...well, you know, I was a government worker. Inspections."

"Liaison," Futaba mumbled, and the simple word sent more pride through Ren's veins than he would have liked to admit.

Sojiro nodded. Hesitated. He slipped a spoon into his coffee mug and swirled it. Clockwise. One-two-three-four. Counterclockwise. One-two-three-four. Spoon out, clink twice on one side to shake off the dregs. Raise cup to lips, sip. "Shido was a tyrant," he said, finally. "I don't doubt he still is. He was one of the officials overseeing the facility I was assigned to, the one Wakaba worked at." Something shifted. Like a flame had flicked on behind his eyes. A rage that had boiled for years, maybe. "I wasn't...entirely truthful, when I told you about...Futaba's father." The girl's gaze shot up towards him, wide and full of some horrid mix of shock and curiosity. "It wasn't a lie, really. I never found out who he was. I never pushed her on it." His breath shuddered. Not pain. Fury. "But I knew what he did to her. I knew."

The implication clicked into place, and not a single word in any language could articulate the pit of horror that settled itself in Ren's gut.

"I pushed her to report it," Sojiro continued. "Even if nothing came of that, he couldn't...she wasn't the only woman working at that facility. She agreed. I think it terrified her, but she didn't want him to get away with hurting anyone else." His hand clenched against his mug, and he removed it, flexing his fingers at nothing. "HR dragged their feet, but it didn't take much pushing for them to get their ass in gear. That is, until it came to Shido."

Ren could almost imagine the fire pouring down his cheeks, welling up in his eyes like all the angry tears caught there now. "I won't repeat what he said. But needless to say, it was beyond disgusting. In a facility-wide memo no less." Inhalation, exhalation. "Wakaba decided to work from home after that. It wasn't like they could fire her for it, the whole project was built on her work. She...I think she did her best to take it in stride. She liked to joke that the whole situation was a blessing in disguise. No more uncomfortable office chairs. Stuff like that."

His distant gaze found Futaba. A soft, pained smile. "She loved you more than anything, Futaba. I need you to know that. Wakaba told me she would never let the pain change how she felt about you, how much you meant to her. You were the most important part of her life from the moment you were born, and every second after." A sigh escaped his lips. "We just never wanted it to change how you thought of her, or of yourself as her daughter."

"Never," Futaba muttered. "Never ever." She shook her head, glancing off towards nothing, twisting her hands against each other, digging her nails into palm and knuckle and forearm. "It's...it doesn't change anything. Not about mom. Not about me. I'm not ashamed." The flicker in her eyes was the same as his. "Just makes me hate Shido even more." The sharpness of her tone sent a spiraling dread between Ren's lungs, and he forced himself to choke it down.

"Okay," Sojiro said. He reached across the distance, careful and gentle, and ruffled Futaba's hair. She let him. "I love you too, by the way. It never changed how I felt about you either."

A little smile. Not much, but enough. "Love you too," Futaba echoed.

Sojiro glanced towards Ren, then back to his daughter. "I don't know the kid you're talking about," he said, slowly. "I don't know what else he's done. If he's got more to pay back, if he even regrets it." Ren opened his mouth to speak, but the man held up a hand, cut him off. "My point is, I don't need to. As far as I'm concerned?" That flame was back in force. "Do what you have to. As long as you're safe, as long as working with this person doesn't put you in danger, then you have my blessing. When it comes to Shido...there's a whole lot of 'lesser evils' I'd gladly consider if it meant putting that man six feet underground."

For all his hesitation, for all his terminal ambivalence, for all of the stutter-steps that Oxymoron and Anachronism had sent into his stride, Ren couldn't find a single word to disagree.


10/27 – Thursday
After School
Akihabara

"Are you sure she said Akihabara?" Ren asked, glancing around at the mild bustle. "That seems like a pretty intense first step."

"It's quieter than Shibuya," Futaba replied, as defensive as if the plan had been her own.

"That's a low bar," Morgana said.

