Ann: Persona 3 and Persona 5 Royal spoilers ahead. Set after Cultural Festival / during Sae's Palace.
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Every night, without fail, Goro had the same dream. In the mornings, he barely even remembered parts of it, and even the parts faded into nothing seconds after Goro opened his eyes.
A school rooftop. The feeling of warm sunshine on his face. Someone asking for his name.
This changed the more Goro had to do with the Phantom Thieves. Goro had always suspected that dreaming the same dream must have something to do with the Metaverse, seeing as he was regularly scouting its depths to fulfil missions or let loose, raging against shadows.
When he started interacting with the Phantom Thieves, indirectly at first, the same dream manifested into something more tangible: the sight of a city beyond a fence to his left. Wind turbines turning their wheels slowly in the distance. A figure with a long yellow scarf at the door that led deeper into the school.
Was it the Phantom Thieves' fault?
No, Goro had decided. As far as he was aware, people with persona like himself did not have a cognition that other persona users could enter at will. No matter how much he'd tried, Goro had never managed to find entrance to the Thieves' leader's cognition, or his own for a fact. Plus, when Goro was dreaming, he couldn't feel the presence of either Robin Hood or Loki in the back of his mind as would be natural for the Metaverse.
Yet Goro believed that somehow, the Phantom Thieves must still be at fault. The closer the Cultural Festival at Shujin Academy had come, the more clearly Goro had been dreaming this dream and, worse, remembered the dream in the mornings with a scary number of details. But after their confrontation and him becoming a member of the Phantom Thieves, Goro had been dreaming lucidly.
"Oh, you're back." The person with the long yellow scarf, who always was in this dream too, quickly crossed the distance between the shut door, where he usually lingered, and Goro. Stopping in front of Goro, he lifted an arm to his chest, a small smile spreading on his face. "You wish you weren't, right?"
Goro tilted his head back so that he could meet the look from remarkably blue eyes, a blue that could hardly exist in real life. Maruki's joke from when they had briefly talked at the Cultural Festival rang in his ears: "Try not to overwork yourself or your external reality might just seep into your dreams, haha!"
Goro knew that a lot of details from this dream could be explained with outer influence: the dream's school setting was because of Goro's involvement with Shujin Academy and his own meticulous studies, and the light summer day because Goro never closed the window shutters when he went to sleep. Even the guy Goro's talking to looked more like someone from the Metaverse than anyone Goro actually knew.
"Well, it doesn't matter. Since you're here again, we can make the best of our time together!" the boy said with a widening smile, sat down on the stone bench next to Goro and started talking about a city named Iwatodai somewhere in Japan.
That was another of this boy's qualities: he didn't seem to mind at all when his partner in conversation didn't answer but upheld the flow all by himself. He had done so every night since Goro could remember his dreams in the mornings, just talking about things he'd remember: daily school life and struggles, jobbing in a cafe, a lot about a dear friend and classmate he'd once known very well.
To be honest, it reminded Goro of his meet-ups with the leader of the Phantom Thieves, but role-reversed. Whenever Goro and the Thieves' leader had met during the past four months of their acquaintance, Goro had somehow ended up maintaining a meaningful conversation with someone who rarely contributed more than the occasional brief remark. And yet, knowing that, Goro was still looking forward to their future meetings.
"You thought of someone special to you just now."
The boy's remark caught Goro unprepared. His head snapped up to see himself studied by the other boy's attentive gaze that seemed to see so much more than regular things. He looked like he knew.
"No," Goro objected automatically because whatever those blue eyes saw was wrong. What did the other boy know about Goro's attachments? In truth, the meetings with the Thieves' leaders were steppingstones to Goro, and the Phantom Thieves were just another pesky obstacle Goro needed to get rid of to achieve his ultimate goal. "There's nothing special about him."
The blue eyes grew crescent. Goro didn't expect the delighted laughter that followed from the other. When he laughed, he laughed with his entire body, leaning back so far that he threatened to fall off the bench. He had a pleasant laugh by all means, but it irritated Goro and caused him to cross his arms in front of his chest. Why was the boy laughing?
"Oh, sorry. You must be wondering why I'm laughing." The boy slowly regained his composure, pretending as if it was completely normal that he could seemingly read Goro's thoughts. His hand automatically wormed back into the loop of his scarf, adjusting it. "It's the first time that you answered me. I'm happy about that."
