CHAPTER 9: This Is A Friday I Never Want To Repeat, Like, Ever

iron fist: Hold on a moment. Akira, did you double book us?

iron fist: Are we meeting both Akechi and Edward on Friday?

akira: yes? it's a little tight but we should be fine

akira: as long as akechi makes it quick so i can kick him out

akira: otherwise ed can stay for the show or something

roar: wait what if ed is the black mask

roar: no that's crazy ignore me

ufo: his housing records only started in may, and the mental breakdowns go beyond that

ufo: so it's unlikely

ufo: especially since we already figured that black mask is likely. well. yeah

ryuji: Plus Ed's been researching the metaverse way before, I don't think he can access it, which is why he tried to corner us

ufo: also i looked at his notes on mom's coded book and he's insanely smart but all the things he wrote makes me think he didn't even know about the metaverse prior to coming across mom's book

ufo: on another note his handwriting is a nightmare and i never want to look at it again

ufo: i think his lore about to go crazy and i, for once, am a little more confident in my bet

ufo: last chance to update your bets before i win 10k, folks

akira: dude I don't even want to think about the bets

akira: my blood pressure is going to hit the roof

toby fox: And mine is fine, as I am fully confident in my bet

akira: yusuke pls

toby fox: I will be looking forward to the meals at Leblanc.

ufo: and i will be looking forward to my FREE ART COMMISSIONS

fluffy: I am rewriting my bet as we speak. I will win it.

roar: you guys are way too competitive

CURRENT BETTING POOL: 10000 YEN, 5 MEALS AT LEBLANC, 3 ART COMMISSIONS

AKIRA (5 LEBLANC MEALS, 1000 YEN): Trauma-filled alien, ran from his planet to escape a cult

ANN (1000 YEN): Time traveller

RYUJI (1000 YEN): Interdimensional Zoro

FUTABA (1000 YEN): Interdimensional wizard

MAKOTO (1000 YEN): Alien exchange student

YUSUKE (3 ART COMMISSIONS, 500 YEN): Interdimensional time traveller on a godly mission

HARU (4500 YEN): Alien spy investigating the Metaverse

Friday rolls around faster than Akira would have wanted it, much to his dismay. The last few days had been bad enough: it's like the universe decided to give them a crash course on "how to react to someone accusing you of being a Phantom Thief", but repeated it three times in a row with three different people. First Ed, then Akechi, and then Sojiro, like Akira didn't already have enough on his plate.

He can't even actively avoid Ed and Sojiro — both of them work at Leblanc and Sojiro owns the damn place and the roof over his head.

One Blonde Headache now lounges at the counter as Akira descends the stairs. Ed gives him a casual wave that Akira halfheartedly returns.

"Good morning," Ed says. "Boss said he needed a break from you, so he went out for a smoke break or like five. What did you do to break the poor guy's brain?" At Akira's shrug, Ed continues: "Anyways, I made your breakfast for you. Made extra for tonight's gathering too so you can be the first tester." He ducks to the back to stir the two pots boiling, then returns with a plate of something that's definitely not curry. Akira eyes the plate carefully as Ed sets it down.

"Made my Granny's signature stew," he explains. "I won't poison you, promise."

Morgana gives the stew a generous sniff. "It's probably fine," he says to Akira, which isn't actually very assuring at all, considering that he's not capable of sniffing out poison in the first place.

Ed probably won't poison him. Yeah. Probably. Nodding to himself, Akira takes a bite of the stew with an ample side of rice.

It's… Good. Like, really good. It's almost on the same level as Sojiro's curry. Akira takes another bite, then another, then another.

Ed huffs, pleased. "Told you it's fine. It's good, right?"

"You never mentioned you could cook," Akira says between bites, "really unfair you get to have this many talents. Well, other than negotiating."

"Hey, it's not like I could punch my way through that classroom! I can probably negotiate my way out of other situations. Probably. Plus, I got plenty of practice cooking while on the run."

Akira doesn't spit out his stew, but comes pretty close. The stew goes down the wrong pipe, and it takes him a few thumps on the chest to recover. "What?"

