Literally: after tea
Meaning: something's done and can't be reversed anymore

Sunday, January 15th, Afternoon

Akira found himself sitting on the couch in the Leblanc attic. As if the core of him underneath the Maruki overlay prepared himself for its end, so that it didn't catch him in the middle of something more important.

"That's that then, huh?"

He turned to see Morgana lying on his bed in his cat form. "Seems so."

Morgana flipped on his back and held his paws up in the air. "I know we did the right thing, but man, am I gonna miss opposable thumbs."

Akira pulled out his phone and opened the chat application. The PT group chat had Goro in it, but not Sumire or Morgana.

coffee_criminal: Roll call, everyone.
coffee_criminal: I'm safe and sound, and so's Mona.

The response was almost instant.

curryHunter: beep boop
annT: alive and safe
blonde_blur: same
spring_loaded: Ditto mark.
PandaPunch: I am also safe.
AcrylicRonin: Fox, reporting from his dorm room.

The phone buzzed in his hand and an incoming call showed up. Akira picked it up. "Sumire?"

"Akira-senpai? Are you safe?"

"Yeah, I think so," he replied. "I shot everyone a message on the group chat, everyone but Goro responded. I'll look into his current situation shortly."

"Good," she replied. "Now that it's all over… we can still be friends, right?"

"I will hug you to death."

"I take that as a yes."

"They will need a crowbar to pry me away from you."

She snickered. "Now you're just encouraging me to mope."

The phone vibrated in Akira's ear, and he briefly glanced at the screen. "I got another call coming," he said to the phone. "I gotta go. But seriously, we were, are, and will be friends, Sumi. Don't be a stranger."

"I'll stop by Leblanc later. See you, senpai!"

Akira hung up and picked up the second call. "Hi, mom."

"Hey there, Rennie," Akira's mom greeted him. "I can't explain it, but I felt some sort of… change in the air a moment ago. Am I just on edge, or did you, uh, do that Thief thing you do?"

"We did our thing," Akira replied. "We stole Takuto's heart. The world returned to normal a moment ago."

"I see. It was kinda hard to tell the difference without you around." She sighed. "Your dad and I really dropped the ball there."

Akira chuckled. "Believe me, I've seen worse parents over the past few months."

"Sojiro told me the same thing, and it doesn't feel reassuring," she countered. "Not making you my personal assassin doesn't make me Mother of the Year."

"Seriously, cut it out, mom," Akira protested. "You found me a school that'd take me in, and you called in a favor so I didn't have to spend five hours a day commuting. I…" He took a breath. "I won't say you did everything right, but… I love you, mom. And I love dad too. And I- And I can't wait to see you back home. Really."

"Right," she said, still sounding unconvinced. "Dad and I were thinking… Would it be a problem if we came over to Tokyo for a few days? You know, just to make up for lost time. Sojiro will probably let us crash on his couch."

"Ooh," Akira reacted with mild enthusiasm. "Sojiro probably won't mind, and there's a few underrated hangouts I could show you. But I gotta figure out where I'm standing in the real world first before we make any plans."

"We'll put a pin in it," his mom said. "For now, I'll let you catch up with reality." Another sigh. "I love you, Ren. Stay safe."

"I'll try my hardest, but at that point, I can't promise anything," he said. It was supposed to sound like a joke. "I love you too, mom, buh-bye."

Akira hung up, put the phone back into his pocket, then deflated a bit over the next few seconds.

"Something wrong?" Morgana asked.

"I'll probably spend the next few weeks second-guessing every single nice thing that'll happen to me." Akira glanced at him. "Asking myself if we really won, or did Takuto just mess with reality to make me believe that."

"I don't think he would've acted out a breakdown that well if you ask me," Morgana countered.

"Tell that to the nagging voice in the back of my head." Akira got up from the couch. "Right, now we've gotta go buy some voice recorders and wait for Futaba to-"

He was interrupted by his phone buzzing again. He glanced at the phone and saw an incoming text message from Sae Niijima:

Makoto told me about the kerfuffle with the Shujin therapist. Call me when you have time, it's too much to type.