In hindsight, Goro guessed it was. But then again, this was his dream. The only convenience in dreaming was that Goro didn't have to behave as he did during the day; he didn't have to be particular about his public image here, fearing that people might not want him around anymore at the slightest mistake. Dreaming, he didn't have to regulate his tone, face, and words like he had to in waking.
"Why would you be happy?" Goro asked dryly. "Have we met before? Other than in this dream." He thought that by now, he would have recognized who his cognition had distorted into this dream form. It would've explained why Goro felt that the boy with his swept-back hair was familiar. But he couldn't put his finger on it and it bothered him.
The boy looked seriously taken aback. For the first time since Goro remembered interacting with him, the smile had fallen from the boy's face in favour of open-mouthed shock. "This can't be!" he exclaimed. "I'm deeply sorry that I have forgotten to introduce myself properly!"
He extended the hand that he normally kept in proximity to his scarf and said: "You can call me Ryoji, even if that is only one of the names that I used. I want to use it for the time being to honour my friend."
Before Goro could reach out and shake the offered hand, Ryoji had already dropped it with another ripple of shocked surprise across his face that changed into embarrassment. He hid the lower half of his face into his scarf, leaving only the blush across his cheeks visible to Goro. "Ah, force of habit. I tend to forget that you are physically unable to touch me, sorry."
Goro paused with half-lifted arm, something clicking into place.
"You are a Shadow," he understood. A real Shadow, not someone Goro knew who was distorted by Goro's experiences from the Metaverse in the dream world. That's why Goro didn't recognize Ryoji but felt like Ryoji was familiar.
If anyhow possible, Ryoji sank deeper into his scarf and averted his head, avoiding Goro's eyes.
"I am," he confirmed, his already calm voice notches quieter. "I'm the embodiment of all Shadows. The form that you see now is what is left of me after the final battle. It's how he remembers me."
Goro lifted his hand to his chin, thoughts racing. A Shadow? The only place where Goro had ever encountered Shadows was in the Metaverse, and Goro had already confirmed that this here was not, not if he couldn't call his own personas. But what if this was a palace … where the palace owner didn't view Goro as a threat?
Goro's blood ran cold.
The only other person who was in this dream (cognition?) was Ryoji, a Shadow beyond any doubt. And palace owners were Shadows too. Following Aristotle's hypothetical syllogism, the logical conclusion was that Ryoji was a palace owner, and Goro was caught in his distorted cognition somehow.
Ryoji had been chatting amiably with Goro this entire time, maybe because he really didn't know who Goro, but anyhow he didn't take him as a threat, thus not waking Loki inside Goro.
Going from there, if Goro wasn't entering Ryoji's palace every night by his own free will, that would mean that somebody else entered the keywords into the navigation app to send Goro here once he came home. And there was only one group knowledgeable about the Metaverse who could do so.
Goro cursed the Phantom Thieves mentally.
"Will you tell me your name too?" Ryoji asked, interrupting Goro's thoughts and stirring them into a new direction.
Goro hadn't noticed the silence between them stretch on, Ryoji not filling it by himself this time but patiently waiting for an answer with tilted head. Goro found that he minded his own impoliteness more than he'd thought possible earlier.
"Akechi. Goro Akechi."
"It's nice to make your acquaintance, Goro." The lower half of Ryoji's face re-emerged from the depths of his scarf, lips pulled into a warm smile that struck Goro as genuine.
"I'm the second detective prince and rival of the Phantom Thieves," Goro added, watching for any signs of recognition on Ryoji's face. He wanted to confirm his suspicions, but he also wanted to discard them. How much did Ryoji know about the Metaverse, the Phantom Thieves, the detective prince? About the mental shutdowns? The changing of hearts? Were any of the topics reason why Ryoji didn't think of Goro as hostile?
Naturally, Ryoji could be lying like the leader of the Phantom Thieves had.
Phantom Thieves? They do more than the cops. They are necessary. They are justice.
Up until Goro had cornered and confronted them with cold hard evidence, they had maintained their act, at worst pretending like they had nothing to do with the Thieves while being at the very heart of it.
But Ryoji …
"I'm sorry, I don't know anything about the outside world. I don't get to leave this place anymore." Nothing about Ryoji set off alarm bells in Goro. Ryoji was well-mannered, easy-going and someone who was easy to like; yet Goro wasn't jealous of the ease with which Ryoji was blessed or instantly found evidence to confirm his suspicions.
