Literally: to hit oneself in the breasts
Meaning: to regret something, to admit you did something wrong

Saturday, January 7th, Morning

ribbon330: He-lllloooo, Goro-san.
ribbon330: Do you have any plans for the morning?
ak56: Yes. Why do you ask?
ribbon330: No reason. Just curious.
ribbon330: And what are you planning?
ak56: Well, having prepared for the third semester, I am currently heading with Morgana to Mementos.
ak56: We are going to test the limits of my Gun resistance in the Metaverse.
ribbon330: And how will you do that?
ak56: By shooting me.
ak56: Morgana will be on standby with healing spells.
ak56: If you feel like joining the "I Shot Goro Akechi" Club, we'll be in the topmost layer.
ribbon330: No, thanks.

Sumire put her phone in her pocket and marched out of the Yongen-Jaya station. She had planned the whole conversation ahead – she'd approach Futaba (that was her name, right?) and address her as Oracle. Maybe use the name "Phantom Thieves". Then, once Futaba processes the rush of memories, she would introduce herself, outline the situation, and ask for help. Then, she would quickly round up all the others, return to Maruki's Palace, and clear the way forward. Yes, it was a good plan, what could possibly go wrong?

Well, we're about to find out – the gymnast saw a girl roughly her age, with a laptop bag on her arm and distinct neon-orange hair, reaching to her waist. Between her visits to Leblanc before she had decided to approach Goro and the bits and pieces of information picked elsewhere, Sumire was sure of her identity. A part of her suggested turning around and leaving without making a fuss, but she drowned it out.

"Oracle-senpai!" she called out. No reaction – the nerd was in her own little world. She tried to get past the gymnast, but she put her hand on her shoulder. "Oracle-senpai, the Phantom Thieves need your help."

"Yeah, yeah, they're in trouble and need my credit card details," she replied. She tried to march away, but Sumire just stepped in front of her.

"Come on," she pleaded. "You were the Thieves' computer expert, remember? You must remember."

The subtle change in Futaba's expression indicated the gears started turning in the nerd's head. "Why, I…" she mumbled. "Yes. I… I joined the Phantom Thieves last summer because… because…" Her eyes opened wide. Her lower lip trembled a bit. The gears then ground completely to a halt and she dropped down on her knees.

"Oracle!" Sumire shouted, but Futaba wasn't listening.

As far as the nerd was concerned, the outside world stopped existing. All her processing power was spent on trying to unpack a zip bomb containing every single shitty thing that happened to her over the past two years or so. The powerlessness, the grief, the suicidal ideation, the physical pain caused by the world putting her through a stress test, all experienced in an infinitesimal period of time. A heuristic routine kicked in – these eschew finding perfect solutions in favour of finding passable solutions quickly. The input of that routine was 'you're suffering after the redhead said something', and the output was 'your suffering is her fault'.

With unexpected speed and force, Futaba punched Sumire in the solar plexus.

It wasn't a debilitating punch – even at the peak of her rage, Futaba was no powerhouse – but it was enough to briefly disorient the gymnast. The nerd had an opening to leave the scene. By the time Sumire turned a corner to follow her, she disappeared behind the door into the Sakura household.

Having run out of bravery for the day, Sumire spent a moment staring at the gate from a distance, then reached for her cell phone.

Having learned from previous mistakes, Kasumi unplugged the electric kettle before picking up the call. "Sumi!" she beamed. "How did-"

"I messed up."

That was unexpected. "It can't be that bad," the other twin tried to sound supportive. "What happened?"

"B-breaking Oracle-senpai out…" she sounded panicked, "She lost her bearings, punched me, and ran home, what should I do?!"

That was unexpected. "Crud," Kasumi cussed, keeping her cool more competently than her companion. "What will happen if you walk away and pretend nothing happened?"

"Someone will notice," Sumire replied. "Maybe Goro, maybe Morgana… or maybe Oracle-senpai's parents. And her mom will probably be more bothered by dying again than you are."

"Yeah…" Kasumi was forced to confront the fact that she had not thought this through. "Dammit. Someone will need to talk her down before things get out of hand." She paused. "I encouraged you, I'm taking the blame, but we've gotta talk to the Thieves about it post-haste."

"We can talk with Goro and Morgana in person," Sumire suggested. "Meet me in Shibuya, near the dog statue."

Sumire and Kasumi materialized by the entrance to Mementos.

"Huh," the latter said. "So humanity's cognition looks like a creepy subway. Checks out, really."

Lavenza, dutifully standing by an entrance to the Velvet Room, glanced at the two. "Greetings, Ms. Yoshizawa. You have brought a guest, who is she?"

"I'm her sister, Kasumi," she smiled and waved. "I have to talk to her friends and they're apparently here."

"They entered some time ago and didn't leave yet," the assistant replied, "but I must warn you: It is a dangerous place for the unprepared."

"I'm sure Sumi will protect me," the other twin smiled, then glanced at her sister. "Rig-" She finally registered Sumire's costume change and took a moment to process it. "Oh… kay…" Beat. "Not gonna lie, I love this outfit."

"Let's just go, okay?" The gymnast marched through the fake ticket gates, then off the platform and onto the tracks. Kasumi followed her closely.

"We won't get run over by a cognitive subway train or anything?" she asked.

"I… don't think so?" Sumire replied. "I didn't see one when training with Goro." Beat. "Um, I mean Crow. We're using code names in the Metaverse. I'm Green, and Morgana is Mona."

Kasumi raised an eyebrow. "Sounds… excessive."

"To the contrary," someone familiar proclaimed from around the corner, "you never know when a malicious third party might overhear you, and codenames create some plausible deniability."

