Persona 5: Daywatch
Tuesday, 11 June 2013
Evening
Inaba, South Quarter
When the skies began to rumble, Akira hunched and picked up his pedaling. Most times or places he wouldn't care about a drizzle, but Inaba never seemed to have light rain – it was either heavy or nothing. No wonder it got so foggy so often. At least it brought slight relief from the heat, though the valley wind helped.
His Tanizaki Middle School satchel thumped in the basket over the rear bike wheel as he swung in a quick turn onto his street. A few plastic sunflower-spinners and other accessories added spots of color to the cookie-cutter community, but with most of the houses here being semi-yearly rentals, most bore no decorations. However, the lights in the ground and upper floors were distinct enough to catch his eye. "Odd… Mother always turns off the lights when she leaves a room."
Or left the lights off entirely when she was hungover, which was several times a week.
He shrugged off the suspicion. He pushed open the wrought-iron gate and walked his bike inside, leaving it leaning against the outer wall before he rushed to the scant cover in front of the door.
As often as she partied it up elsewhere, it felt like anybody besides himself inhabiting the house felt unusual. He paused when he heard laughter inside, one of the voices belonging to his mother. The sound seemed incompatible with a home invasion, but circumstances still felt strange, so he knocked instead of letting himself in.
A male voice asked something too muffled by the front door to hear.
A few moments later, stumbling steps approached the front door. One lock slid open, then the next popped open, the doorknob turned, and the door swung inwards until the chain lock brought it to a halt. Inside stood his mother, her long, chestnut-brown hair done up in a fancy bun starting to slip apart. Her lipstick looked smudged and her ostentatious kimono was uneven. She held a champagne flute in one hand. "This is a bad time."
"What is it, Fumi-chan?" an unfamiliar male voice called, just before a short man stepped into view from the den. He could have fit in the model lineup of a daytime soap opera. He wore a tuxedo sans the jacket, though the shirt was untucked.
Her grey eyes snapped wide and she shifted to block any view of the outside. She fixed her kimono, then called over her shoulder, "Just a schedule mistake from the help."
Akira blinked. "You're partying here? The lease said no alcohol, pets, or noise disturbances."
She stuck her face in the door gap and hissed, "I have been trying to get in with the Shinpei's for weeks. Go stay with one of your classmates."
Strong arms wrapped around his mother's waist from behind and tugged her just enough away from the door for the guy to peek through the door. His gaze lingered on the transfer student's Tanizaki Middle School jacket. "He's the help?"
Fumiko waved the middle-school student off. "Good help is hard to find in the country, Shin-chan." She turned her head over her shoulder and gave a look which conveyed, Fuck this up and you're the one who's fucked. She turned back to the man, switching her champagne to her other hand, the now-free one swinging the door closed.
A feminine squeak made it through the door. A moment later, one of the slide locks clacked closed before uneven footsteps trotted away.
Akira's stomach growled. Between Mother forgetting to give him money to stock the fridge on Monday and Nozomi having stolen his sandwich today, he felt a little dizzy. Still, the one time he expressed disapproval for her drinking, she threatened to cart him off to his old bastard's.
The wind picked up, carrying dry leaves and dust.
Akira reopened the gate and got back on his bike. Better give his mother this night than have to go back to his old bastard for the rest of his life.
Friday, 19 July 2013
Late Evening
Inaba, Tanizaki Middle School
Akira trotted into the school's bike racks, the shoddy wood fencing making him think of abandoned countryside towns. He didn't intend to hide at school like at Shinjou when the only person waiting for him was his old bastard, but old habits died hard. Now, he needed to get to the house to finish research for Wednesday's history paper.
Something soft bumped into him and he turned to see one of the girls in his year backpedal and wipe at her skirt. "Eew, it's that dweeb."
"Come on," the girl next to her said. "He's in my class. Loser thought he could be best friends with everyone on his first day. Even said skip right to calling him Akira, like he's from here and one of us."
The rest of the lingering library and late-finishing club students trotted from the little school's front entrance, so he unlocked his bike and walked it out to the street. He glanced up at the dark, cloud-choked skies and slipped his red umbrella out of the basket to pop it open.
Akira, wake up, a familiar female voice called, though for some reason he knew that voice couldn't – shouldn't – be here. He wouldn't meet the owner for years.
