Literally: kick the/a calendar
Meaning: die
Rough English equivalent: kick the bucket

Futaba materialized near the Mementos entrance.

"Welcome, Miss Sakura," Lavenza greeted her.

"Hey," she returned the greeting. "Did someone log in to the server recently?"

"Mr. Akechi arrived earlier today and did not return yet," she replied. "At least, I assume that is what you asked about."

"Persona!" A flying saucer materialized around her and floated above the ground for a few seconds before despawning. "He's halfway between here and the Depths. Did he travel all that on foot?"

"Indeed. He seemed upset, and mentioned something about 'blowing off steam'. I thought his skillset didn't include Fire spells…"

"F-sack." It's one way of pronouncing fsck, the name of a Linux utility tool. "I don't have enough damage dealers in the party to reach him."

"I offered him fast travel services between Mementos safe spots," Lavenza pointed out. "He can return here rather quickly if contacted."

"I can't contact him from over here," Futaba replied. "Do you have some sorta magic way of reaching him?"

A clamshell cell phone materialized in Lavenza's hand and she showed it to Futaba. "I have a phone."

Futaba raised an eyebrow. "How do you get reception here?"

"That's the magic part."

"Ah. Call him up here, tell him I asked him to come over. Bee-arr-bee," she said, then left Mementos.

In the real world, Wakaba, Sojiro and the Yoshizawa twins saw Futaba manifest out of thin air in a secluded corner of the Shibuya station.

"And?" Sojiro asked, nonplussed.

"He's there." She glanced at Sumire. "You take your sister in, I'll take mom and dad."

"How did that app even end up on your phone?" Wakaba asked.

"Originally Yaldabaoth installed it on Akira and Goro's phones, I think," she commented. "When I got roped in, I tried to decompile it to no avail, but I've learned copying it and installing on another device was easy enough." She glanced at Sumire. "How did you get it by the way?"

She shrugged in response, then pulled out her cell phone, tapped her screen a few times, and disappeared alongside Kasumi. Sojiro grabbed Wakaba with one hand and Futaba with the other and nodded at her to proceed. After a moment, the three reappeared in Mementos next to the twins.

"I appreciate it, thank you," Lavenza said, then closed her phone with a satisfying click and turned to the newcomers. "Ooh, more new faces." She smiled. "Welcome to Mementos. I am Lavenza, and I assist the Phantom Thieves. Mr. Akechi should come over soon."

"Fascinating…" Wakaba absorbed her surroundings with subdued awe. "I mean, it does make sense that the consciousness of humanity is represented by some sort of commonly accessed liminal space…" She peeked over the faux ticket gates at the platform downstairs.

"Don't walk too far away, mom," Futaba warned her. "This place is dangerous if you're unprepared."

"Yes, I defer to- uh…" Wakaba turned to her daughter and finally noticed her and Sumire's costumes. "What's with the change of clothes?"

"Their outfits symbolize a Persona user's rebellious spirit," Lavenza explained. "An additional personalized touch."

"So that's what you've been wearing in that broadcast last month?" Sojiro asked.

"Yup!" Futaba nodded.

"…and you've been walking around Akira and the others wearing… this?" He scratched his head. "I'm not upset, I'm just… concerned."

Before Futaba could comment, the blue door next to Lavenza opened with a creek and out came Goro. He had his head lowered and was adjusting his tie and so he didn't immediately notice everyone waiting for him.

"Hey, kid," Sojiro greeted him.

Between Sojiro, Futaba and Sumire, they had seen Goro withdrawn, content, angry, performatively edgy, worn out with life in general, but never had they seen him as terrified as he was then. Color drained from his face, his left hand moved from the tie knot roughly to the height of his suit's inner pocket, ready to grab a weapon or an item, his eyes kept darting around, scanning for a weak spot, and he seemed one loud noise away from either legging it or fighting his way through all of them.

"Sorry for barging in on your territory," Sojiro went on, "but we just got filled in about what happened and wanted to talk with you about it." He pulled out a thermal cup. "I brought coffee."

In response, Goro sprung above the ticket gates and ran deeper into Mementos.

"Oh no you don't!" Kasumi proclaimed, then went after him.

