It's only a paper moon

Sailing over a cardboard sea,

But it wouldn't be make-believe

If you believed in me

Prologue: Disintegration

Goro Akechi - the real one, thank you - stumbled through the gaudy corridors of Masayoshi Shido's palace. A bullet burned in his side, but as long as he wasn't dead he supposed he might still get out of this.

Dispatching the puppet wasn't as hard as he'd thought it would be; dumbass Shido had no idea what kind of powers Akechi had in here, so all the puppet had was a normal gun. Feh. Getting out of the locked engine room was far more difficult, but he did that too. He ended up crawling out some kind of vent, which luckily didn't have any kind of covering on it. When he emerged onto the ship's deck, he noticed the grate lying on the floor. So, it was open for him courtesy of those idiot Phantom Thieves. Perfect. He thought about hurling the grate into the sea, as a symbol of his feelings, but the blood loss was already making him a little woozy, so he left it alone and headed towards the foredeck.

Along the way, he dispatched a shadow or two, but they mostly avoided him now. Just as well. He finally made it out to the foredeck and fumbled around for his phone. Darkness was closing around his vision and what he could see was getting blurry. His last thought before passing out was, I'm never going to get the blood out.

But then, to his surprise, he woke up again. Face down in a gutter, but still. It was more than he had dared hope. He rolled over onto his back and looked up at the stars. In the middle of Tokyo you couldn't really see them, but they were there. Akechi thought about how many millions of sins the stars had watched over in their time and smiled.

The sky shimmered. Akechi frowned. This didn't quite look like reality, but it wasn't the palace either. A little boy in a shiny silver robe wandered over.

"Good job!" said the boy.

"Help?" Akechi managed to croak.

"Ah, you need something."

"Doctor," said Akechi.

"Sorry, mister. I don't have one of those. They said you were supposed to have one of these, though."

From his pocket, he produced some kind of star-shaped object. When Akechi didn't reach out for it, the boy put it directly into his hand. It felt a bit heavy and slightly warm to the touch, like a stone warmed in the sun.

"What...is this?"

"You should have had it from the beginning. Somebody made a mistake. Well, better late than never!"

With that, the boy skipped away, the sky shimmering around him. Akechi closed his eyes and tried to get comfortable. Getting up seemed very much out of the question. His limbs felt heavy and his fingers were cold. They curled around the strange warmth of the rock. In the distance, he could hear the wail of an ambulance siren and hoped it was coming his way.

Later, Goro Akechi would not remember the wish he made.

Chapter 1: The First Bond

It was months later, post-graduation, before any of the Phantom Thieves knew what became of Akechi. Makoto Niijima was the first, because her sister Sae was working on the Shido case. Dead or not, Akechi was one of the linchpins of the case. Makoto and the others had filled Sae in as much as they could, but of course he was the only one who knew exactly what he'd done for Shido. Which was why, when he claimed he knew nothing about any "meta-verse" or "other world" or "weird phone app," Makoto was Sae's first call.

Makoto agreed to come in and talk to him at the police station. She was familiar with the layout - more than any recent high school grad should be - but she didn't know which interrogation room he'd be in. She hoped it wasn't going to be the basement one; just thinking about what had happened there in the Metaverse was enough to give her chills.

Fortunately, the room in question was on the main floor, mere feet away from dozens of police officers. She felt another chill and looked around for an air conditioning vent. Just nerves, maybe.

There were two armed guards at the door; Sae nodded at them and they nodded back.

"I'll be right outside if you need me," said Sae, but did not insult Makoto by asking if she was prepared.

He was sitting with ankles and wrists shackled together and to the table, which was bolted to the floor. Goro Akechi looked up at her with a blank expression as she sat down opposite him.

"Hello, Akechi-san," she said neutrally.

"Niijima...Makoto Niijima?" he said. "Yes...I met you at your school's festival. If Sae-san asked you here, I don't know what she's expecting."

"She didn't spend any time with you in the Metaverse, so I suppose she wanted a firsthand account."

He sighed. "This again. It's like I told Sae-san. I don't remember anything about some kind of alternate reality. She claims I murdered people...well, I guess she has the evidence to prove it, but I still don't remember."

Makoto nodded. "That briefcase you always carried around had a gun in it, right? Even so, all your crimes took place in the Metaverse." She arched an eyebrow at him. "You didn't even need a real gun for that, you know."