His stomach growled. The school store ran out before he got to the counter. Even if he could steal a couple thousand yen from his mother again, the fridge was empty so he'd have to go shopping anyway.
A hush fell over the town before the rain began.
Letting the umbrella hang straight on his head, he hopped onto the pedals to pedal harder, shooting off to the South Quarter where his mother's short-term lease house was.
The iron gate squeaked and he stashed the bike against the wall inside the gate where it wasn't visible from passers-by. He slipped out the keys and unlocked the front door. The inside of the rental house was darker than the falling evening outside. No sign of life greeted him, and those dressy red stilletos were missing from the shoe cubby. "Still getting lucky at Yoshihisa's tonight?"
Nobody would be here to answer him, so he straightened the front, doffed his own shoes, and stepped in. Some wine, spirits, and a bottle of wasabi were all that occupied the inside of the fridge. Three bottles of champagne sat on the kitchen counter, none of them upright, so he added those to a recycle bin half-full with bottles, plastic and paper food packaging. He pulled out the kitchen trash bin to sort them properly. A cake box proclaiming 'happy birthday' stared up at him from the trash bin and his empty stomach growled.
It wasn't his mother's birthday. And hadn't been.
He still pulled the box out of the trash just in case there were some crumbs in it. Not even enough icing to coat two knuckles.
The glass recycle clattered with clinking bottles as he finished tossing the champagne in, and he paused to wipe down the counters before hauling the bin outside. His stomach growled as he turned to the neighborhood drop-off point and the bin slipped out of his hands as he tripped on a brick, the two times he managed to buy bread from Tanizaki insufficient to cover one meal for five days.
The wrought-iron gate swung shut behind him, then the mysterious no-where girl's voice from earlier spoke, "I can't believe it. Your mother just…abandoned you to party?"
Akira whirled towards the girl in an iron mask and biking leather, "What's it to you? She's my mother. What am I supposed to do, go back to the old bastard because he's got a respectable job?" He spat on the asphalt. "Better a party animal than torturing people for government grants!"
Her eyes widened behind the large slits in her mask. "You prefer…" she glanced over at the dark house, "…that?" The girl in black riding leathers held her hand to her face plate. "And texting you to take a bus when you already have a bike… that was just to keep you away so she could bring strangers home, wasn't it?"
His hands curled into fists. "She leaves me be. Better than the alternative."
She gawked at him for several moments, the rain passing straight through her like she wasn't there. "What kind of…?" Then she shook her head. "No, focus. This is not real."
Akira closed his umbrella to shuffle back under the overhang. "What, because it sucks? That's called life. That's why you always gotta look out for number one. If you don't, the world bends you over and leaves you raw." His stomach groaned and he covered the offending organ with a hand. "Now go away. I'm not gonna eat if I don't lift something from somewhere, Makoto."
She pointed at him. "See? You do realize it. This is a memory, a recall forced by a Palace cognition. It's not real."
He stepped back out, snapping the umbrella open as he snarled at her. "Stop saying that!"
She grabbed his wrist as he tried to pick up the fallen plastic bin. "Akira, think about it. You're a high schooler attending Shujin in Tokyo. You wouldn't know me if you were still in this little town. None of this is rea—"
He pulled away from her, but her grip held. "My suffering is real!"
A long beat passed as she considered her words. "Yes," she said, her tone terse but still controlled enough to keep quiet. "But this memory isn't the real you. This is the past. We couldn't leave you to the Palace Ruler. But you have to come with us or you'll get stuck in a loop of tortured memories. And every time you loop into another one of these memories, it hurts you. Beyond having to relive it."
The middle schooler in a wet jacket glared up at her, but a light left his gaze and a tremble passed through his face and arms. His eyes shone, though with the rain pounding down it was hard to tell if anything else happened. "I'm just a middle schooler everyone hates."
She held firm on his wrist. "No, you're not. Remember who you are, who we are. We're Phantom Thieves. A group you started because you refused to just walk away when other people were suffering in silence. You already changed one heart before you showed me I didn't have to let myself get pushed around my whole life, breaking myself trying to please others."
He pulled away from her, but with less strength than before.
