Trans rights are human rights, and if you don't believe that, this isn't the fic for you.

On a fateful day in 1999, the Moonlight Bridge burned.

An angel carved from metal as merciless as the testaments of old clashed with a shroud of malevolence torn from the fabric of humanity's darkest desires, a being just as devilish as it appeared.

None of that mattered to the people below them, however. What did was the shockwaves from their attacks, sweeping beams of pitch black shadow that disintegrated all in their path and bullets that flew askew, piercing engine and flesh both. Cars crumpled, metal husks torn apart as if made of paper. Vehicles rolled like wrecking balls, crushing the lives of anyone they hit like ants. Finally, oil was set aflame, illuminating the carnage with an unholy glow.

Screams echoed across the night, silenced as for the first time ever, Iwatodai's skies were painted a sickly, unnatural shade of green (like death and rot and all things putrid). As the man-made and the divine continued their war, nearly all of the scant survivors' bodies were trapped in coffins they never had the chance to leave.

All but two, that was.

With a loud, hacking cough, a child stumbled out of a shredded car, knobbly knees scratched as a shaggy fringe failed to hide the blood seeping down from a cut on their chin.

Trembling, the other stepped out from behind a fallen streetlamp, eyes wide and barrettes askew as they turned around, staring at the metal pole that almost ended their life.

And, as an uncaring heaven and hell fought, and fought, and fought, the two met each other's eyes.

For a moment, they forgot everything. The fire and blood and glass and iron faded away as they stared, transfixed, heartbeats rising to a crescendo as an entirely new emotion they couldn't even begin to describe bloomed in their chests.

They'd soon discover the emotion was gender envy.

(The robot also charged towards the one with the fringe, shoving a ball of pure darkness into their chest, but that mattered so much less.)

…..

A rock settled into Makoto's stomach when the Dark Hour arrived, and Mitsuru informed them Aigis wasn't in the dormitory. Between Junpei, Ken, Shinji, and lastly Ikutsuki with his mad gloating and designs for murder, he'd learnt by now it was a bad sign when a member of SEES was missing when the full moon arrived.

Thankfully, hunting down the wayward robot didn't take long. Aigis stood in the centre of the Moonlight Bridge, blonde hair swaying as she was silhouetted by the moon. A slither of familiarity stabbed into Makoto's brain, but he shrugged it off with a wince. It wasn't important. It wasn't.

(Beyond stealing the gender of that cool boy he saw anyway.)

Yukari called out her name, but the robot didn't reply. Not until SEES had finished charging to her side, and Makoto met her eyes.

"I'm sorry, I… I remember everything. Who I am. What I have done, and… the truth of Shadows" Aigis informed them with the same static, stilted voice she always used, but instantly, Makoto could tell there was something different about it.

She sounded afraid.

He couldn't blame her. Not when she told SEES the truth behind the ritual they'd unwittingly completed. The monster they'd brought back into this world, Death, and the ruin that soon awaited them all.

… The monster, that for some reason (a reason that dawned on him very quickly), she believed she'd sealed in Makoto all those many years ago.

When her tale came to an end, after the ensuing silence stretched out, and out, and out, Makoto only had one thing to say. "That's impossible."

"I… I am sorry, but-"

He raised a hand, cutting Aigis off, even if he'd much prefer to be rubbing his temples and staving off his rapidly developing headache. "You can't have sealed Death in me, since I didn't look like a boy back then. I'm transgender. Ikutsuki brought back the wrong kid."

His uncle and aunt had paid a lot of money to cover that fact up, far preferring the idea of raising - not that they did much of that - a son instead of a daughter. They probably hadn't anticipated duping a mad cultist in the process of doing so, but, really, it's not the strangest thing that'd happened to the Yukis.

Again, silence flooded the bridge. This time, however, it had a far more incredulous note to it which somewhat damped the horror in the air.

"Wait, seriously!?" Junpei's jaw dropped open. "What do you mean, the wrong kid?!"

"Oh, great." Yukari rolled her eyes. "The chairman wasn't just evil, but incompetent too?"

"Uh… t-thank you for telling us, Yuki-kun!" Fuuka squeaked. "That was very brave of you…"

He shrugged, feeling somewhat indifferent to the matter. This wasn't exactly how he planned to come out, but it wasn't how he hadn't planned to come out (primarily because of how absolutely ridiculous this whole scenario was to begin with).

