"Boom." Kasumi slapped down the final card in her hand on the table.
"Well played," Wakaba smiled, reaching for the cards to shuffle them. "I believe it's seven to three in to-"
She was interrupted by what can be best described as the reality itself blinking. When it opened its eye(s) back, everything around Wakaba and Kasumi still had whatever shape and texture it possessed a moment before, but all the colors surrounding them disappeared, replaced with a uniform shade of gray. That included the cards, which became identical in appearances – thin black rectangles, blank on both ends.
"Well, looks like we won't have another round," Wakaba commented, unnerved. "I could try and find a marker to write the numbers and colors, but I'm almost certain it would not work."
Curious, Kasumi got out of the booth and marched towards the exit. She unlocked the door and stepped outside, and Wakaba followed.
The world outside of Leblanc looked similar to the cafe's interior – everything was gray, and only the lights and shadows allowed the two to tell when one object began and another ended. On top of that, there didn't seem to be any people around. No chatter of voices, no steps, no cars or trains in the distance. Just the two of them, alone.
"Well," Kasumi muttered under her breath, "that's the end of the line."
"A most likely hypothesis," Wakaba agreed.
The two stood there for a moment. There wasn't anywhere for them to go.
"Do you…" Kasumi said, losing her confidence, "Do you think there's something on the other side for us?"
Wakaba put her hand on her shoulder in response. "At this point, I wouldn't dare guess."
Every once in a while, Makoto wondered if Phantom Thievery would be the death of her.
At that point the thought has been in the back of her head for a few months. With time, it stopped being scary and became just another fact of her double life. Wake up, go to school, forcefully make a baddie not-evil, tell sis you love her on the off-chance you get arrested and 'commit suicide' in police custody, squeeze in some homework in the evening. She expected either that or an 'accident' on the way to or from school, but honestly, falling from hundreds of meters after a high-up-in-the-sky Palace collapsed shouldn't have come as a surprise.
Her train of thought got interrupted when something glowed in her peripheral vision. She craned her neck to see the other Thieves falling next to her, and there was a Morgana-shaped source of light in the middle of the crowd. Despite all the whooshing she was able to hear his voice.
"Can't… end… like this…"
Makoto felt herself pulled towards him for some reason, and noticed that so were the others. The flash turned blinding, she felt herself losing most of her momentum in a way best described as 'unnaturally and unexpectedly gentle', and when the light faded away, she was, inexplicably, sitting in the pilot seat of a helicopter, with Ann as her co-pilot, and the others crowded the back.
"Mona?" Ann blurted out.
"Yep!" the cat's voice came from nowhere in particular. "You still have to steer me, but I can keep the altitude on my own."
"That's a relief," Makoto commented, slowly processing the fact that she will not end her life colliding with the ground at terminal velocity. "I don't have much experience with this type of choppe-"
"We are three people short!" Yusuke proclaimed.
Ann turned around to do a quick headcount. "Shit." She turned back and saw three barely visible specks, in colors of Akira, Goro and Sumire, a few dozen meters away and below them. "SHIT!"
Makoto gripped the cyclic stick tightly. Her dying wasn't a problem. Her friends dying, on the other hand, was a recurring nightmare. "Everybody hang tight!" she said, slamming the stick forward.
The helicopter tilted forward. "Do you know what you're doing?" Morgana asked, throttling the engine to lower the altitude.
"I don't know, but we won't save them from a distance," Makoto exclaimed. "We'll play it by ear."
Sumire didn't want to die.
Sumire was also falling from great height, towards a blocky and gray simulacrum of the city, and what she wanted or didn't want didn't really matter at that point.
Air was loudly whooshing past her ears and she found it difficult, though not impossible, to breathe. A few tears came out of her eyes and, from her point of view, floated upwards, falling slower than she was. This couldn't have been the end, could it? Maruki-san probably mucked with the physics or something so no parachute didn't mean going splat on the ground, right? The thought didn't seem plausible, after he had demonstrated his lack of foresight so many times, but it was more comforting than the idea that she was about to meet the real Kasumi in person.
She glanced to the side. Goro and Akira were by her side, also in freefall. But, unlike her, they didn't seem to be bothered by the prospect of a sudden stop at the end. On some level, both of them expected it to end like this. Maybe in not these exact circumstances, and definitely not with them on the same side, but it was an outcome they accepted. Maybe even expected, at the end of the day.
Sumire clumsily shifted her body weight to get herself closer to the boys, and grabbed Goro's left hand and Akira's right. They turned to her and, noticing her fear, squeezed her hands in return, in a gesture of reassurance. She closed her eyes and tried to brace herself, as best as she could.
And then, all three of them felt some sort of… friction against their bodies?
Sumire opened her eyes to see the group going down some sort of oversized black slide, curving down in an arc - gently enough to not cause a sudden stop, but they were high enough that it curved almost ninety degrees, from almost vertical to fully horizontal position. The three started losing speed from the friction of the slide as it became less and less steep.
"Wh-what's happening?" Sumire asked once she could hear her own voice, and got two shrugs in response.