"Akira," she said, a tremble in her voice as she looked down at the pathetic image of the wet boy who didn't even have a good home to go to. "This might be your past, but it's not all of your past. I… I hurt you because I was too weak to stand up for myself. I threatened you to make you solve my problems for me because I couldn't see how to help myself. You stood up and refused to let me be that weak, helpless girl. You didn't even ask me to be strong, you didn't give me a choice. Whether you knew Johanna was in me waiting to wake up or were the kind to jump into the deep end, you didn't hesitate and didn't try to force me to hide from the truth. So I stood up on my own for the first time I can remember. That was because I saw an Akira who never gave up, no matter how insurmountable the odds. Even if it meant almost certain failure. That's the Akira who led us into a pyramid space ship to save the heart of a girl who saw her mother die. That's the Akira who's going to get us through."
The emptiness too vacant to even call despair faded from his eyes. Breathing in, Akira pulled his hands away from the recycle bin and straightened, then looked Makoto in her eyes. Flames licked over his wrist, then raced over his body. Instead of the bland, ill-fitting Tanizaki Middle School uniform jacket, the boy bore a slick black longcoat and avian-styled domino mask. He gave her one nod. "Let's go save her."
She let out a soft, relieved breath. "You sure you're okay?"
His arms fell to his side, his lips pressed thin. "Just because I didn't have a mother who loved me doesn't mean that should be taken from anyone else."
Monday, 25 July 2016
Morning
Futaba's Palace, Stargate Camp
Circuitry cycling down resonated in her ear before Makoto opened her eyes to the inside of a sandy-brown canvas tent. Once she felt a lack of adhesion to her head, she reached up and pulled off the memory recall device from sweat-slicked skin. When she sat up, an arm was already there to take her hand and help her up.
"Awright, Miss Badass!" Ryuji said, the others crowding around a woozy Akira. "You good?"
She swung her legs down to the ground. "I'm not the one who spent a night being tortured by a Palace Ruler." She still accepted the runner's hand up.
Akira tried to shove himself to standing and stumbled to one knee. After that, he accepted the artist's hand up. After a beat to catch his breath, he pushed through the model and artist to hold his hand out. "My gun?"
Makoto looked him over, but besides the five-centimeter-wide hole in his vest, he seemed none the worse for wear. "Ak—Joker, are you sure? You spent all night being forced through memories of your mother—"
"Like most Goa'uld," Akira said, his voice raised a bit more than necessary, "Isis and her slaves lack imagination." His eyes flicked to the artist for a moment. "I'm not saying I'm invincible. But if someone wanted to torture me, memories of my mother are not the weapons to do it with." He held out his hand. "My gun. Futaba's still waiting on us, and she doesn't have long left."
Ann blinked under her feline mask. "Wait, you want to keep going? We should get out so you—"
"I promised I'd save Futaba. So we're going to save Futaba." The grit in his eyes and face was unmistakable. After letting a beat pass, he turned and gave a salute to the grizzled old man still watching. "Thank you, Colonel. General."
He gave a rather Akira-like smirk back and returned with a lazy salute. "I know I can't give you orders. But… Whoever you kids are working for… don't kill yourselves. Daedalus will be here soon, and then it'll all be over." They all exited the water tent, O'Neil marching off to the command tent with Teal'c.
As the Phantom Thieves trotted out of the camp, Morgana glanced over his shoulder at the pair of adult Stargate team members, then up to Akira. "What'd he mean about Daedalus?"
Akira scratched his scalp. "Never heard of it."
Makoto tapped a gloved finger to her lips. "Everything here has an old Egyptian styling, except for those Americans, but Daedalus sounds like Greek."
"Aha!" Yusuke stood taller. "I remember now. A folkloric resident of Crete, Daedalus was credited with creating the labyrinth containing the minotaur. Yano-san wanted to name one of his paintings Daedalus' Labyrinth." He hummed. "I think I now understand why the center bore a resemblance to Sensei's atelier."
Akira scratched his chin. "Hm… I know Teal'c's father served Cronus before being executed for failing to win an impossible battle, but that's the only Greek god I can think of on the show. And SG-1 took his Ha'tak after killing him."
Makoto shifted her weight to her other foot. "Weren't the Greek gods rather capacious and cruel? If one of their figures is coming, I don't get the sense that means anything good."
Akira nodded. "I don't think they're calling in a rival system lord, but I think you're right to be wary. Especially with that 'it'll all be over' comment. I think we need to hurry and change Futaba's heart." He looked to the cat-boy. "So where to first, Byakko?"
Makoto gawked even as they continued to pace out of the Stargate camp. "You can't seriously be considering driving on!"