Ed looks gleeful, the little bastard. His grin is blinding and does nothing to ease Akira's urge to throw utensils at his face. "Ya know, on the run from the government for a bit and all, probably was listed as MIA while I ran around the country trying to overthrow it."

The stew goes down the wrong pipe again. Ed takes the time to set down a black coffee in front of him, actively giving him food to spit out in surprise. Akira takes the coffee anyway. "It's like you want to clean up a mess in Leblanc," he says, taking a long sip of the drink. It goes down his throat more smoothly than he likes and leaves a scorching heat that lingers on his tongue.

"What can I say? I throw everything into chaos everywhere I go," Ed replies. He leans against the shelf of coffee beans, crossing his arms.

"No kidding," Akira murmurs into his stew.

"Hurry up, Akira," Morgana meows. He paws at Akira's sleeve. "You're gonna be late."

"Right, Morgana should have his breakfast too," Ed scratches his head, turning to the fridge. "What do you feed him, again? Please don't tell me it's the fatty tuna, you're spoiling him."

Akira and Morgana share a glance. Just to throw a curveball at the blonde, Akira says, "Morgana says he wants the fatty tuna."

Morgana, the ever-loving creature, lovingly obliges: "Fatty tuna!"

Ed just laughs. "Very funny. Stop talking to the cat, or I'll call in that counsellor of yours."

Yeah, Akira is definitely going to get a kick out of this. "No, really, Morgana speaks. You just can't understand him."

Now, Ed is looking at him like he's lost his marbles. Kind of amusing, considering he admitted to trying to overthrow his non-European non-Germany government just a minute ago. "No, Akira," Ed says slowly, like he's talking to a toddler, "Morgana cannot talk. Morgana is a cat."

"I've seen you dance to Love Live's Muse when they come on the television and the cafe is empty," Morgana says.

Akira spits out his coffee.

"My apron!" Ed shrieks. He pats it down as though it would actually make a difference, then takes the whole thing off entirely. "Gross!" he yells, one finger pointing at Akira, another hand holding his apron away at a distance. "What the fuck!"

"They were playing Snow Halation the other day," Morgana continues, unrepentant. "Ed was really busting out some moves." A pause. "I would also like the fatty tuna if we are gonna be running late anyways."

"No fatty tuna for you," Akira barely chokes out. Don't look at Ed, don't imagine him dancing to Snow Halation. "You can negotiate with Sojiro for the tuna but you're not getting any from me today."

"... What did the cat say?" Ed asks warily.

"That's for me to forget and you to never know," Akira replies. He shoves the rest of his breakfast into his mouth and downs the last of the coffee. He scoops up Morgana ("Argh! Be gentle, Akira!") and heads for the door. "Thanks for breakfast, see you tonight."

"... Right. See you." He eyes Morgana cautiously. "And Morgana."

Morgana chirps cheerfully as they leave the cafe.

School ends too quickly for Akira's liking, which is on par with his theory that time only moves in the opposite speed that he desires it.

"You guys are early," Ed comments when the group walks into Leblanc.

"We actually have another meeting first," Akira says.

"Huh," is all Ed says, before he starts whipping up coffee orders for everyone. "Is this one without me and discussing about me, or is it one with someone else entirely?"

As if right on cue, Akechi strides into Leblanc and Akira feels his headache grow. He hopes it's not showing on his face.

"Oh, Elric-san," says Akechi pleasantly, "I wasn't expecting you."

"I work here," Ed replies, deadpan. He continues his journey of coffee-making, and tosses out a cup for everyone, save for Ryuji, who gets orange soda. "Right," he says once he's done, wiping his hands on his apron. "I don't want any part of this, so I'm leaving. Don't burn the cafe down, I'm still clocked in." The last part is directed at Akira, who resists the urge to throw up a middle finger and instead directs the energy to visualising tossing Ed out a hundred storey building. He hopes Ed can feel the imaginary daggers on his back as he leaves the cafe.

And then Akechi opens his mouth and starts talking about Niijima Sae's Palace, and Akira wishes he was the one falling out of a hundred storey building instead. At least then he could enjoy the open air instead of listening to Akechi's voice.