Mitsuru bit her lip, brows furrowed. "… Bringing matters back on track, if Death wasn't actually sealed inside Yuki, then where is it?"

(And, unspoken, what on earth are they meant to do about it?)

…..

Unbeknownst to SEES, tucked away in Kosei's dorm, Kotone, Rio, and Saori all stared at a sobbing Ryoji in various states of bewildered horror. Because honestly, what the fuck?

Biting her lip, Kotone's mind drifted back to November, where in hindsight, maybe Rio was right after all…

…..

It had been a fairly normal full moon. In other words, hordes of murderous slime monsters were ransacking Kosei's dorms, because that was just a thing that happened sometimes. A bad thing, since Kotone rather liked having a place to live which actually wholeheartedly accepted her goddamn gender for once.

Unfortunately, while it was fairly easy to dupe Nakanohara into making her and her friends an entire arsenal of legitimately dangerous weapons – god, she loved Kosei – sometimes, the demonic blob monsters decided it was actually totally fine for them to be impervious to all physical harm.

(Cheaters.)

"Pharos!" She'd cried after her naginata was sent flying, praying he would hear her. "Mind giving us a hand, lil' guy?"

Asking the ghost child that lived in your soul to turn into a mindless rampaging murder monster probably wasn't the most ethical thing Kotone had ever (repeatedly) done in her life, but what the heck, Pharos was most likely a few hundred years old judging by his general everything, so, she was pretty sure it was technically all above board. Besides, if she could turn into an eight-foot-tall bloodthirsty monster, she'd do it in a heartbeat, so in a way she was doing him a favour.

Thankfully - or perhaps less thankfully, in hindsight - he'd answered her prayers that night, and unleashed Thanatos onto the unsuspecting slime monsters. Once Pharos' rampage subsided after he tore the last of the blob monsters into itty little bits with his rather vicious jaws, he shuddered, beginning to shrink. That in of itself wasn't unusual, but while he got smaller and smaller, darkness sloughing off his body in blue fire, he didn't get small enough.

Standing there, in place of the child she was expecting, was a twink.

"Holy shit." Kotone gaped. "Pharos digivolved!"

"I'm... not sure." Rio frowned, wiping black sludge off her jacket. "This kinda feels way more sinister than that."

….

Currently, Kotone really wished she'd maybe actually listened to her friend. Unlike the brunette would have in her boots, Rio wasn't rubbing it in her face at the very least. Perhaps that was less out of kindness, however, and more because the tennis star currently looked like she was going to vomit.

As she mulled over Ryoji's words yet again though, Kotone frowned. Because, well, they didn't make any sense. She hadn't embarked on some epic, tragic quest like a hero of old. No, if anything Kotone's supernatural adventures were a total farce. For crying out loud, her secret weapon was the ghost of the Victorian child in her brain!

She'd watched enough movies to know that the apocalypse wasn't a logical follow-up to this sequence of events at all.

No, because Kotone's life was a really messed up comedy.

Silence stretched for both an eon and no time at all, an entire eternity condensed into a handful of seconds. But then, Kotone spoke. "Have you ever considered just not being the Appriser?"

"Pardon?" Ryoji blinked.

"Back when I thought I had to be a boy, I was miserable." Kotone shuddered. "But then I realised I could be whatever gender I wanted! And so can you, Ryoji. You don't have to be a death entity – you can be a boy, or girl, or neither or even both if that's what you'd prefer!"

"That's… great and all, but I don't think death entity is a gender?" Rio frowned.

"Of course it's a gender, don't be ridiculous." Kotone waved her off.

Ryoji perked up, light entering his eyes for the first time since his memories returned in full. "… You really think so? Can… can it truly be that easy?"

"I know so." She clapped a hand on his shoulder. "If being something, someone makes you unhappy… you can change that. You can always change. I did, and so can you, Ryoji."

"Change…" He murmured, lost in thought. But then, a brilliant if not somewhat shaky grin broke out across his face. "It sounds so impossible, but... I'm here. I… I'm alive. And if there's one thing I've learnt about life…"

Saori smiled sweetly. "… It's that it always changes."

"Hell yeah!" Kotone cheered. Crisis averted, world saved! "Gimme a mo' - I'm going to grab my makeup!"