"SD, no!" Futaba protested, but at that point Kasumi was at the bottom of the stairs already. Off the platform, into the tunnel, left, straight, left on the crossroads… right… Wait a second, that's not how the tunnel went the previous time… As she turned a corner and stared into a dead end, two consecutive realizations dawned on her: one, Goro gave her the slip, and two, she was lost and alone in a creepy maze of dark red-tinted subway tunnels.

"Great. Just great." She turned around. "Sumi's gonna be worried si-"

There was something in the corridor she just came from. It was massive, pitch-black, vaguely humanoid in shape, and some soot-like particles were coming off of it. And it noticed her – admittedly, Kasumi's sharp terrified shriek made it quite easy. She tried to retreat, but almost immediately hit her back against the wall. With the only escape route blocked all she could do was watch the monster walk up to her, charcoal liquid dripping from its sharp black talons. Welp, she thought, not many people had a chance to die twi-

And then, a gunshot.

The monster exploded into a shower of black goop, revealing Sumire with a smoking lever-action pistol/rifle in her hand. Behind her stood unnerved Sojiro and Wakaba, and behind them, inexplicably, a flying saucer. "Stay away from my sister," Sumire growled, spin-cocking her firearm.

"Don't wave that gun around like that," Sojiro protested.

The black goop reformed into a bunch of viscous piles of rotting meat. In what Kasumi considered a mixed blessing, they were now facing her sister, who seemed uncharacteristically unintimidated by all this.

"This d-doesn't seem like an improvement," Wakaba remarked.

"I have this under control, Sakura-san," Sumire proclaimed. "Cendrillon!" Blue flames came from behind her mask, and some sort of large crystalline lady materialized above her. "Vicious Strike!" Sumire commanded her. Kasumi wasn't sure what followed, but apparently the crystal lady somehow attacked the enemies and wiped them all out. She then disappeared, and so did the mask flame.

"Wow," Wakaba reacted.

"…holy fucking shit," Kasumi blurted out.

"Watch your language," Sojiro crossed his arms.

"Fuck fuck fuck…" Goro ran into the scene at full speed with the cane and the Nagant out. "I've heard a scream and a gunshot, where's the danger?"

The flying saucer disappeared, revealing Futaba was inside it the whole time. "Green has just dealt with it."

"Okay then, next question: why on earth did you follow me here?" he growled. "It's dangerous!"

"SD ran after you and we ran after her."

Goro turned to Kasumi, who hid behind her sister. "Have you lost your goddamn mind?"

"Calm down, Crow-san," Sumire protested.

"She has endangered herself for no bloody reason, I refuse to calm down!"

"And she already got scared witless after a bunch of Slimes tried to headbutt her," Sumire remained persistent. "She has learned her lesson without you dressing her down."

The two attempted to stare each other down before Sojiro pulled out the thermal cup again. "So, how about that coffee and talk?"

"If you run again, I will run after you again," Kasumi proclaimed.

Goro shot her a venomous glare, then put away his revolver in a gesture of quiet surrender. "With all respect, Mr. Sakura-"

"'Sojiro' is still fine."

"-what do you expect me to say?" he finished, grabbing the coffee mug.

"And what do you want to tell us?"

Goro felt uncomfortable with Wakaba joining the conversation, and took a few sips of the coffee to give himself time to try and calm down. Finally, he replied, "What I want is irrelevant."

"Let's assume it isn't," she countered, "even if it's just the first step of a proof by contradiction. What does Goro Sakura-"

"Akechi."

"...okay, what does Goro Akechi want?"

A few more sips of coffee. "I want to stop a shrink with a messiah complex from rewriting reality to his arbitrary whims."

"I was told as much," Wakaba nodded. "And what will happen afterwards?"

"Well, in the real world I was probably arrested and tried for multiple assassinations," he said, with the expected level of concern – that is, none. "Or murdered, like you – either because I outlived my usefulness to my handler, or because one of my victims was better at vengeance than I."

"Hm." Wakaba thought for a moment. "Do you feel a constant sense of disassociation? Like you're just wearing the face of the 'real' Goro, so to speak?"

"…no, n-not really." Beat. "That came out of the blue."

"I'm sorry, I'm just… still processing everything." Wakaba adjusted her glasses by the rim of the lens. "Brainpower spent on trying to figure out the nitty-gritty details on how this reality works is brainpower I don't spend on an existential crisis. But back to you…" She paused. "The nonchalance you just displayed really clashes with your panicked escape a moment ago."