"You guys done?" Ed pops back in right after Akechi leaves, with absolutely no downtime.

"I want to nap for a week straight," Ann groans. Similar complaints rise up from the thieves.

"You all sound miserable," Ed says, "so let's have some fun! Final bets, please!"

"I'm going to win!" Futaba says with mustered cheer, then tosses her phone at Ed, who catches it smoothly.

Akira closes his eyes for a brief moment of nonexistent peace. "How are you so cheerful about this?"

"If I'm going to share my life trauma, I'm going to have fun with it," Ed replies. That's a fair point, really. He hums at the list of bets, then hands the phone back to Futaba. "Yusuke is the winner."

"What?!" "You're kidding me!" "What the fuck!"

Akira feels his headache grow even more.

"Okay, forget the bet for a moment, how are you going to explain that at all? Interdimensional time traveller?" Makoto says, looking just as worn out as Akira feels. "What proof do you have?"

Ed scratches his cheek. "Right, that's a tough one. Hmm." He points at Akira's mug. "You done with that?"

"Uh, yeah."

"Perfect." And then Ed grabs his mug and smashes it onto the floor, the sound ringing around the cafe. A moment of silence falls amongst the group as they stare at the shattered ceramic.

"Oh my god. Ed, Sojiro is going to kill me. He's going to kill you, then me. And then he'll kill us again." Akira groans into his hands. He can't deal with this. He's reaching his limit. Scratch that, he hit his limit an hour ago and is sailing past the point of no return.

"Nope!" With a gleeful look, Ed gathers the pieces together with a broom, sweeping them together into a neat pile. "Boss will never know."

He squats to the ground and claps his hands together, the sharp sound resonating within the cafe, fingertips erringly straight and pointed at the ceiling. Blue lightning flashes in arches across his fingertips and dances across his face as he pulls his hands apart and presses them against the pieces of the cup. The smell of ozone hits Akira's nose as he inhales in shock, like the warning of a brewing storm ahead. And then the cup — its pieces melt together into one, and it's full again. Unbroken and whole. The lightning dies down.

A long stretch of silence. Ed just grins like he didn't just break a cup and put it together again with magic. He tosses the cup up and down with one hand. "Told ya."

Futaba is the first to break. "It's magic! I told you it was magic!" she hisses.

"It's not magic, it's alchemy," Ed says, scandalised. "There's no such thing as magic."

"Then what is alchemy? Is it not a dead pseudo science?" Yusuke asks, eyes wide with fascination.

Ed's eyebrows furrow. "Yeah, to you guys maybe, but where I'm from, it's a developed science. Alchemy is the act of understanding, deconstructing and reconstructing. Take this cup for example: it's ceramic. Ceramic is actually a little tricky — you can categorise a lot of stuff as ceramic. This one in particular has metal oxides and a bunch of carbon and nitrogen packed into it. Now that you understand what it's made of, you can smash and adjust atoms here and there, usually with an array, and reconstruct the cup. Voila."

Most of that flew by Akira's head. He blinks. Right, magic.

Futaba makes a noise. "You're… you're saying you're basically a walking particle accelerator?!"

"Uh, yeah. I guess."

Before Futaba can continue her line of questioning (definitely extremely extensive), Akira says, "Why are you here then? Alchemy aside, why are you here of all places?"

"That's kinda hard to explain. I was sent here by Truth, which is like this all seeing deity who governs the laws of alchemy, and they said I gotta guide a bunch of people to the right decision. Or something. Honestly, the mission is kind of blurry at the sides, but I should be correct in assuming that you Phantom Thieves are the bunch that I need to guide, especially since Truth was all 'I have faith you will meet the right people', which is crazy, 'cos that's a lot of faith in luck."

"God-given mission," Yusuke marvels.

"They're a bastard," Ed spits out, disdain clear on his face, "they are fair but they are merciless." Ed leans against the bar counter, expression turning weary. "There was a big mess back home where the government was corrupted and we had to throw a coup to save the country, et cetera, et cetera. Then during the big final fight, my brother —" His expression falls, and he shakes himself. "I'm getting ahead of myself. Alright, idiots. Time for forbidden alchemy 101 extreme crash course."