The two took a turn to follow the voice and found themselves face to face with the two boys. "Hi, malicious third party," the other twin grinned.

"Greetings," Goro replied, unamused.

"Why did you bring your sister here, Green?" Morgana asked, handing the detective his PDW back.

"Well," Kasumi said before Sumire could open her mouth, "it's because I messed things up and I need to say sorry and warn you."

The detective raised an eyebrow, putting his weapon away. "Your vagueness is concerning. What did you do?"

"I, um, broke Futaba out of Maruki's reality." The two scowled, as she continued: "She took it badly. Like, punched me in the gut and ran back home in a panic."

"Of course she took it badly, that's why we wanted to leave her alone!" Morgana raised his voice.

"Spare your vocal cords, Mona," Goro remarked. "One, screaming at her will not improve our current situation, and two, you're screaming at the wrong sister."

Kasumi managed to maintain a neutral expression. "What are you on about?"

"What is Oracle's hair colour?"

"Uh… dark brown?"

"Aaand there we go," Goro adjusted his glasses by the bridge. "You had no reason to approach her on her own volition." He turned to Sumire and gave her an accusatory pointer finger. "You, on the other hand, were concerned about the roadblock in Maruki's Palace and considered roping her back into the Phantom Thieves. Even if it had turned out your sister approached her, she wouldn't have done so without your encouragement."

"Yes, yes, nice summation, detective," Kasumi stepped between the detective and her sister. "She just tried to help."

"What she wanted and what she achieved are two different things," he countered. "At this moment, the best case scenario is that Oracle revealed the nature of this reality to her parents, which means assorted problems for Mona and myself. And the worst case scenario is her lashing out at us, because of us trying to take this reality down or for…" he looked aside, "or because of my own involvement in her traumas."

"Well," Kasumi tried to come up with something she could possibly do to explain or defend her sister, and failed, "fuck. Can we skip the dress-down and move to the part where you try to calm woss-her-name down?"

The detective lowered his glasses and just stared at her.

"Okay, not you specifically, just someone in the know."

"Anyone besides me or Crow will look out of place in Sakuras' house right now," Morgana pointed out. "I'll do it."

"Thank you, I appreciate it," Goro said. "I will remain here until further updates. I…" He seemed uncharacteristically unconfident. "I won't lie, I'm scared by what retribution Oracle could inflict on me."

"Okay, you're overselling her," Kasumi protested.

"Take our word for it:" Morgana replied, "if she'll want to make our life a living hell, nothing and nobody will be able to stop her." He spun on his heel, towards the exit. "There's no time to waste. I'll keep you posted."

"I owe you a big sushi platter for this, Mona," Goro replied as the bishounen marched away. He then sat down on the ground and twiddled his thumbs idly before realizing the Yoshizawas were still present. "You can go home now, I'll contact you if need be."

"Yeah, I feel like leaving a guilt-ridden guy alone with a gun is a bad idea," Kasumi remarked, leaning against the wall.

"I plan to stay alive at least long enough to take Maruki down." He produced the PDW from hammerspace. "And besides, Mona and I just checked, I am immune to gun damage in this realm." Before either sister could react, he put the weapon under his chin and pulled the trigger. The suppressor did its job, so the only sound they could hear was the bolt rattling back and forth. A few casings fell out of the ejection port and despawned a moment after hitting the ground.

"See? Nothing," the detective commented. "Hell, you could use me for target practice."

"...somehow, I am not reassured," Kasumi blurted out.

Silence followed. Goro put away his weapon and sat down on the ground, twirling his thumbs.

"Um…" Sumire said, sheepishly.

After a pause, Goro glanced at her.

"I… I have a question."

"Yes?"

"Something…" The gymnast intently stared at her high-heeled shoes. "Something doesn't add up if you ask me."

"Please get to the point."

Sumire took a deep breath and, in fear of being interrupted, blurted out "If Oracle-senpai hates you because you killed her mom, why did Maruki-san put you in her family?"

"Buggered if I know," he replied, deflated. "He's a madman."

"But there was some sort of method to his madness," Kasumi pointed out. After thinking for a moment, she asked "How do you feel about her?"

"She would have been an useful asset and-"

"Outside of this whole 'saving the world in over-the-top costumes' thing," she interrupted. "Like, as a person."

Over the next few seconds, Goro visibly deflated. "We played video games together this week," he mumbled.

"Huh?"

"It's… it's complicated, alright?" he explained. "There's… there's guilt to it, of course, this stupid, personalized guilt as opposed to the generic low-level one, there's… there's also her… little… sister… ness," he said, having completely forgotten how to word right. "She's this small tiny speck that you want to guard from the world, and… and… and…" A breath to regain a semblance of composure. "And she was kind to me. She told me to stick around and she didn't have to and she did anyway and… and…"

"And you wanna be a good big brother to her now," Kasumi summed him up.

Goro dared to look at her. "I want to protect her. So that no treacherous vengeful homisuicidal piece of shit can hurt her." A pause, and a sigh. "But that doesn't matter. What I want doesn't matter. Maruki has no goddamn right to force me and my bullshit on her and her parents."

"Why do you think it's forced on them?" Kasumi asked.

"Um, duh?"

Yeah, this conversation won't go anywhere, she thought, and decided to change the topic. "So, you have a gun?"

"A pee-pee gun." Sumire failed to suppress a chortle.

"One real thing and one very detailed model that works like a real thing in this place," he replied.

"Ooh, can I see them?" the other twin asked, curious. "I promise I'll be careful."

Goro thought about it for a second, and decided that if she wouldn't be careful, there were always healing spells. "Here you go," he handed over his PDW.