"Y-you caught me off-guard." The mug was almost empty by that point but he was going to 'drink' from it as many times as he had to. "And, um… and I… er…"

Futaba walked up to him and grabbed his free hand. "There. Minor boost to speech checks."

"C'mon, go on," Sojiro encouraged him. "Get all the ugly stuff out."

"It's not ugly…" He squeezed Futaba's hand right back. "It's… it's just…"

"Guilt?" Sumire suggested.

"Yes, that's it." Beat. "A-at least I think that's it."

Wakaba was slightly confused. "And what's wrong with guilt, exactly?"

"Just…" He drank what little coffee remained. "Don't you feel it's… egocentric of me to discuss my poor hurt fee-fees to- with you of all people? Oh, you died and your daughter was this close to taking a bath with a toaster, but did you know that the guy that did it is totally sad about it?"

Sojiro sighed. "Kid, there's a fine line between not excusing your actions with past traumas and pretending your past traumas didn't shape you in any way."

"Green and- I mean, Sumire and Futaba didn't go off the deep end like I did."

"Both of us were suicidal messes, Crow-san," Sumire replied.

He turned to the Yoshizawas. "Yeah, but there's a difference between wanting to kill yourselves and wanting to kill… like, all of society."

"True," Futaba pointed out, "but there's also a difference between being put through a foster care blackbox and a god messing with your brain on top of the foster care blackbox."

"Yaldabaoth didn't 'mess with my brain'," Goro protested. "What I've done, I've done of my own free will."

"Just to be clear," Wakaba said, "Yaldabaoth is that god whose powers were inherited by that therapist running the show now, yes?"

Goro nodded.

"And said powers were sufficient to alter the cognition of every single human in Japan, and potentially even further."

"Yes, but-"

"I admit," she continued, "I might be missing some critical information here, but you don't seem to have any data to conclusively prove your personality wasn't subtly, or not-so-subtly, altered for that god's so-called experiment."

"Gah, this drivel again," Goro spat. "Why do you all keep insisting that I was some sort of brainwashed pawn?"

"Let's flip the question," Sojiro countered, "why do you keep insisting that you weren't? Why would you pick an interpretation-"

"Monster ahead!" Kasumi pointed into the distance at another black humanoid.

Before the group could begin to discuss a plan of attack, Goro charged forward with his melee weapon out. The monster saw him coming, but it didn't change jack – the forehand smash to the face with the cane was powerful enough to begin and end the fight simultaneously. It didn't reform into smaller monsters, it just turned into liquid that then obeyed gravity and dropped on the ground into a small puddle.

Then, silence. Everyone stared at Goro, slightly unnerved, while he decided to wait a moment before declaring victory, just in case the thing had something up its sleeve. But no, it was dead and gone. He felt satisfied with himself for a brief moment, and then something clicked in his head.

"I… think I know why," he finally broke the silence. "I think… I take some sort of s-solace in the belief that I've had agency to do what I've done."

"Solace?" Sojiro asked.

Goro turned around in response. "You're right, I cannot rule out I was nudged into… this by that accursed god, but…" he lowered his head, "but that thought just makes me feel like I… like instead of growing more powerful, more independent, better in one way or another, I remained this…" he gripped his cane tighter, "this pathetic bottom-feeding trash; pushed around, shaped, molded by powers beyond my control." He took a breath to regain some composure. "I… I would rather be a villain than a pawn, I guess."

Futaba took the first step towards him, and the rest followed. "Well, now you can get out of that boolean logic."

"Considering what restoring the status quo entails… can I, really?" He mustered what was left of his courage, removed his opaque glasses, and glanced at Wakaba. "For what little it is worth, I'm sorry."

Wakaba stared at Goro for a few seconds, before daring to get close enough to him to put an arm on his shoulder. "Let's go back home, kid."

"…I literally kill-"

"Irrelevant," her voice turned a bit more firm. "As long as I have anything to say on the topic, you are my kid. And this isn't about my self-interest, like 'oh, if I'll be nice he lets me live' thing," she went on. "This is because I refuse to let a traumatized teenager spend any more time alone in a creepy liminal space, because that's what any half-decent parent would do." She glanced at Sojiro. "You aren't going to protest, are you?"

"Of course not," he replied, almost offended.