Futaba sent a grumble and a glare at both boys in turn – or, at least, towards Ren and the bag he was holding. "Kasumi knows her sister. She said Akihabara. So there." Despite her stubborn insistence, Futaba still pulled her phone out of her pocket and unlocked it, no doubt double checking her texts. "Yeah, Akihabara. Again, there!"

"Point taken," Ren replied, holding his hands up in surrender. "I apologize for calling her judgment into question. And your memory."

"Apology accepted," Futaba said, stuffing her phone back into her pocket and going back to scanning the crowds. Despite the intensity of that morning's conversation, she seemed in high and jittery spirits, no doubt due to the 'crush' part of 'hanging out with her crush and her crush's sister.'

Ren had half formulated an inquiry into the time they were meant to arrive when he spotted two matching redheads weaving their way through the crowd. He elbowed Futaba, but judging by the haste at which her arm shot into the air for a frantic wave, she'd seen them about the same time he did. "Kasumi! Over here, over here!" Ren stifled his secondhand embarrassment towards the few glances thrown by nearby strangers at the two of them, focusing instead on the two girls approaching them. Kasumi was the same as ever, though she'd shirked her uniform in favor of a simple blouse and skirt. Sumire, on the other hand...

She was still noticably paler than her sister, though it seemed less so than before – careful application of blush, perhaps? Another immediate distinction between the two were their respective hairstyles: Kasumi always wore hers up in a ponytail, while Sumire's, though a similar length, wore hers down to the point where it threatened to cover her eyes. The girl had a new pair of glasses too, similar wide rims, but he vaguely remembered the ones in the hospital looking far older, cheaper.

Even for someone who hadn't seen her before, Sumire's outfit was distinctly odd for the surprisingly balmy October weather that day. She had an ankle-length black skirt, a dark hoodie, peach-colored mittens and a scarf that matched the shade of both sisters' hair. But more than any aesthetic alteration, more than the makeup and the clothes and the glasses, the biggest change were her eyes. The once-prominent bags under them had faded now – not covered, faded – and her gaze kept flicking idly towards the surroundings with idle curiosity, amusement, and not a hint of fear. Despite the unfamiliar bustle around her, despite only recently having left the hospital she'd spent the last few years in, Sumire looked...alive.

"Futaba!" Kasumi chirped, as soon as she was within reasonable earshot. "Hi! I'm so gl-glad you could make it!" She was grinning up a storm, as bright as Ren had ever seen from her.

Futaba just shrugged, with a similarly goofy and blinding smile. "Like I'd ever pass up on an opportunity to hang out with my favorite gymnast-slash-magical-princess."

Kasumi snorted with giddy laughter, before starting and gesturing excitedly to her sister, whose expression had not shifted even slightly from neutrality bordering on serenity. "You two haven't met yet, right? Futaba, this is my sist-sister, Sumire. Sumire, this is Ren's sister, Futaba."

Sumire gave a nod and kept her hands in her pockets. Her sharp eyes flicked between Ren and Futaba. "Do you dye your hair?" she asked, staring straight at the latter.

Futaba blinked and raised a hand to her locks, almost defensively. "I...uh, yeah." She glanced up, as if trying to see the top of her hair through her own head. "Are my roots showing? Sojiro just helped me re-dye last week–"

"No," Sumire said, with a bluntness that would have been impolite if it wasn't so simple. "Just a guess. It was either you or him." She nodded twice towards Ren.

"Oh," Ren said, before bursting out laughing. "No, uh, sorry, we're not...we don't actually have the same biological parents."

"Adopted by the same guy," Futaba added. Ren bit back a correction; Sojiro hadn't technically adopted him, as far as he knew. He was his guardian, but that arrangement wasn't legally binding, not in the same way. A pulse of anxiety wove its way across his palms, and he shook it away. "But I do have my mom's hair." A glance at Ren's, then back to Sumire. "I guess it's just dumb luck me and Ren have the same hair color? I mean, natural hair color. Both black."