Oh boy.

"There are three taboos in alchemy: never transmute gold, never act against the government — a little late for that but that's not the point — and never commit human transmutation. The first two are self-explanatory: making gold would fuck up the economy, and the government is a bitch. Ah, we have a military government back home, absolute pain in the ass, likes to pick fights with everyone," he adds on at everyone's questioning looks. He sobers. "And as for human transmutation, well. It's the act of transmuting a human."

Ed turns his head away. "Me and my brother, we were young and too smart for our own good, left with the books and journals that our deadbeat dad had in the library. We studied alchemy because our mom loved seeing us perform it." He sucks in a breath. "Mom died from sickness when we were four and five."

Futaba's face turns pale.

"The law of equivalent exchange is key to alchemy: in order to obtain or create something, something of equal value must be lost or destroyed." Ed looks up, golden eyes hard with grief. "The raw materials of a human can be bought with a child's pocket money, but there is no equivalent to a person's soul."

He sighs. "My brother and I were young and stupid and so, so, fucking stupid. We thought we were different, that we could do what others failed. We tried to bring her back to life, and lost much in that attempt. I lost my right arm and my leg, and Al lost his whole body."

Akira feels the blood in his face drain — Ed committed the equivalent of necromancy as an eleven-year-old child, and paid a painful price.

"But your brother is still alive, right?" Ryuji asks. "And your arm and leg… you got them back…?"

"Yeah, but for Al, it's a half life at most," Ed replies, bitter. "I bound his soul to armor by giving up my arm, and sure, he can think and speak and move, but he can't eat or sleep." He purses his lips, expression looking far away. "There's a lot more to it, but I'm gonna run a quick one now.

"Speedrun edition: after that clusterfuck of a nightmare, I got automail for my limbs —" He rolls up the pant leg of his left leg, revealing the metallic limb and drawing gasps from the thieves. "Hey, no touchie!" he bats off a curious Yusuke, then rolls it back down. "Then signed up for the military as a State Alchemist to gain access to money and confidential resources so we could try to get our bodies back. Somewhere along the way, we uncover a nationwide conspiracy and extreme corruption in the government, find my deadbeat dad, find out his evil twin is the one behind the conspiracy and that the entire country was actually built to sacrifice all its citizens and lead the evil twin to eternal life and godhood." A pause. "Yeah, then, uh. Al traded his soul for my arm again, then I punched the wannabe god in the face and defeated him. Then I went to trade my alchemy for Al's entire body, and Truth made a deal for me to come here and do whatever. Then I'll get to keep my alchemy and have Al back too."

Another long length of silence falls over the group. Akira doesn't think he can process any of that, period.

"I'm not legal to drink yet," Ann bemoans. Akira silently agrees.

"Holy shit," Ryuji says, eyes wide. "Are you okay, Ed?"

Ed lets out a startled laugh. "Fuck, no one's asked me that in a long time." He scratches the back of his head. "Yeah, I guess so. I miss everyone back home and I really want to go back, but the past few months have been some downtime I really needed. That, and the technology here is incredible. I'm having lots of fun with that. So I suppose I'm working towards okay, and will definitely be okay once I get home and see everyone safe."

"Hold up," Ryuji raises a hand, charmingly like an obedient student. "What about the time travel?"

"Oh, yeah. Born in 1899 in the east side of Amestris, in the small town of Resembool. We've got nothing but cattle and sheep out there. The year was 1915 when I left, so this place is a good century ahead."

"A century," Akira repeats. Wow. A century.

"Yeah, a whole ass century," Ed says. "Imagine my fucking surprise when I found out about mobile phones. We don't even have film yet."

"No technology," Futaba cries.

"Hey, we have phones and trains and cars and electricity," Ed protests. "You guys just have it real good."

"Okay. Okay," Makoto says to herself, almost a frantic edge to her voice. She blinks. "How does the Metaverse tie into all that? How does Futaba's mom's research tie into this?" Akira is so thankful to have a clear-headed person on the team, because he is certainly not able to think straight right now.