The realization surprised him.
"That means you're …"
"Confined in here? Yes. It's better this way." Ryoji's eyes focused on something behind Goro, staring off into the distance. No, not the distance; the shut door that led into the school. "It was his choice. He chose life for everybody. The price didn't matter to him. That's just how he was. He had so much kindness in his eyes."
Ryoji inhaled a shaky breath and what he said next made Goro freeze: "I wish I could've met him sooner, under different circumstances." It brought unwanted thoughts to Goro's mind, flashes of past conversation in evenings spent in Kichijoji and little confessions he hadn't meant to voice out loud. The memory of the Proof of Justice. A wish he had buried deep inside himself.
If only we'd met a few years earlier …
Goro reached for his head and buried his fingers in his hair, staring at the tips of his shoes and trying to calm his racing thoughts. It was too late. Too late to turn back. Everything would've been for nothing, all the pain, the sacrifices, the meticulous planning. He couldn't go back.
"What are you so afraid of, Goro?" Ryoji asked quietly. He met the toxic glare from Goro's eyes without flinching, looking back calmly. "I see a longing in your eyes. But you're doing everything in your power to suppress this longing because you believe that it's too late for it at this point."
Shut up. Shut up shut up shut up. What do you know?
"Actually, you are correct," Goro hissed and dropped his hands into his lap, hands clenched to fists. Were Loki here with him, Goro knew that the anger would burn brighter, bringing him to the edge of madness. A longing? For what, friends? Teammates? "I long for the night when I stop having this same dream over and over. To hell with that and to hell with you!"
"A dream?" Ryoji echoed, wide-eyed. He cocked his head to one side, then the other. His eyes glittered with interest, completely untouched by Goro's cold burning rage. "Is that what you think this is? Interesting."
Goro couldn't help but laugh, caught in a vortex of emotions that bubbled up within him. He loved clinging to the rational detective persona, the hero of the people, as much as he loved shredding through all deduction, logic and friendliness with Loki's claws, letting rage consume him. Both were undeniably part of him.
"Do enlighten me, Ryoji," he asked mockingly and pushed himself up to his feet. Goro did a slow spin on the back of his heels, arms extended widely to both sides. "If it's not a dream, what is it then? Your cognition? A palace of your twisted desires?"
He should've asked this at once instead of relying on subtle questioning. As soon as Ryoji would finally view him as a threat, Goro would call his personas and end this "dream" the way he had ended many others. Soon, he would be able to return to the dreamless nights he'd known before he had engaged with the Phantom Thieves directly.
"Palace? Cognition? No, I …" Ryoji's eyes left Goro's face and wandered back to the door like many times before. He seemed genuinely confused at a level that no one could pretend to feel. "I've been in his cognition for many years. This is different. It's impossible that this is the rooftop of Gekkoukan High, but it's probably the last place where he …" Ryoji didn't finish his sentence but buried his chin in his scarf.
Goro put a hand to his waist, shifting his weight, staring down at Ryoji. Could he be wrong? Had he misjudged the situation?
"Are you not the master of this Palace?" he asked directly, eyes narrowed suspiciously.
"A Palace?" Ryoji echoed. "No. This is a prison whose bounds cannot be seen. He seals off the door and keeps the people's desires for the coming of Nyx on the other side so that they cannot reach me."
Ah, Ryoji had mentioned before that he couldn't leave this place. A prison.
Goro could hardly imagine what it would be like to be locked away in someone's cognition without a way out, a solid door blocking the only exit. It was certain death, he thought.
"Then why am I here?"
Now Ryoji rose from the stone bench too, standing with approximately the same height as Goro. If anyhow possible, his eyes were a lighter blue than before, so blue that it hurt to meet his eyes. Curious – Shadows' eyes were yellow. Had always been yellow. But Ryoji's weren't.
How had Goro not thought of this before?
"I cannot fully explain why you're on this side of the door. Everybody who deep down in their hearts is calling Nyx cannot break the seal. But you never passed the seal. You must have a special relation to Death." Ryoji lifted his arm to his chest, giving his words an earnest aura. "I cannot fully explain it. Yet the arcana is the means by which all is revealed."
A special relation to death? The arcana? Goro had never seen himself as someone who had a special relation to death. Both of his personas symbolized the Justice arcana, not the Death one. That was what Goro told Ryoji.