Sumire nodded twice. "Understood." And turned her attention entirely to Ren. "Kasumi told me you make crafts by hand. Have you ever tried origami?"

Ren blinked, trying to catch up with the abrupt topical whiplash. Crafts? Crafts? Since when did he–

"Infiltration tools," Morgana whispered pointedly from inside his bag.

"Oh, uh, right, yeah, I do," Ren stammered, mentally thanking his cat a dozen times over for the prompt. "I mean, no, I haven't. Origami. Uh, I've...I mostly work with...metal stuff?"

"I'd love to see your work," Sumire said, unperturbed.

His work. Did he...did he even have something that wouldn't make him look like some sort of career criminal? Ren blinked. Huh. That could work. "Yeah, I think..." He trailed off, unzipping his bag and digging into the side pocket, careful not to disturb Morgana too much – the feline still let out a low grumble at being shuffled around.

"Do you...w-want to stay here with Ren?" Kasumi asked, tilting her head slightly towards her sister. "Futaba ment-mentioned going on a tour of Akihabara, but I don't know if that's something that int-interests you."

Sumire shrugged. "I'm entertained." Ren couldn't tell if that was a pointed tease towards him, or an earnest assurance. "You two can go look around." She pulled an old-looking brick of a cell phone out of her pocket and waved it back and forth. "I'll call you if I get bored."

Kasumi beamed at her sister. "Okay." She leaned over and enveloped Sumire in a tight hug. While the girl didn't return the embrace, she leaned into it somewhat. "I'm proud of you, Sumi."

"You're always proud of me," she replied with a little wry smile. "Go have fun, Mimi. And, Futaba. Take care of my sister." Hm. Now, that was pointed.

Futaba nodded up a storm and gave an exaggerated salute. "Aye-aye, Miss Yoshizawa." She took a couple side-steps out of the way, gesturing to Kasumi. "Your tour awaits, madame. Off towards...technology and games and cool stuff and stuff."

Kasumi giggled as she let go of her sister and took a stutter-skip to join Futaba, reaching down to grab her hand tight – Futaba looked to almost jump out of her own skin at the sudden proximity. "Lead on, Miss S-Sakura!"

"Right!" Futaba chirped, her voice breaking. A second later, and the two had made their tittering way out of earshot. Futaba hadn't so much as checked with Ren before departing. No safety rope. No assurance of rescue from whatever awaited them within nearby bustle. No key item necessary. Ren felt...proud wasn't an accurate assessment. He wasn't sure he even had the words to describe it. He was glad. That was as close as he could get.

His gaze still on his retreating sister, Ren finally found what he was looking for, and carefully extracted the cylindrical lockpicking device from within his bag. "Here we go. Be careful with it, it's...lots of moving parts." And he handed it to Sumire.

The girl stared down at the tube, and gingerly took it from Ren. She pinched one of the metal levers and moved it back and forth, eyes flicking towards the end of the cylinder, the little metal legs at the end reacting to every command. "How long did it take you to build this?"

Ren shrugged. "Better half of an evening," before realizing how absolutely insane that probably sounded. "I mean, it wasn't...the blueprint, all of that, took a lot longer. Prototypes and design and getting all the parts together and...yeah. But actually building it wasn't...that hard? I guess."

"Sounds like a knack," Sumire said, her gaze still locked on the device. "Kasumi said that Futaba is good with computers. Since you're siblings, I expect you two collaborate often."

It wasn't quite a question, but Ren answered it nonetheless. "We do. She's pretty indispensable, a huge help. Like, all the time. Not just computers, she's sort of a cognitive psience prodigy too."

"Smart cookie." Sumire slowly undid her fiddling, pinching and pulling the larger lever to retract the smaller, delicate parts back within the cylinder. "You both are, it looks like." She handed the device back to Ren. "Kasumi's in good hands."

Ren took the tube with a little smile he couldn't quite help. "She's not in my hands, you know."