Yusuke pat his hand against her shoulder, at least below her spiked pauldrons. "We are as prepared as we might be, and he will experience no peace leaving things unfinished."
Ryuji held his machine gun up in the air. "Fuck yeah!" When the others stared at him, he settled back into a normal stance. "I mean, ain't 'e right? If we gotta go early 'cause he runs outta juice, we gotta go. 'til then, let's kick ass an' change hearts!"
Morgana gave a reluctant nod. "Very well. Until we learn more about the Palace, Joker is still our best bet for finding a shortcut or safer route to the Treasure. But I want you on rear guard for the first fight. Rider? With him. Panther, Fox, and Reaper? Up front with me."
Monday, 25 July 2016
Afternoon
Futaba's Ha'tak
Akira dashed to the other side of the hall, keeping to the protruding angled support pillars jutting out of the wall. He gave a nod to the model, and she zapped one of the Jaffa with her serpentine alien stun-gun.
The Shadow swelled.
Morgana leaped in a blur and snatched the mask from the Jaffa on the other side of the door. It swelled in a black pustule. Both transformed into a monster with the lower body of a giant snake with the upper body of a man gripping a spear and circular shield.
Akira smirked. "Raja Naga!"
An even larger snake-man wearing gold gauntlets and bearing a flaring, gold helm coalesced.
Already charging magic, the naga on the left pointed his spear and unleashed a lightning bolt into his Persona. The tendrils of energy fizzled with the smallest tickle against his body.
Yusuke called out, "Goemon!" and sent his Persona to smash its enormous, bladed smoking pipe against the Shadow on the right.
Ann shot the Shadow on the left with her grey stun-weapon, but the naga gritted its teeth and stayed upright.
Akira sent his larger Persona against the same naga, leaving the others to destroy the second naga as his tore into the one on the left with clawed, golden gauntlets.
Once both dissolved like smoke on the wind, Ryuji came from the rear guard with a smile which fit his skull mask too well. "Nice, dude. 'Looked like that did even less than when those bozos try an' zap Fox's Persona. 'Wish I had it that easy. But when'd'ja get it?"
"Same place as Ananta Shesha. Well, maybe a little more…temperate." Akira dismissed his Persona and keyed in the open sequence to the panel next to the door.
A Shadow guard sat at what appeared to be the alien equivalent of a computer work desk, though with a holographic screen showing Egyptian symbols. When it heard them and began to turn, Ann shot it.
The shadow swelled and burst into one of those blue-feathered, lion-headed monsters.
Ann shot it again and it fell to the floor, dissolving.
Morgana hopped up onto what appeared to be a big, limestone desk and turned to the door. "Rider, Reaper, cover the door. Joker, what is this?"
Makoto tapped a button to close the door after them, but kept her shotgun ready.
Setting his gun on the desk, Akira rubbed his hands together and sat on the tiny, wood stool with a cackle. He looked over the Japanese keyboard where a larger, alien input array should exist. "This is an information repository. The ones in the show had hieroglyphic symbols." He straightened on the tiny stool. "Why hello there, gift horse. What nice teeth you have." He typed for just a moment until the recommended query turned up a disconcerting result. He selected it, and the holographic screen turned opaque. Green text spelled out Matricide, with options below reading Play and Back. He glanced up at the team leader, who responded with a shrug, then settled the cursor next to Play and tapped the enter key.
Thursday, 21 August 2014
Afternoon
Shinjou, Hotel District
Traffic cruised along an unfamiliar street corner in Shinjou, the sky dotted with clouds letting in plenty of sun on the mountain city's broad sidewalks. Only a handful of other people shuffled along at a purposeful walk, except for the girl in a bright green tank top. Futaba's straight orange hair, once black just like her mother, flowed after her as she ran circles over the pavement around her mother, arms thrown out to sides. "Goin' to Duck Burger! Goin' to Duck Burger!"
Isshiki Wakaba missed a step, but instead of the sudden burst of alertness which tended to accompany such a shuffle, she settled into a lurching shamble. Her blank eyes stared across the street. Drool gathered at the corner of her mouth.
When Futaba came back around to resume her circling, she noticed the change in behavior. "Mom?"
Wakaba shambled another step at the winding street, the cross-light more than twenty meters away.
"Mom, wake up!" Futaba grabbed at the woman's sleeve, only for her to put unexpected strength into her next step. The unexpected pull took her from the girl's grip.