The slide wasn't long enough to get them to completely stop, but by the time they reached the ground and fell off the edge, they were going slow enough that they only tumbled a bit down the road before stopping, with no lasting harm done to them. After they stopped moving, the slide split into individual strands, revealing themselves to be tentacles of Maruki's Persona. They briefly fizzed in and out of existence before rapidly retracting into the distance.
"Huh…" Sumire muttered, watching them disappear behind a corner.
They stayed down for a moment, as if they were scared that it was just a setup to some punchline about to be inflicted on them. Finally, Akira turned his head to the side. "Can you stand, Goro?"
With a series of strained grunts, Goro picked himself up from the ground and leaned against a small barrier separating the road from the pavement. "Yes," he grumbled, "if you lower… your expectations…" He took a moment to absorb their surroundings, Akira and Sumire got up and dusted themselves off.. "...where the fuck are we?"
They were in the middle of a two-lane road somewhere in a city, probably Tokyo. Any more precise identification was hampered by the fact that everything around them was the exact same dull, muted gray. The thirteen-floor hotel with a barely readable raised sign on the top of it, the block of flats matching its height on the other side of the road, the pavement, a bunch of leafless trees scattered around, the few parked cars and bikes, the skyscrapers in the distance, all of these things were drained of their expected color. But what bothered the trio the most was the silence. No car sounds, no people chattering, no trains in the distance, it was completely out of place in one of the biggest metropolises of the world, and to put it bluntly, it was driving them nuts.
To their relief, it was finally broken by something; a whirr of a spinning rotor, and a purr of an engine, getting increasingly louder. They raised their heads towards the source of the sound and noticed a chopper flying in their direction. It landed on the road with a little bounce, stopped in place a bit too close to the three, and then turned into a pile of the remaining Phantom Thieves with Morgana on top. Makoto emerged from the pile. "Are you guys okay?"
"Are you guys okay?!" Sumire shouted back, still shaken. "Is this- is this- are we all alive?!"
"Looks like it," Ann replied.
"And just this once, everybody lives," Akira muttered under his breath.
"And considering Maruki was able to spawn these tentacles," Makoto added, "he should be fine as we-"
There was a change in the air. The masks on those of the Thieves that still had them turned to dust, that then scattered into the wind.
"The fuck…" Akira muttered. He attempted to summon Loki or any of his other Personas, but nothing happened.
"Guys," Morgana said, "is it just me, or we can't summon-"
Before he could finish that sentence, everything around them very briefly turned into a wireframe model of itself before disappearing. With nothing to lean on, Goro hit the ground again with a grunt, and Akira helped him get up and lean on his shoulder.
"Maruki, my ten o'clock," Makoto announced.
The group turned to see him about a hundred meters away from the group, back in his suit and glasses. The torch, his Palace's Treasure, was on the ground in front of him, but he didn't pay attention to it, anxiously scanning the surroundings for something. Finally, he darted off to the side. They glanced in the direction he was running towards and saw the Nagant discarded on the ground, a few dozen meters away from them. The group rushed towards the gun, but Maruki reached it before them. He frantically grabbed it from the ground, spun on his heel and pointed it in the Thieves' direction with trembling hands.
"Stay away from me!" he screamed, more scared of them than they were of him.
"This thing has five bullets in it," Akira said, completely unbothered. "And there are nine of us."
"You know how heavy that trigger is," Goro said to nobody in particular. "You simply cannot fire that thing rapidly. Maruki will fire one bullet, miss, and get disarmed by the first person to get to him before he fires a second."
"Or zero bullets!" Sumire added hastily. "Zero is a nice number too, Maruki-san!"
Nothing followed. The Thieves noticed the gun was still pointed in their direction, but Maruki didn't even try to aim it at anyone in particular. At that point there was about fifteen meters of distance between him and the group, so disarming him "manually" would be viable, but no Personas meant no healing spells and so nobody dared to tempt fate by getting closer or otherwise drawing his attention.
"So…" Maruki finally broke the silence, "what happens now?"
"You're the one with a firearm," Makoto diplomatically pointed out. "It is out of our hands."
"Give him a moment," Goro muttered. "You can't rush the realization."
"Huh?" Maruki pointed the gun at Goro in response. "What realization?!"
"The reality itself is shutting down," Goro gestured with the hand not around Akira's shoulder. "And it's not a trick to tip the scales for you – you'd have many other, better, safer ways of stopping us. And if it isn't a trick, then the only remaining possibility is, you're finally realizing your little project wouldn't pan out."
Maruki didn't respond. The grip on the gun got a bit firmer, and the barrel was now pointing directly at Goro's head.
"This is the part where it all sinks in," Goro continued. "You try to… you ask yourself why you've done all that in the first place, and all the previous…" He caught himself before saying 'excuses', "all the justifications you had before now ring hollow. Is that it?"
"I told you, I'm not going to take lip from an assassin," he growled.
"And I told you 'Yeah, fair'," Goro replied, still unbothered. "But tell me… am I saying anything you aren't telling yourself right now?"