"She's in Futaba's," Sumire agreed, and Ren did his best to stifle a laugh. "I assume, at least. I'm not the best at...speaking 'people,' but I speak Kasumi quite well. Fluent, even." The girl's gaze wandered over to the crowd her sister and Futaba had vanished off into. "And there's no one else she talks about the way she talks about her."

"Same here with Futaba," Ren chuckled. "Those doe-eyes are pretty exclusive to your sister."

Sumire smiled, a little honest thing. "I had hoped so. It's good to know I don't have to hope any longer." She turned her gaze back towards Ren. "She met Futaba through you, didn't she?"

Ren nodded, picking his words as carefully as he could manage. "I met Kasumi at Shujin. She joined my, I mean, our, or, uh, I'm...part of a club? Sort of? An afterschool thing."

"Helping the Thieves," Sumire finished. "She told me about that."

"Yep, that," Ren said, mentally thanking Kasumi for having foresight enough to corroborate him. "Futaba's part of that club too, even though she doesn't go to high school."

Sumire raised an eyebrow. "She's the same age as Kasumi, isn't she?"

"She is, but, uh..." How did he broach this fucking topic? Oh. Wait, no, who was he kidding? He was probably talking to the singular person who would best understand that. "She's been dealing with some pretty intense stuff. Bad trauma. So she had to take some time off."

Sumire blinked. "Ah." She stared at Ren; not at his eyes, but a piercing gaze towards his skull, like she was trying to read his mind through his forehead. "I think I understand now."

"Oh?" Ren managed, resisting the urge to bolt from the intensity of her inspection.

"You're Kasumi's kindred soul," Sumire said, her voice filled to the brim with austere conviction. "That's why my sister talks about you the way she does."

Kindred soul. The phrase rang in Ren's eardrums like giddy tinnitus. "I don't know about that," he said. "She's closer to Akechi than she is to me, I think."

"Probably, yes," Sumire agreed. "From what she has told me, they were there for her when she needed them." Them...singular? Akechi them? "But friendship and kinship are not mutually exclusive. Besides which, Akechi had a few years head start on you."

"Fair," Ren mumbled, not quite sure if he was following her logic completely.

"It's serendipity," Sumire continued. "She's to be your sister-in-law, after all." Ren choked on thin air. "Gesundheit."

"That's," he said, still stifling further coughs. "I mean, you're...that's...kind of skipping ahead, don't you think?"

Sumire just shrugged. "Am I incorrect?"

Ren took the awkward pause to collect both breath and thoughts. "I...no. Not really."

"Good." Sumire gave him a strange, almost wry smile. "And that goes for us, as well." She extended a hand to him. "I look forward to being your sister-in-law as well, Ren."

He couldn't help but chuckle as he echoed her motion and shook her hand. "Right back at you, Sumire."


10/28 – Friday
After School
Cafe Leblanc, Attic

Akechi was...Ren supposed the phrase was 'fashionably late.' He'd ascended the attic staircase five minutes after their arranged meeting time, on the dot. "I apologize for my delayed attendance." The detective glanced towards the top of the short dresser next to the staircase, where everyone else's bags were haphazardly piled. He gingerly, almost hesitantly, placed his suitcase next to the pile.

"At least you made it," Haru said, too polite to be anything other than cold.

Ryuji threw a glance around the attic, then started in place. "Wait, shit, uh–" He cut himself off with a laugh. "I was waiting for Kasumi to say something, forgot she's not here today."

"Don't remind me," Futaba groaned. Ann gave a sympathetic smile and scooted closer to pat her shoulder.

"Even though we had known her time in the Thieves would be inconsistent," Yusuke said, his chin propped up on one hand, legs crossed over one another in an uncomfortable-looking pretzel. "I think her temporary departure still felt quite surprising to us all."

Makoto nodded, but she barely seemed to be paying attention to the conversation at hand. She had her hands clasped in front of her, bouncing one leg endlessly, gaze locked on something ethereal and unknowable in the air just below the table.