Wakaba took a long, stumbling step off the curb as if tumbling over a cliff.
Futaba's face turned white as a sheet and she reached out. "No! Mama!" Her hands clamped on a trouser leg at the same time as the delivery truck's horn blasted, but the screeching of its brakes came far too late.
The bumper knocked Wakaba underneath and bones snapped as her body tumbled under the wheels.
The image outside Wakaba's legs grew fuzzy as Futaba's eyes welled over. Her chin trembled. It took a long moment as her breathing got faster and shallower before the tears spilled. She screamed at the mangled limbs sticking out as the truck driver popped open his door, already calling an ambulance on his cell phone.
Somebody from behind grabbed her arm to pull her away.
Futaba reacted with animal ferocity, her nails drawing blood from the salaryman's hand before she rushed back at the bloodied body.
The driver joined, trying to divide his attention between the emergency operator and talking down the frantic girl, though Futaba couldn't make out anything over the blood rushing in her ears and screaming resonating through her bones.
Monday, 25 July 2016
Afternoon
Futaba's Ha'tak
The holographic screen cut to black for a moment before jumping to another computer center. Second Prime Youji sat there, his body so pudgy the gold armor plates could not quite enclose him. The pair of Shadow Jaffa standing beside him did a lot to make up the image of a military commander.
Ryuji's eyes were wide under his skull mask. "Fuuuck…"
The gold-clad commander smirked. "So now you know, Isis has committed crimes against nature. She is even more twisted than the cruel, uncaring world."
Akira crossed himself. "Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. Does the concept of de-escalation not exist for you?"
"Blood calls for blood," Youji taunted. "The very universe is out for the destruction of my god. Is it any surprise I must deploy the violence I do as I daily execute the fools who think Jaffa can ever be free?"
Yusuke's voice was so quiet, the longcoated boy almost missed, "No wonder her heart is twisted. Her own mind desires destruction."
Makoto held her hand to her mouth, moments away from losing her breakfast.
Akira jumped up, kicking the little stool tumbling. "A Prime is supposed to serve his lord!"
The pudgy man in gold laughed. "You think I should be loyal? To a god who would kill her own mother? It is the ultimate crime! All I care about is I have the excuse to destroy all I can claim to be her enemy. And if – no, when I find the filthy Tok'ra feeding our secrets to our enemies, I shall burn it slowly."
Ann shook, her hands clenching on her Zat gun. "But Futaba didn't do anything! We all saw it, her mother walked—fell into the road!"
Yusuke nodded, her enthusiasm shaking away the darkness building in his countenance. "Indeed! And what was that shambling before? Are you enough of a fool to tell me she was not dead on her feet before the truck ran over her?"
Makoto stood straighter and turned to take in the artist in her peripheral vision. "You're right! All those strange behaviors were just like the reports of mental shutdown victims."
Second Prime Youji laughed, his belly jiggling under his gold armor plates. "Idiots! You sound like the Tok'ra who thinks death can be avoided and is still deluded enough to think heroes save. It is only a matter of time. Either the Tau'ri will come with a battleship and obliterate the mother-slayer from orbit, or I shall find and hang the Tok'ra!"
Yusuke shook his head. "This echoes disturbingly close to the inside of my head before you saved me from Madarame."
Second Prime Youji laughed again. "It matters not. You will all die first."
The doors snapped open and four Shadow Jaffa surged in. The Phantom Thieves whirled about, but too late to stop the Shadows from collapsing into what seemed puddles of tar. Instead of new monsters hopping out like normal, the black puddles merged into each other, shuddering with a resonating hum like a heartbeat before bursting with enough force to knock the Thieves into the walls.
In the middle stood a black-furred dog-faced humanoid in regal Egyptian armor. Flanking it floated two stone obelisks marked with a dancing woman. The three-meter-tall Shadow glared down at the Thieves, his eyes falling on the longcoated boy. He lifted a set of balance scales. "I judge your soul…" A feather appeared on one side, and the other end of the scale dropped.
A black magic circle inscribed itself underneath Akira, and he dove out of it an instant before darkness flashed up.
Ryuji and Yusuke unleashed their guns on the Shadow, but the floating stone obelisks interposed. Bullets ricocheted and the Thieves lowered their guns before they could take any more than glancing blows.