"If you say so."

She took out her phone and flipped through the gallery, then flipped it around to show him a photo. It was all the Phantom Thieves together, taken during the brief time Akechi had been on the team. He looked it over, but showed no sign of recognition.

"All these people are wearing masks," he said flatly. "Is one of them supposed to be me?"

Makoto pointed. "That's you, in the white suit and the red mask. It's the symbol of your rebellious soul."

He rolled his eyes. "Now I know you're messing with me."

Makoto flipped through her gallery again until she found the photo Ren-kun had sent her. He was still in his hometown, but he'd wanted to help in some way. It was a selfie of Ren and Akechi, sitting at a small table with drinks and smiling happily.

"How about this one?" she asked.

He brightened a little.

"I do remember this. We're at the jazz club in Kichijoji. Probably my favorite place in the city. This is my...my friend. Where is he now?"

"You don't remember shooting him in the head with a handgun?" said Makoto sharply, dodging the question. "It happened in a room a lot like this one."

Akechi blanched and looked back down at his hands. "Come on. If I took him to Jazz Jin, we must have been close."

"You were. He was your best friend," she said softly, letting a bit of sadness creep into her voice. "We all regretted how things turned out."

She was just playing along to see what he would do, but to her surprise, she saw a tear drip off his cheek and onto the table. Given his state of mind the last time they'd spoken, this was not what she was expecting. Especially since he had to know Ren wasn't really dead - that is, if he truly was faking. He rubbed at his eyes like a kid, blushing, furiously embarrassed.

"I get it now," he said brokenly. "Just bring me the papers. I'll sign whatever you want."

Makoto looked back at the one-way mirror, startled. Outside the interrogation room, Sae nodded in admiration. Admittedly, she'd been skeptical when Makoto told her she wanted to become a police officer, but watching her smoothly draw out a criminal like this was downright inspiring.

Sae had banged the table and coerced and cajoled, but it hadn't worked any better on Akechi than it did on Amamiya. In fact, it was Akechi's consistency that made Sae call Makoto for a second opinion. His absolute refusal to give her a confession reminded her strongly of Amamiya and the mistakes she'd made with him. Still, she needed Akechi's confession to help make the case against Shido, so she pushed away her doubts.

Sae entered the room and placed a stack of papers on the table. For each person Akechi attacked in the Metaverse, Sae had prepared a confession. These were brief, because the overall scope of his crimes was covered in the final document, the most important one: the one that tied him to Masayoshi Shido.

Akechi took a moment to collect himself. Sae waited while he read through each confession expressionlessly. When he reached the end, he looked up with blank, dead eyes.

"If I confess to these murders...they'll be hung like a noose around the neck of Masayoshi Shido?"

"Certainly. You are the piece that connects Shido to these incidents." Sae's brow pinched together. "Why did you choose to work for him, anyway? That's something I was never able to figure out."

"You mean, how did two murderous pieces of gutter trash join forces to ruin all these lives?" Akechi looked up at her with an unsettling gaze. "The apple didn't fall far from the tree, that's how."

Sae squinted at him, trying to make sense of this cryptic statement. "Just to clarify, are you telling me -"

"Yes. My mother was Shido's mistress until she got pregnant. My birth ruined their relationship - and her life. If I destroy him as well, that could be called justice. It's symmetrical, at least."

Sae's eyes popped open. His mother had some serious problems and he held Shido responsible. That explained a lot - no, rather, it changed her perception of what she already knew. Like a photo negative developed into living color, suddenly she was seeing Goro Akechi in an entirely new way.

"What about your life?" said Sae.

Akechi just shook his head. "Me? Who cares? Who's even left to care?"

"Akechi-kun…" said Makoto softly, turning the pen over and over in her hands. Even after all that had happened between the Phantom Thieves and Akechi, Makoto still had some sympathy for him. And she hadn't been surprised at all by his revelation; it was obvious now that Makoto knew a lot more about him than Sae did.

Sae bit her lip. If she was honest with herself, she hadn't given Akechi her full attention. The Shido case was so big and so important and she felt like she knew all she needed to know about his junior hitman...she'd just set his file aside and moved on.