Akechi cleared his throat, and Ren glanced his way – momentarily meeting the detective's eyes, though the boy looked away immediately. "If there's nothing else of pressing importance before we begin properly, I...have something I wish to declare." His gaze wandered over Ren again, but his focus seemed to linger to either side of him. Like he was purposefully avoiding...no, not that. Like he was directly, pointedly, addressing Ryuji and Haru. Ren felt the momentary urge to slip off the couch and out of the way of whatever was about to go down.

"I wish to be something other than the blind vitriol I have shown you all thus far." His voice was the same plastic mask as before, but his tone seemed far closer to serious. "I admit, I don't know at this time what I even could be besides that. Besides some...gibbering vector of rage." A breath, almost a laugh. "I'm sure Kasumi would have objected to that, were she here." Akechi flicked his attention across the entire assembled Thieves. "I suppose I'd like to start looking. If that is something this...group can help me achieve, then I would be...grateful. It's my understanding you have experience with these sorts of matters."

His eyes flicked towards Futaba. Ren felt his breath stall. "Mortality."

Towards Ann. "Revenge."

Towards Yusuke. "Inheritance."

Towards Makoto. "Acceptance."

Towards Ryuji. "Anger."

Towards Haru. "Betrayal."

And towards Ren. "Self-annihilation."

He could almost see the ghost of that wild, acrid smile the Prince had worn in Mementos. "I could probably pick up a lot from you all."

It was like staring down the barrel of a gun. Ren forced breath back into his lungs, forced himself to maintain eye contact. There was something there unsaid. On its face, Akechi was playing his usual game. 'I know your types, you're all predictable,' et cetera. But there was something more there. Ren blinked. Akechi wasn't smiling. He was dead serious, tense, his stoic expression doing little to hide the anxiety spoken to by his vice-grip on his tie, by his offhand tapping away at the side of his leg. It wasn't a challenge. It was a plea. The Thieves had experience...

Akechi had seen their experience, hadn't he? He wasn't talking from idle prediction. All the meetings over the past few weeks, all the time spent in introduction and conversation and...had they actually helped? Ren had assumed those meetings had only been useful for his allies, just a way for them to get more comfortable with the abrasive young man they'd be working alongside for the next few months.

Akechi was...every subject, every expertise, every 'accusation.' Ren could easily apply the same right back. That wasn't a coincidence, right? Akechi wasn't stupid enough to be that hypocritical. Then, it wasn't hypocrisy. It was vulnerability. He...Akechi was admitting, in his own messy way, that he wanted what the Thieves had. The thought nearly made Ren reel off the fucking couch.

The detective dragged his gaze towards the far wall. "I can't promise I'll be easy to get along with, though I'm sure you've all seen as much from me. However, I can promise that...I will play my part. Even if our partnership is temporary, it stands that I am your teammate at this time. As such...I will hold myself to a Thief's standard. I hope that is satisfactory."

Ren through a glance across the room. It didn't seem that anyone else had put together what he had, but the detective was still being exceptionally reasonable. Even so, the Thieves still seemed...unsettled. Maybe, more than the words themselves, it was the fact that it was Akechi who had spoken them. Regardless, the silence wasn't helping anyone. "Thank you," Ren said, a little more pointed than he probably needed to. "I could hold it to a vote, if you needed, but I'm guessing we're satisfied." As much as they could be, considering.

Akechi chuckled. "No need. I'll trust your judgment on this matter." He finally let go of his tie, leaning back against the dresser. Ren found himself letting out a breath that tasted more like relief than he'd meant it to. "Considering I have no experience in these meetings, I'll allow you all to proceed as normal. I'll pick things up as I go, I'm sure."

"Haru," Makoto said, and Ren almost jumped out of his own skin at her voice. Low, and inexplicable. "Are you okay telling them what you...or, what Ren told me?"

Haru nodded slowly, thoughtfully. "When Ren and I spoke to my father, the day before his public confession, he made a few very...particular statements." Breath in. Breath out. "The very same statements that I had made to his Shadow, directly prior to him surrendering his Treasure."