As if that wasn't enough, both obelisks glowed with white light in the carved images of the dancing woman frozen on each face. Then frigid winds howled at the whole team, palm-sized ice shards flitting through the air and shattering against the stone walls. Makoto shrieked in pain before Ann conjured Carmen to brace through the assault. Even then, the model flinched under the impact of each shard.
Akira summoned Raja Naga again and sent a lightning bolt into one of the floating obelisks shielding Anubis. Its hover wobbled, but it stayed in the air.
Yusuke surged forward, slashing his katana at the carved obelisks. His sword deflected off and flung back at him before he could regain his grip on the blade, slicing his upper arm.
Flames flickered as Johanna formed around the upperclassman, then motes glowed and the wound on the artist's arm sealed.
"Fuck." Ryuji popped his gun's generous ammo box off and pushed in the red crystal. "It can reflect bullets and swords?" He slammed the box back into his gun. "Let's hope pyrotechnics work better!" He pulled the trigger and swept the barrel over the Shadows. To their surprise, the flaming bursts scratched at the stone obelisks carved with dancing women and both collapsed to the ground.
"The weight of your deeds!" Anubis said, holding his scale high.
A shudder passed through Phantom Thieves, their bodies becoming less responsive, as if the gravity pulling at them quadrupled.
Morgana leaped out and slashed at the Shadow, only for it to whip out a bronze kopis out of nowhere and parry the bayonet. "Joker! You come up with a Persona with bless magic when we weren't looking?"
He blinked. "That's a thing?"
Ann reached for her suit's cleavage window. "Bless magatama out!" She hurled a bead no bigger than her thumb, but it burst with bright white light.
The fallen obelisks shuddered on the ground, but Anubis didn't even blink.
Akira braced behind his weapon and squeezed the trigger, sending a fusillade of bullets at the brawny, dog-faced Shadow. It stumbled back under the long burst until his weapon clicked empty. "Shit."
Anubis brandished its bronze kopis, the forward-curving sword glistening before it unleashed bolts of pure white light at every member of the Phantom Thieves.
Ryuji and Morgana shuddered under the bless bolts, but the impact sent Akira and Ann sprawling backwards.
Anubis held up his scale, a churning orb of darkness on one side and light on the other. The two carved stone obelisks rose up from the floor and blocked the humanoid Shadow.
Morgana lowered his crossbow. "Zorro!" His Persona coalesced, a bluish fire blazing at their eyes as the same aura licked over one of the obelisks. The team leader sighed. "Of course that wouldn't work."
Ryuji brandished his light machine gun. "Time to rip it up!" He pulled the trigger and angled the gun to use its own muzzle jump to sweep across the Shadows, the flaming rounds knocking both obelisks to the ground again, one almost crushing Anubis and forcing it to abandon whatever magic it had been charging.
"They're waning!" Morgana called. "Hit 'em with fire again!"
"Hua Po!" Akira called, the red-skinned fairy coalescing and then lifting a hand to her lips as if to blow a kiss. Instead, it blew a pulse of flame at the fallen obelisk on the right. He turned to the one on the left, but his Persona vanished in a puff of flames as sweat poured down his face.
Makoto surged forward, knocking him out of the way as she leaped into position, Johanna solidifying around her before it blasted a bolt of flame at the other obelisk. The carved Shadow disintegrated.
Yusuke called out, "Goemon!" His Persona leaped, slamming its axe-pipe weapon down against the dog-faced Shadow, which crashed to the stone floor.
With both remaining Shadows down, the Phantom Thieves surged at them, pounding them into oblivion.
Morgana panted, and folded his crossbow. "J-Joker… you're spent. Don't even bother arguing. Fall back to rear guard. Fox, Rider, up front. Let's get out of here before reinforcements arrive."
AN: "Wish I had it that easy," Ryuji says about having resistance to lightning. Am I leaning on having changed the character elements? Oh yes I am, and will do so again!
Shut-ins have a much higher suicide rate than the general population, and one of the things that happens to them is a resentment of the healthier, outgoing family and ex-friends they used to have that can cause them to push away the support network they desperately need to escape. Futaba had trauma by the world outside, but at least a small part of her distortion is going to include hating Sojiro for his part in locking her away from the world even if both know he's not trying to do so and he wants the decision to go out to be hers. In the original Japanese, the language is clear that in the "fail to save Futaba" ending that she commits suicide and her suicide note points the cops at Akira. The English localization for some reason deleted that part, but it makes too much sense to leave out.