She glanced at Futaba. "And you?"

In lieu of a verbal response, she embraced Goro as tightly as she could.

"We don't mind either if anyone cares," Kasumi added.

"Quod erat demonstrandum," she muttered. "We'll figure out the rest as we go on."

"Look," Goro wriggled himself out of Futaba's grasp, "even if you all forgive me, I've ruined the lives of countless others. And who knows how many of them Maruki has sicced on me."

"Give me thirty minutes and an internet connection and I'll know," Futaba assured him.

"I think I can make an educated guess about one person though," Sojiro added. "I'm going to try and probe Haru about her dad, see how he's handling this whole situation."

"You don't have to-"

"But I want to," Sojiro interrupted him. "Even if I didn't care about your well-being on my own, I care about people that care about you." He dared to smile reassuringly. "And you aren't even the first troubled kid I gave room and board." He gestured in the direction of the exit. "Come on, let's get back to Leblanc. It's not that bad when compared to this dump, is it?"

Goro pondered the thought for a moment, then gave in. "Fine. I'll lead the way." He pulled out an onigiri from somewhere and tossed it at Sumire. "Top your health up, Green."

Wakaba watched as Futaba grabbed a tray with four large mugs of coffee and carried it up to the attic, where Goro, Kasumi and Sumire were watching some rented DVDs. "Thank you for adopting her," she told Sojiro.

He looked up from his phone. "Don't mention it. I only kept the lights on. Akira and his friends helped her more than I did."

"You still gave her a better home than my scumbag of a brother." Pause. "Or should I say 'Wakaba's brother'? I don't know…" She looked down at the counter. "I don't know who I am and I don't want to die, but at the same time I'm… basically a hostage made out of whole cloth that Maruki now dangles in front of your faces." Pause. "Are you probing that other kid about her dad now?"

Sojiro tapped the 'send' button. "I just sent her a text message. Told her I'm up to speed on everything and want to talk."

"Who was her dad, by the way?"

"Kunikazu Okumura." He scowled. "Rich piece of shit that got his money by exploiting everyone below him, and wanted to sell his daughter in an arranged marriage. He was also involved in the conspiracy Goro's… handler was running, but he outlived his usefulness and Goro offed him. His daughter, Haru, knows about that and has lashed out at Goro before. Held him at gunpoint once, apparently."

"How old is she?" Wakaba asked.

"I don't remember the dates, but she's about to finish high school."

"And she had access to a firearm?"

"It was Goro's to begin with, but-" Sojiro was interrupted by his phone vibrating. He glanced at the screen. "Haru's calling." He picked up the call. "Hello?" Wakaba watched as Sojiro's expression shifted from his default resting scowl into genuine concern. "Oh dear. I'm… incredibly sorry to hear that."

"What happened?" Wakaba asked.

Sojiro gestured at her to wait. "Do you… do you want me to come over? So that you won't be alone there?" A pause to let the other end speak. "Come on, Haru, this isn't a problem, it's not like I had other plans for the day." Another pause, followed by a nod. "Okay. Got it. I'll be there as soon as I can. See you… and hang in there." He hung up with a scowl. "If I ever see that shrink again, I am decking him in the face," he growled.

"What is going on, Sojiro?" she repeated.

"Okumura is now hospitalized and in critical condition," Sojiro marched up to the front door and flipped the sign from 'open' to 'closed'. "I didn't ask about the details, but I assume it's related to the message he got from Maruki. Haru's in the hospital waiting for further information."

"You've said 'so that you won't be alone'," Wakaba pointed out. "Does that mean she has nobody to support her right now? No mom, no other family members?"

"Nope." He grabbed his coat and hat from the stand. "Futaba's whole social circle has two or three decent living parents between them. Including me."

"Can I come too?"

Sojiro stared at her, unsure.

"I know, it's going to be awkward because I'm also a backup copy, and I barely know that girl to begin with, but…" she paused, "she's another traumatized kid that was thrust into this mess, and at the end of the day I can't even do that much in the grand scheme of things and I want to do something besides sitting on my thumbs and watching the situation." She inhaled. "So I might as well sit beside her and give her a tissue or… something. Anything."

Welcome to the last few months of my damn life, Sojiro thought. "If you really want to." He handed her her overcoat. "Just err on the side of caution with her."