One thing she did know - something she couldn't forget - was that he had only been 15 years old when he'd contacted Shido. A child, still in middle school. According to Shido, everything he'd done since then had been at Shido's command. His father's orders. She thought again of Amamiya, the boy she'd nearly railroaded into prison, again because of Shido's influence.

"I'm going to need that if you want me to sign these, Niijima-san," said Akechi, pointing at Makoto's pen.

Sae looked over at her little sister. She'd been so young when their father died, leaving them orphans. What would have happened if she hadn't been old enough to look after Makoto? She would have been left to the mercy of the foster care system, as Akechi was. She took Makoto's hand and squeezed it, sliding the pen out as she did so.

"No," said Sae. "Don't sign anything. Don't speak to anyone with a badge."

Akechi and Makoto stared at her in astonishment as she calmly pocketed the pen and collected the confession papers.

"You have a badge," Akechi pointed out.

Sae took it off and laid it on top of the folder with the confession papers. "The prosecutor's office was out of line interrogating a minor without so much as a warning. Goro Akechi, I would like to represent you in court, if you would accept my counsel."

A smirk creeped across his face, a shadow of the "other" Akechi that Makoto had met during their tangle with Dr. Maruki.

"Do you really want your first case as a defense attorney to be an utter disaster?" he asked. "Because that's what's going to happen if you take me as a client."

Sae shook her head resolutely. "If you don't trust me, I can understand that. I can refer you to another lawyer if you'd prefer. I'm just...I'm tired of being the wheel that grinds others down."

Akechi thought that over. "If you're serious, then okay. I'll place my life in your hands."

He held out his hand and they shook, sealing the deal.

A short time later, Makoto and Sae were sitting at the outdoor bar of a ramen shop, slurping noodles.

Sae polished off a second beer and waved at the proprietor for another. Makoto gave her a stern look, which she ignored. She was celebrating. And calming her nerves. In any case, drinking was called for.

"So, was I the only thing keeping you at the prosecutor's office or what?" said Makoto. "Because I just got my new place and this feels really sudden."

"No, I've been thinking about quitting for a while now. I wanted to wrap up the Shido case first, but…" Sae trailed off.

Makoto shook her head in bemusement. "Does it really matter that much that Shido is his father?"

"Of course. It changes everything. Shido had a tremendous amount of power over him, far more than if he were just some unrelated kid."

Makoto arched an eyebrow. "I think your new client would be the first to say he was the one who had power over Shido. He's the one with the big secret to reveal, after all."

"Did he show you any proof?" asked Sae.

"No, but…. You think he didn't have evidence of his claim?"

Sae shrugged. "I doubt it. What could he possibly have other than hearsay from a dead woman? Meanwhile, Shido had the ability to make his every wish come true. Not just power or fame, but a family, a stable home...a future."

"I never thought of it that way," said Makoto, wondering if all this had occurred to Ren-kun. Probably, knowing him.

"I tried to keep our lives secure so you'd never need to think about such things. Makoto, how much do you know about Akechi, anyway? You already knew about him, and don't think I didn't notice. How did you find out?"

"He told all of us. I got the impression that he wanted people to understand him, despite all his problems."

"I thought so too." Sae sat back, thinking. After a moment, she said, "Can I ask your opinion?"

"Of course."

"Do you think I'm making a mistake representing Akechi?"

Makoto was a little flustered. Sis, asking her opinion about something like this? Things really were changing. She thought carefully before replying.

"No, I don't think it's a mistake. When I said we all regretted how things turned out...that was the truth. I'm glad he has someone like you fighting for him."

"You really got him to open up, you know. You could be quite the interrogator if you wanted to be," said Sae with a smile.

"Then I guess that makes us rivals, counselor," said Makoto, grinning back. "Anyway, you should talk to Ren-kun if you want to know more about Akechi. Although maybe you should have done that before you quit your job? Just a thought."

While Sae paid the bill, Makoto's attention drifted to the TV in the corner, which was now showing a news broadcast.

"...Another psychotic breakdown case, despite police assurances that the suspects are already in custody. The victim, Osamu Hamada, was a veteran of the Japan Self-Defence Forces..."

Makoto and Sae looked at each other.

"Akechi was the only one who had that ability, and he's been in custody of one sort or another for months," Sae mused. "How is this possible?"

Makoto shook her head helplessly. "Sis...it isn't."