"You have several personas?" Ryoji exclaimed. Suddenly, he lunged forward and grabbed Goro's hand, cupping it with his other and ignoring the protesting Ah? from Goro. "That is wonderful news! Why didn't you tell me earlier? If you're a wild card like him, then I might have just the idea how to help you! Yes, the arcana is the means by which all is revealed!"
"How …" Goro began, but Ryoji interrupted and completed his question for him.
"Can I help you leave this place?" Ryoji chuckled into his fist at Goro's facial expression and let go of the hand he'd been holding onto, returning it to its usual spot. And this time, Goro realized that Ryoji always placed his hand right above his heart. "Maybe our meeting was destiny, Goro. Would you believe me if I said it was?"
"I don't believe in destiny." But you believe in fated rivalry, don't you?
As if Ryoji hadn't heard Goro, he mused, seemingly talking to himself: "The arcana which should have never been, friends with a wild card who should have never been here."
Ryoji averted his head, his hand lowering to his side. He walked past Goro as if something had caught his eye there, making the detective turn with Ryoji. But he just stopped to stand at the rooftop's railing and closed both hands around the warm metal, looking over to the city in the distance. From somewhere, a wind started blowing, making the ends of Ryoji's scarf fly.
Slowly, Goro crossed the distance, stepped next to him, and leaned sideways against the railing so that he faced Ryoji's profile and could study him.
All excited energy had left Ryoji in an instant. Suddenly, he appeared melancholic. What was he thinking about?
Ryoji seemed to have felt Goro's scrutinizing attention. He sighed and turned away from the mesmerizing view to Goro, an apologizing smile playing around his lips. "Sorry. I just remembered something."
"Does me having several personas change anything?" Goro came straight to the point, but to Ryoji's credit, Ryoji didn't make a face. If he thought it rude, he didn't show it.
"It changes a lot. You are here for a reason. We were meant to meet. I cannot leave this place like you … at least not in this form. But if I'm correct, we …"
"Can make a deal." This time it was Goro's turn to finish Ryoji's sentence.
"Yes," Ryoji agreed, delighted. He extended his free hand towards Goro, palm turned upwards. "Form a bond with me. Show me around the city you live in and be my friend. In exchange, I will help you find the answer of your life."
"As long as I can finally escape this place." Goro looked down at the hand and was about to ask how Ryoji thought about doing this. Of course, Goro had seen the leader of the Phantom Thieves gain new personas in Sae's Palace, but Goro had never made use of his ability. He had no idea how to go about it.
But it seemed like Goro didn't have to do anything.
I am thou, thou art I. Thou hast acquired a new vow.
Ryoji had started to glow in an unnatural blue light, little beams of light rising from the ground and shooting upwards like the bullets of Goro's ray gun. Ryoji's eyes were closed in concentration, his form melting and losing shape in front of Goro's eyes.
It shall become the wings of rebellion that breaketh thy chains of captivity. With the birth of …
"The arcana is the means by which all is revealed," a different voice spoke over the female voice in the background, loud and commanding. It penetrated Goro's skin and resonated within his bones and soul, overbearing all other sensations.
Within the blue light, a figure clad completely in black seemed to float over the floor, supported by several pairs of wings, their face a white mask with two holes for eyes and a wide smile painted across where a mouth was supposed to be. The figure leaned back and lifted an arm to the sky.
"To find the one true path one must seek guidance amidst uncertainty. I have obtained the winds of blessing that shall lead to freedom and new power."
A blue glowing card manifested in front of the figure wreathed in blue light, depicting a sword that was flanked by the balance scale with a red and a white side. Before Goro could blink, the card shot out towards him and hit through his chest, sinking through skin and muscles right into his heart.
Crucifying pain shot through Goro's senses, making his world seem white around him. His hands flew to his chest with a horrified gasp as he doubled over, fingers trying to claw their way through clothes to where the card had buried itself inside him.
He wanted it to stop but didn't have the words to plead. And when Goro thought he could take it no longer, the pain suddenly ended as if someone had snuffed it out like candlelight between two fingers.
Goro sat up with panicked gasps, blinking hard, clutching at the fabric under his fingers, disoriented. His heart was beating uncontrollably fast, and he was bathed in sweat, eyes wide.
He needed several seconds to realize that he was alone. He was sitting in his bed, grasping his bedsheets, the rays of an early sun shining shyly through the window. A look at his alarm clock told Goro that it was still well before his time to rise.