Every ounce of focus in the room was directed towards her, except two. Makoto continued to stare at the floor, and Futaba was glaring across the room towards Ren. "That's what Mona meant!?" she spluttered, waving her arms at nothing, almost smacking the inattentive Ann in the face. "Hi, hello, cognition expert here! Why am I just learning about this now!?"

Ann's brow furrowed, and she threw a glance between Futaba, Ren and Morgana – the lattermost of which had begun to shrink sheepishly back into himself. "Wait, sorry, what's going on?"

Futaba scoffed, crossing her arms. "Mishima was telling us about how she'd changed her own heart, and heard a bunch of Ren's words in her head," all eyes turned towards Futaba now, "and Morgana was like 'oh this is just like Okumura' and no one said anything about it, and–"

"Mishima did what!?" Ryuji yelped.

Futaba's explanation died in her throat, and a silent embarrassment took its place. She scrunched up her shoulders, lips pursed, and kicked her legs exasperatedly off the side of the bed.

Okay, Ren wasn't petty enough to miss his cue on purpose. Big brother stepping in. "Sorry for dropping this all on your lap now," he said, dragging attention back towards him. "I figured...well, even if you'd all had more time to think it through, better to focus on it when it's relevant. And since we're heading into Sae's Palace tomorrow..." He let the implication stand alone.

"That's why you asked us all to set aside the rest of the evening for this meeting, is it not?" Yusuke asked.

Ren nodded. "I don't know what exactly this changes. But it's entirely possible we might need to alter our entire plan going forward."

Ryuji shook his head, sending a hand back through his hair. "Dude. I am supremely fucking lost."

"Perhaps a refresher of contexts is in order," Akechi prompted from across the room.

Ren nodded. "Yeah. With Mishima, at least. I think Haru did a pretty good job explaining her part." When no one objected to that assertion, he continued. "Mishima – the Phan Site's admin, she/her – developed a pretty nasty distortion a few months back, right after we'd helped change Futaba's heart." The phrasing was somewhat misleading. Just because he'd found out as much at that point didn't mean that distortion hadn't been festering for a whole hell of a lot longer.

"We confronted her in Mementos and I spoke to her Shadow. I didn't take her Treasure, but she still experienced a Cognitive Overhaul – change of heart. Way quicker than most of the other recoveries we've seen, too. Most of the other changes of heart have taken days or weeks to finalize, but Mishima was able to talk to me the very next afternoon."

Akechi raised an eyebrow at that and genuine surprise flickered between his lashes. Something he wasn't telling them?

"I didn't think much of that at the time, but a couple days ago, we were talking at the school festival and it came up again. Apparently, she'd dreamed about the conversation in Mementos, and was able to throw my words back at me without realizing it."

"Just like Okumura had," Morgana finished. "The message had gotten absorbed into his subconscious through his Shadow, and he was able to regurgitate it back as if it were his own thoughts."

Ann's eyes widened. "That's...concerning," she muttered, though her tone made it sound closer to 'terrifying.'

"Quite," Akechi said, a dry sort of tension laden through the single word.

Futaba shifted, looking like she was ready to speak, but didn't say a word. Ren nodded to her. "Go ahead. I mean, you're our expert, right? Firsthand heart-changed girl."

His sister smiled a little, still seeming hesitant. "Yeah. Um. I told...Ren and Morgana and Kasumi already, a little bit about it. But I had a few dreams about my Shadow too, like, from her point of view. I don't know if I really...like, 'incepted' anything or whatever, cause I was there in my Palace when my heart got changed."

Akechi scoffed out a laugh. "You...well, that is news."

Futaba glared across the room at him. "Well, I was. So, even if my Shadow heard some stuff through one of you guys that made it into my subconscious, I heard the same stuff in person."

"Then it's impossible to say if we can observe the same phenomenon from you," Haru mumbled, scratching her chin in thought. "And Futaba's case is unique in other ways too. She awakened to her Persona while inside her own Palace, didn't she?" Akechi made a strained sound across the room, coughing into his hand in a way that was clearly meant to disguise his shock.