More terse silence followed, as Maruki stared daggers at Goro; for the most part he didn't seem bothered by it, in either a deliberate taunt or a side effect of being nigh-utterly spent.
"I…" Maruki said at last, lowering his head in shame. "I just wanted to help people." He sighed. "And you, the Phantom Thieves, should know how it feels to get your life ruined by random crap beyond your control."
"I mean, yeah?" Ryuji shrugged a bit. "Doesn't make your idea any better, Doc."
"Your diagnosis is accurate, but your treatment suggestion was unacceptable," Yusuke replied.
"There are other ways to make the world a better place," Makoto joined the chain. "Harder, yes, but… less invasive."
"And that guilt you feel now?" Goro tossed in his two cents. "It's not the end-all-be-all. Step away, live a good life, help a few people in need, and it will get… more manageable, at the very least."
"And-and in the meantime, other people can help you with that burden, you know?" Sumire finished. "Take our word for it, Maruki-san. You're not alone in the world."
"So yeah, that's our pitch," Akira concluded. "We don't want to hurt you anymore, and you don't want to hurt us. Put down the gun and let's wrap this all up, Takuto."
Maruki lowered his gun a bit, still unable to raise his head and stare the Phantom Thieves in the eye. "You… you are right," he finally admitted. "You were right all along. I couldn't keep this reality running and stick to my principles while doing so."
"Everyone makes mistakes," Haru said. "It takes courage to admit you did wrong."
"And hey, at the end of the day, you're not even the biggest screw-up in the room," Morgana added.
"Now please," Ann pleaded, "put the gun down."
Maruki didn't react, still staring at a random point on the ground somewhere between him and the Thieves.
He then put the barrel of the gun underneath his chin.
Maybe it was the last shred of doubt in the back of his head, spawned by the suppressor pressed against his body. Maybe it was the aforementioned heavy trigger, offering just enough resistance. Or maybe the reality itself bent once more because someone gave it a nudge at the right moment. Whatever the reason, Sumire sprung forward with great speed, and before the hammer struck the primer, before the other Thieves even processed what was about to happen, she was close enough to Maruki to pull the gun to the side, then stomp on his foot to make him release it and take a step back.
For the next few seconds, Maruki stared at Sumire, watching her take deep breaths to try and calm herself down. She slowly put the revolver down on the ground, pushed it behind her, in the direction of the other Thieves, and stood back up.
Then something cracked inside her and she slapped Maruki in the face.
"Ow!"
"Are you-" Slap. "-fucking-" Slap. "-serious?!"
Makoto and Ryuji ran up to restrain her. "C'mon," Ryuji muttered to her. "It's over. No more fighting."
"I did not brave the collective consciousness, duel my own insecurities, and stand between you and a homicidal Goro-kun for you to kill yourself at the end of it!" Sumire proclaimed, trying to yank herself away. "You will live, you hear?! Live, you bastard!"
"We are sorry for this," Haru told Maruki. She picked up the Nagant from the ground and glanced at Goro. "How do I unload this thing?"
"There's an ejector rod below the barrel," he explained. "Unscrew it, then-"
And then Maruki's reality shut down for good.
Akira found himself standing in the Velvet Room, in front of Igor's desk. The man (?) himself was sitting by it, and his assistant was standing by his side.
"Greetings, Trickster," Lavenza greeted him.
"Hey," Akira half-heartedly waved at them.
"I believe," Igor proclaimed, "that since we are able to converse, it means Mr. Maruki was successfully stopped."
Akira sighed. "Yes."
"I wanted to both thank you for your service and apologize for another mistake I have made," Igor continued. "I was prepared for a takeover attempt, but I did not anticipate that he would simply isolate us from the outside world."
"Everyone makes mistakes, I suppose," Akira muttered. "I still have a few loose ends to tie up in the real world, but I've got one question and I think you're the only one that can answer it."
Igor tented his fingers. "Let me hear it."
"Takuto claimed that he had messed with mine and everyone else's memories," Akira said, "and that Goro's redemption didn't really happen. Most likely, you're the one witness immune to his tampering – what happened between our fight in the engine room and Takuto's takeover?"
"Let me get something straight, Mr. Akiren:" Igor replied, "I am not omniscient, and I cannot tell you what is, or was, inside Mr. Akechi's mind. I witnessed first-hand that he ultimately opposed the impostor and went to fight him alongside you. I do not know why he did it, whether out of a genuine change or heart or pragmatism. And the impostor had to be defeated for Mr. Maruki to inherit his powers, so that is certain as well. As for the rest… I cannot tell with confidence."
"Cryptic as ever," Akira groaned.
"I find that letting people figure things out on their own gets better results," Igor replied. "Not to mention, there are forces stronger than even me, and I would rather not run afoul of them."
"By that you mean, we're in a story and it needs tension to 'work'?"
"It is not what I had in mind, but it is a good example."
"Right," Akira sighed again. "I believe that's that for now, so," he bowed slightly, "farewell, and thanks for the help."
"Don't mention it," Igor proclaimed. "My role is to assist. And should we never speak again… you were truly a remarkable guest. Now, enjoy your respite."
Akira disappeared in a flash.