With a hard exhale, Goro plopped back down onto his pillow and stared up to the ceiling. He could almost pretend as if everything had been just a dream.
Almost.
However, Goro felt … different. Fundamentally different. Before waking to a new persona, Goro had seen the world around himself like underwater, it seemed to him. Waking to a new persona, he felt like he emerged from a long period of walking, thinking, and watching the world around himself through a blurry lens. Now he had found a new sense of clarity.
Goro put his left hand on his chest over where his heart was starting to beat at a normal pace again. … What had Ryoji meant with "answer to life"?
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Chaos in the Velvet Room. Overhead, the alarm sirens were screaming, but not in a Fusion alarm for the player of the game. The light all around was a bloodred that drank all other colours except black, the only refuge in the Velvet Room.
Justine and Caroline had ducked behind the kicked-over table, hands clasped over their heads, shielding themselves from the papers that had once been a neat pile on Igor's table and now flew everywhere. They sailed through the air in a lazy but crazy order and settled onto the floor like snow, by now covering everything.
It muffled the sounds of Igor's stomping around the Velvet Room in his rage.
"Justine! Go to Master and calm him down!" Caroline said and hit her baton against the table in her frustration. Justine pressed her clipboard closer to her chest, hugging it as she shook her head from side to side wildly.
"I think you should go, Caroline. Master is going to listen to you."
"IT'S AGAINST THE RULES," Igor raged, and the entire prison district shook as he stomped, knocking the twins off their feet in the process. Lying flat on the floor, Caroline robbed across the layer of paper and dare to peek past the edge of the table, where Igor produced more papers out of nowhere and flung them into the air.
Contracts, contracts, contracts. Contracts everywhere. Names, personas, confidants.
At least it wasn't black ink anymore. The twins wouldn't be able to wash the ink stains out of their uniforms, Caroline was sure of it. What a bother! And the blaring alarm had started to get annoying, not to mention the flickering red lights.
The only positive thing Caroline could think of was that the inmate wasn't here tonight.
"THIS PACT MUST NOT BE!" Igor howled, stomping his feet and throwing his arms into the air. "IT'S AGAINST THE RULES OF THE GAME! RUIN TO HUMANITY! RUIN!"
"Caroline." Justine tapped her clipboard on Caroline's thighs, making her rob back into safety and turn to her sister. "What pact is he talking about? Did the inmate dare to break the rules of this prison?"
"No," Caroline objected and shook her head. "It's not the inmate. It's the external force's fault, the other who has made their way into the Metaverse. It's a pact that must not be."
"Did you feel it too?" Justine briefly put her hand above her heart, referring to the brief feeling of somebody taking a step towards their rehabilitation, a strengthening of bonds, the initiation of friendship. However, it had not been the inmate doing so.
"I did." Caroline mirrored her sister's movement but clenched her hand into her fist over her chest. "Alright, enough slacking off! We need to –"
To the twins' greatest shock, the table was lifted off the ground and put up to stand properly again, robbing the prison wards of their safe spot. They watched in a new stage of horror how Igor also grabbed the nearby chair and swung it around to place it at the table.
Suddenly the personification of calmness, he sat down at his usual spot at the table, crossed one leg over the other, and started tapping his fingers on the wood as usual.
"Master?" Justine, ever the quickest to act upon her emotions, came to her feet first. Igor turned his head to her with a smile that showed all his teeth, looking at Justine as if he noticed her for the first time.
The lights were burning red. The alarm was blaring.
"Turn off the alarm, girls," Igor asked in his usual calm manner, and not daring to question him, Caroline scrambled to her feet to follow their master's order. As she ran, the layer of papers that was slowly settling on the prison floor flew up in clouds behind her.
Igor stared at the ground and clicked his tongue. "Sweep the floor as well. It will not do to greet our Prisoner of Fate into our current mess."
"Yes, Master. I will see to it immediately." Justine hurried off after her sister as fast as she could.
Igor returned his attention to the currently empty cell where his prisoner used to wake up in, feeling much calmer now that he'd vented his anger because of the blatant rule break of their game. He might not understand its nature, but he had understood one thing.
Igor put finger against finger in front of himself and said to the disembodied voice that lived in the Velvet Room: "It looks like the game has just gotten a lot more interesting than I had initially expected."
The voice didn't answer.