Yusuke hummed a thought, his brow furrowed, staring at a space in the floorboards with an intensity rarely seen away from his palette. "I don't feel our concern is unfounded – I'm quite worried myself at the implication these two instances provide – but I would offer a bit of potential skepticism."

He straightened up, crossing his arms. "I've had a potential contradiction in the back of my mind for a long while, but I haven't found an opportunity to explore it. When we confronted Madarame's Shadow within his Palace, he was...verbose in his depictions of my mother, Miss Masumi and myself. However, beyond admitting to the theft and mangling of my mother's final work, no mention of any of us made it into his public confession, nor did he speak to me about the subject in the days leading up to it."

"I can confirm that as well," Akechi chimed in. "I had to watch that speech a dozen times to properly prepare my talk show reactions." He adjusted his tie, grimacing at the words that had just left his mouth. "I always found it curious, especially when I was able to tie Kitagawa himself to the Thieves in my private investigations, that Madarame never once spoke of him. And if your friend, Miss Ohya, and her tabloid journalism is to be believed, he has wronged Kitagawa quite severely."

Yusuke tensed somewhat. "He has," he replied, cold as the frost that so often embraced his cognitive blade. "Though Miss Ohya's depiction of events was somewhat...hyperbolic."

Okay, getting pretty severely off track. Ohya-bashing wasn't anywhere close to the docket. "Yusuke," Ren said. "Is there any reason you could think of to explain that? Something you've observed us doing differently in the other changes of heart, maybe."

"I'm not quite sure," Yusuke hummed, rubbing his chin, the frigidity thankfully draining from his expression. "There are a few quite generous interpretations of that decision, I suppose. Not that I particularly enjoy any of them, but...they are nonetheless worth considering."

"Like that he didn't want to bother you with it or whatever?" Ryuji offered. "Or, I don't know, maybe he got it off his chest in the Palace, so he didn't feel guilty anymore."

Ren felt a ripple of tension through the room and glanced over towards Ann. She looked pale, as if some ghastly truth had revealed itself to her. "Guys. I don't...I don't know if this means anything, but..." She swallowed hard. "Ren, Ryuji, Morgana. When Kamoshida got up on stage, when he confessed to all of it, do you remember what he said? Before I yelled at him."

Ren nodded, trying to cut in front of the awful shudder he could feel from Ryuji next to him. "Yeah. Some of it, at least. He said he was going to pay back what he did, right? He was..." The memory caught in his throat, and he swallowed it. "He said he'd throw himself off the roof, like Shiho did." Silence. He could almost hear the other Thieves stifling their breaths.

Ann nodded. "Yeah. I can still hear it." She shivered, shook her head. "It's...at the time, I thought he was just being a whiny bastard. I know it was just me, but it sounded...petty, like he was mocking me, mocking Shiho. Making fun of what we went through. That's why I told him what I did, why I spoke up then. But I think..." She trailed off, wrapping her arms around herself in a makeshift hug. "I think he might have been serious."

Ryuji sucked in a breath, and Ren glanced over to see his boyfriend staring at Ann with wide eyes and a shocked expression. "In the Palace. You told him, if he didn't want to face us, he could jump off the castle instead." The Thieves flinched in unison, and Ren's breath froze in his throat.

"The castle," Makoto said, carefully, "was his distorted view of Shujin, wasn't it?" Ann just nodded, looking genuinely queasy.

"Even if you put the idea in his head," Morgana said, digging his claws anxiously into the side of the couch, "that doesn't make you responsible. The subconscious mind has its limits, it can't make conscious decisions, that's why Shadows act unabashed in the Metaverse even if their real selves have to be subtle." Haru gently ran her hand across his fur, petting the cat into a proximity of calmness.

"It probably isn't 1-to-1 either," Futaba offered, scooting a few inches closer to Ann. "I mean, Shadows and Personas are two sides of the same coin, right? And my Shadow fought you all in the Palace, but Necronomicon didn't have actual data on anyone."