After a moment of hesitation, Akira dialed her number and put the phone on loudspeaker. "Uh, hello?"

"Good afternoon," Sae greeted him on the other end. "Let me get something straight first: was the reality overwritten by a guy that inherited a mad god's powers because every Phantom Thief confided in him before beating said god?"

"It does sound weird when you put it that way," Akira quipped.

"Right. The way I had it described to me, people that were aware of this overlay's existence only remember what happened in that overlay, and don't know what occurred in the real world in the meantime."

"Yes. I was about to catch up with the last few weeks of my life."

"Well, you're in luck," Sae announced. "Makoto kept me in the dark while you were doing your thing, so I can tell you what happened between you toppling that Y god and now."

"Hm." A light bulb went over Akira's head. "If there's no trace of Takuto's overlay in your mind, maybe you'll know: what happened to Goro back in December? After we beat him in Shido's Palace."

"Why do you ask?"

"Because Takuto claimed everything after that point was him brainwashing Goro to be more docile and mucking with our memories to make his redemption feel less out-of-the-blue."

For a moment, there was silence on the line, before Sae commented: "You know, if I wasn't on ground zero of a mad god's takeover of reality, I'd assume you're taking the mickey."

"I wish it was a bad joke, Sae."

"Well then, long story short: after you brought Shido down, you went into hiding together with Detective Prick, to keep an eye on him. You must've done something to him, because he apparently buried the hatchet with you, helped you get dirt on Shido and then fight that mad god, and then surrendered to the authorities without issue. I was asked to handle his case as a prosecutor, but between the conflict of interest and disillusionment with my position, I turned it down and quit. At your request, I agreed to represent him as a defender."

The description matched Akira's memories for the most part. "I see. I genuinely appreciate your help, and I'm sure Goro does too. What happened after he got arrested?"

"Well, you got arrested as well," Sae continued. "I am not sure if it was genuine belief in your guilt or someone feeling spiteful – I'm leaning towards the latter, because the moment the public backlash got too strong, they released you without any charges." She chuckled. "Look it up when you have time, it was, without hyperbole, unprecedented. The culmination was that journalist friend of yours tracking down the woman that you defended from Shido, and getting her to admit she was pressured by him to testify against you. Overturning your initial conviction will be a formality at this point, so at the end of this nonsense you'll lose your criminal record."

"Wow, the system might work after all," Akira snarked. "All it took was dismantling a nationwide conspiracy and killing a god of status quo. Are others in the clear?"

"I think so. Neither you nor Akechi mentioned anyone's identities in a proper interrogation. In fact, you didn't even mention knowing he's responsible for the mental shutdowns."

"I see." Akira had to admit that did sound like him. "Honestly, maybe I'm too paranoid at this point, but I'd rather say too little than too much to authorities. You said that the cops might hold a grudge against me, I don't feel like giving them an excuse to screw me over. Or worse, others."

Sae wanted to make a quip about how the real reason was his sympathy for the treacherous bastard, but bit her tongue. The 'others' at that point included her and her sister, and just because she believed her actions were completely justified and just, she wasn't going to test if the legal system would agree with that assessment.

She's been having thoughts like these for a few weeks now. They were the main reason why she quit prosecuting.

"So, what's Goro's current situation?" Akira went on. "What kind of sentence can he expect?"

"I have no idea," Sae replied. "The prosecutor's office has a lot of work on their hands with the rest of the conspiracy, so they are only interested in the assassinations and don't bother with whatever lesser crimes he committed. Shido did not implicate him in anything either, most likely believing it's a sliver of recompense for everything he had done to him. With Akechi's handgun destroyed, the strongest piece of evidence is his own confession – in a different time, it would've been more than enough, but in the current political climate the court might consider it baloney, produced either by law enforcement or by Akechi himself."

"That sounds ridiculous," Akira commented.

"What sounds more ridiculous," Sae countered, "that a teenage celebrity was moonlighting as an assassin in the name of a half-baked revenge plot, or that said celebrity, who was recently publicly humiliated and revealed to come from a troubled background, made stuff up for attention?"