"Truth said that there's a 'world beyond the world' so I assumed I might have to jump into interdimensional travel in the most literal sense. Hence the copious amount of research and library books. Coming across Isshiki's book was a lot of luck, really. Hell, even meeting you lot was a bunch of batshit insane luck. I was trying to figure out an array to break through to the other world that Isshiki spoke of, but there simply wasn't an energy source big enough to power the array, and it definitely borders on human transmutation if we venture into teleportation. I don't have a lot of limbs left to pay the price for whatever that might take. My last resort was coming directly to you guys, since I figured that this whole phenomenon was probably linked to the Phantom Thieves."

"How did you figure we were the Phantom Thieves?" Haru asks. "I'm sure we are all very careful."

Ed shrugs. "Careful, maybe. But the way you guys hang out together isn't very inconspicuous. So many things connect you to the actions of the Phantom Thieves that it steers away from coincidence and into a pattern." He starts pointing them out, counting his fingers as he does so: "Shujin students and Kamoshida. Madarame's only remaining student and Madarame. The student drug trafficking cases and Kaneshiro. And now perhaps the most damningly, Okumura's only daughter and Okumura. I'm not really sure how Medjed ties into all this, but I'm assuming Futaba had a hand in that." He frowns. "Actually, did that Akechi dude figure you guys out already? Is that why he dropped by earlier?"

Akira sighs. "Unfortunately."

"Right, I wouldn't want to be in your position." He claps his hands together, eyes shining brightly. "So how do you guys go into this 'Metaverse'?"

"We use an app," Ryuji says.

"An app. An app," Ed groans. He runs his hands down his face. "I thought the app that Isshiki was referring to was figurative, not fucking literal. You fuckers have applications for everything. Your bank, your food, your map, and now your fucking other world. Fuck me up down and sideways."

"You sound like an old man," Ryuji snickers.

"I am technically an old, century-year-old man, if we go by the birth date," Ed replies dryly. "I only discovered modern technology a few months ago, fucking sue me."

"Ah, height shrinkage," Akira says, because he can't keep his mouth shut.

"I'm going to break all of the cups and tell Boss you did it," Ed declares. "And never fix them."

"You're a worse cat than Morgana."

"Meow," Ed deadpans.

"Hey! I'm the team cat!" Morgana puffs up his fur, then deflates. "Wait, not a cat!"

Haru laughs lightly, running a hand through Morgana's fur. "It's okay, Mona, you'll always be our team favourite."

Ed looks at the group with an incredulous expression. "Can you all understand the cat? Am I just going fucking insane?"

"Yes to both," Akira says.

"Shut up, Akira."

Makoto sighs. Akira can tell when she wants to punch everyone in the face with her iron gauntlets, and this is definitely one of those times. "Please stop bantering, otherwise we will never get to leave Leblanc tonight."

"Yes, boss," Ryuji mock salutes.

Ed makes a face at the action. "You'll get punished for a salute that sloppy."

Makoto huffs another long-suffering sigh. "Let's get back on track. Does anyone have any relevant questions for Ed before we move on to the topic of the Phantom Thieves?" The way she emphasises on relevant makes Akira want to say something entirely irrelevant just for the heck of it, then discards that line of thought entirely before he acts on it and gets punched in the stomach for his foolery.

"I'll need five business days to get back to you on that," Akira supplies when no one speaks up.

Makoto pitches the bridge of her nose. "Akira."

"I'm on information overload right now. My mouth is running on autopilot."

A ding interrupts Makoto as she opens her mouth to reply, and Ed shoots up from his place at the counter.

"The rice is done!" he declares. He scoops up plates of rice alongside generous portions of stew, passing them out to everyone.

Akira stares at his plate. It has no business smelling this good and tasting this good at all. If Sojiro got his hands on this recipe, it's going on the menu, for sure.

"Right! Now let's get to your side of the story," Ed says gleefully as he plops down on one of the bar seats, spoon dangling from his fingers. "Tell me all about the Phantom Thieves."

Forget napping, Akira wants to fall into a coma. This is going to be a long, long night.

A/N:

thanks for reading! super dump! this is everything up to whatever I've got on ao3 rn, so like. yep! thanks again folks