"Perhaps," Haru said, slowly, "it's nothing more than a direct conversation that the outside world can't see. Maybe the only words that matter to Shadows are the ones that would convince them in reality, if we had the chance to make sure those words could reach them. That's why my father could echo back my words, but Yusuke's could not echo back his."

"An intervention," Akechi said, his tone empty. Ren felt a shiver trace his spine. Those were Kasumi's words, her evaluation.

Haru nodded, then started in place. "Oh! I don't mean to say that you did anything wrong, Yusuke, I'm sorry."

"No insult taken," the young man said with a faint smile. "I admit, our infiltration of Madarame's Palace was far from clean. Some messiness is an expected result."

Futaba hummed a thought, kicking her legs faster, her heels smacking against the bed frame. "What if...changing someone's heart and stealing their Treasure aren't...well, what if they're both different ways to reach the same conclusion? What if they both induce Cognitive Overhaul?"

Akechi, who had been all but a statue for the rest of the conversation, stepped closer to the circle of chairs, though still remaining beyond it. "Intriguing. Do continue, Miss Sakura."

"Right," Futaba said, with a look that might have been gratitude. "Well, mom talked about something called a Cognitive Revision in one of her reports, sort of an alternative way to get rid of distortion. Cognitive Overhauls are really intense, they're like exposure therapy, shocking someone into fixing their issues. But Revisions are...well, I mean, we do them all the time. Anytime we change our minds on something we've already made a decision about, that's a Revision. Like changing our own hearts, a little bit. But distortions make it impossible to do that, it's a part of our own mind that we can't process, that we refuse to touch. But...well, that's what actual interventions are for, right?"

"Your mom didn't know any way of causing Cognitive Overhauls," Makoto said, her eyes flicking ever so slightly back and forth, like she was rapidly skimming some sort of invisible text. "But we do. Taking someone's Treasure clears up that mental block, so our target doesn't have any choice but to face the parts of themselves they didn't want to think about." She sounded utterly engrossed, and Ren had a feeling he knew why.

Futaba nodded so quickly that Ren half-expected her head to pop off her shoulders. "But you guys didn't take Mishima's Treasure. Ren talked her through her distortion, and she faced that part of herself without being forced to. That was a Revision, she handled the Overhaul part at her own pace."

"Wait, back up a sec," Ryuji said, throwing his hands up. "So, did we...did we just find a new, better way of changing hearts? Like, if it's that much quicker, then we should just try and do it with every Shadow, yeah?"

Morgana grumbled out a dissent, his little kitty face curled into an approximation of a frown, ears back. "It's not that easy. It's definitely possible that every Shadow could find a way to undo their own distortion, and we could probably find the right words to say to make that happen. But so long as the Treasure remains part of their subconscious, it's always possible they could regress, decide it's too painful or too uncomfortable to keep facing it."

"So, it's a matter of trust," Ann said, clearly following the logic. "If we did it all over again, I know I'd trust Mishima to change her own heart, no problem. But someone like Kamoshida?" She barked out a laugh. "Not a chance. Never in a million years. I'd rather kill him than trust him with that."

"Good to see at least one of you is possessed of the gift of wisdom," Akechi said, a dry little tease, sharp yet toothless as anything. "But I suppose that leads to the question of the hour." He directed his attention towards Makoto with a reptilian smirk.

Makoto kept her eyes floorbound, but something behind her expression shifted, a coldness in her near-crimson eyes that seemed more fitting of iron than flesh. "Do we trust my sister? Do we trust Sae to change her own heart?"


Thank you so much to Jane for her infinite patience, inspiration and beta-reading notes. As always, she's an absolute g-dsend.

We're finally hereeeee. I've legitimately missed writing Metaverse sections of this fic, so I'm really excited to pop back into a Palace infiltration for the first time in like a year holy shit. Especially now that the Thieves have a couple new wrinkles to their existing roster. We are now officially entering the Niijima arc and I cannot wait.