"Hm." Akira didn't have a response to that. Phantom Thievery skewed his idea of what was and wasn't plausible to normal people.

"And putting all that aside, Akechi's public image is also a factor. If a prosecutor plays their cards right with his case, it can be their big break, but if not, they'll come off as power-tripping sadists," Sae went on. "Bottom line is, he's in legal limbo. Nobody wants to play the nolle prosequi card just yet, but securing a conviction will require time and effort."

"How long can that last?"

"I don't know. I'll stick with him for as long as I have to though."

"Thank you. I have a few million yen left over from Metaverse exploration, you might get a little pocket change for your troubles."

Akira's phone buzzed again on that last syllable. He glanced at the screen and saw a notification at the top of it:

curryHunter: ive got the addresses

"It's not necessary," Sae remarked. "I am already in debt to you."

"You won't buy groceries with my gratitude alone," Akira countered. "We'll get back to that later, I've got other stuff to deal with, I gotta go. Keep me posted."

"I will. Good luck, and…" Sae paused for a split second. "Thank you. For everything."

She hung up. Akira opened the chat with Futaba.

coffee_criminal: Great. Thanks.
coffee_criminal: Sorry, I kept getting sidetracked.
coffee_criminal: I'll go out for the recorders now.

Maruki opened his eyes.

He was back in his home – a small flat in the Tokyo suburbs. He was still wearing a suit – a tracksuit, gray and worn out, paired with a light gray shirt. He was wearing that ensemble on his days off when he just wanted to lounge around the house.

He was lying on a couch, possibly awakened from a quick nap he had been taking in the real world. He remained there for a moment, unmoving. The fight has left him emotionally and physically drained. There was a thought in the back of his head that he should walk to the kitchen, grab a knife, and finish what he had started before his reality collapsed, but it was successfully countered by both his unwillingness to move and by Sumire's voice screaming at him from the corner of his mind. And so, he just stayed there, mulling over his regrets.

After five or so minutes he decided to try and distract himself. He sat up, picked up the remote from the coffee table in front of him, and pressed the red button at the top of it. The TV came to life, displaying a news channel. The strapline read 'BACKLASH AGAINST POLICE FOR ARRESTING PHANTOM THIEF'. The host was talking with his guest about Akira's case. "-teresting that a majority of newly elected Diet members have weighed in, overwhelmingly in sup-"

Irritated, Maruki squeezed the 'CH +' button. The channels scrolled a bit before he landed on some station airing syndicated American sitcoms. Finding them decent enough, he put the remote down, reclined a bit, and turned off his brain for the next few hours or so.

He was brought out his stupor by the sound of someone knocking at his front door. Odd, he thought. Few people knew his address and none of them were the type to visit him unless it was something import-

"Takuto? Are you home?"

He knew that voice. It was enough to immediately activate his fight-or-flight response. He could just… stay unmoving and pretend he's not home. He was not ready for any kind of social interaction today. His phone buzzed, playing a ringtone – some default beeps and boops he considered good enough.

"I can hear your phone inside," said the voice. "I'm not angry at you, I just want to talk. Hear your side of the story, catch up with you over matcha." After a pause, the voice added. "I've got nothing better to do on a Sunday, Takuto. I can stand by the door for the next few hours."

Maruki found himself frustrated with his quote-unquote guest, but had to concede getting it over with now seemed marginally more inviting than curling up in the corner for the foreseeable future. He got up from the couch, stretched a bit, and marched to the door. He braced himself and gently pushed the door open.

"Hey, Takuto," the guest said.

"Hello, Rumi," Maruki replied. "Who gave you my address?"

"You did," she replied. "Back before my parents got murdered and you had to cut the grief outta my brain or something. I took a shot in the dark and checked if you still live here, because I really want to talk to you in person."

She wasn't angry, for some reason. Just… confused. And also noticeably not mad with grief, something Maruki was glad about. Completely at a loss as for what to do next, he defaulted to generic politeness. "Come in. You mentioned something about matcha. I'll put on the kettle."