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START OVER?

--
 
Akira shakes in his seat, his hands clasped in front of him as the ache in his bones protest even at his smallest breath.
 
Akechi’s smiling, and the barrel of the gun shines brightly as it presses against Akira’s temple. The metal’s cold, strangely impersonal, considering Akechi’s standing so close to Akira. Akira can feel the heat of the detective, the traitor, feeling the tremble of his hand as the gun digs a little deeper into his forehead.
 
Akechi smiles.
 
Akira can only think, for that brief moment, about how sad that fake smile is.
 
A bang.
 
Loud, it rings Akira’s ears, stings the skin of his face with burning embers.
 
The world goes to a peaceful, blissful, black.
 
--

GAME OVER

QUIT?

YES

> NO.

|

RESTART?

>YES. |

NO

NEW GAME+?

> … |

--
 
Akira wakes up.
 
His lungs burn, his ribs ache like they’ve been kicked in and bruised. Even opening his eyes feels like a challenge he’s not ready to face. His lip feels swollen, his head fuzzy.
 
What... what happened?
 
Akira sits up in his bed, the sheets feel too soft and the mattress has too much give. The blurry morning sun makes his head hurt as he looks around the room, the one he’s woken up in.
 
The windows are small, caddy-corner to the rather small room. The walls are a soft neutral grey, the bed’s large enough for two and the sheets are nice. There’s not a plant in the corner, no industrial shelving full of nicknacks, the desk that’s near the door is clean, except for the singular book that lays open with sticky notes laid out in a precisionly careful order. There’s an actual door, instead of just an opening to downstairs, the light ahead is a nicer one, not the softly buzzing fluorescent. What’s happening? Where was he? Why are his sheets wrong? This wasn’t anywhere he kn-
 
This was his bedroom?
 
(

thesmellofattic,coffee,curry,dad)

In Inaba, in his house. His carefully cleaned bedroom, with his math book on his desk. He’s never had a plant.
 
Hasn’t he?
 
Why. Why did this feel wrong?
 
Why did this feel like Akira’s intruding on someone’s space, someone’s personal area that he hasn’t been invited into?
 
It’s strangely impersonal-
 
Deja vu hits; hard.
 
Akira winces, grips his head as the headache slams into him.
 
It

hurts

, the way his head explodes in pain at the center of his forehead. The sharp stab makes Akira close his eyes, and hide away from the early morning sunlight of this not-so-strangers room. The sheets feel oddly wrong on his skin, but they are soft, with a heavy weight across his shoulders.
 
Akira wants to be lulled into a sleep again, but the sense of …

wrong

that invades is too strong.
 
He pulls the sheets back, going from the soft bed onto the plush carpeted floors. Akira knows this is his room, it’s his hand writing on the notes in his textbook, his clothes packed neatly into his closet, his reflection staring back at him as he looks into the mirror hanging off his door.
 
But why does this reflection feel wrong?
 
Akira stands a little straighter, rolls his shoulders back. That.

That

looks a little closer to what he wants, calming the burning ache that settles into his limbs. Akira shakes his hair, lets it fall forward and messy into his face. Yes, not enough, but it was better. Akira places both feet more solidly, standing more like he belongs in the space he takes up and-
 
He needs a mask.
 
Yeah a mask, silver-white with black matte accents around the eyes-
 
(

asharpnose,redredredgloves,sleekjacket,goldenbuttons)

With that thought Akira blinks, confused. His posture goes back into his slouch, curling in on himself and sweeping his hair out of his eyes.
 
There’s no time to mess around today, it's the day of his trial. Today was the day to decide what was going to happen to him, whether or not he would go into a juvenile detention center or if the charges against him would be dropped or lessened because of his age and status as a minor. He needed to get these weird thoughts out of his head to focus on not getting sent to jail.
 
--

CHOOSE YOUR DIFFICULTY?

SAFETY

EASY

NORMAL

HARD

>CHALLENGE |

--
 
Well. Akira didn’t get sent to jail.  
 
That’s the good part of this day.
 
The bad part is that he’s been forcibly expelled from Yasogami High, forcibly removed from his parents home in Inaba, and been given one week to get packed up and moved away to Tokyo under the supervision of someone approved by the federal government to look after ‘wayward children’.
 
The lawyer his parents had gotten him looked rather pleased with the outcome, given that originally the prosecutor wanted Akira to be tried as an adult and be placed into a prison for many years to come.
 
Akira had gotten a lovely text from his parents, telling him that they already had a person in mind willing to house him.
 
So now Akira was packing a singular brown box to send to Tokyo so he started picking out his casual clothes and what would be his new school uniform.
 
A black jacket, it gets cold during the school year, he eyes the comfortable and soft v-necks in the various neutral tones his mother bought for him. He has a lot of jeans, not so many shorts. Akira’s hands hesitate over his swimsuits, initially thinking not to pack any because he’s not going to go to any beach.
 
But … but what if he does? Go to the beach? Or even the pool?
 
(

letsgetabananaboat,lobstersarebeautiful,reallyramenhere?)

It would probably be a good idea to pack on anyway, Akira can almost see himself at the beach with his friends from Tokyo. Red hair bright in the sun, sunscreen and a white hoodie over too pale shoulders, a cat.
 
Akira puts the bathing suit into the box he’s packing, ignoring the very vivid scene he can picture.
 
The box is heavy when Akira’s done packing it up, filled with most of his clothes from his closet, extra blankets, a few trinkets from home to give him comfort. That attic got cold in the winter time, around October, so the extra blankets would be nice-
 
The sharp pain blooms on Akira’s forehead, sharp and quick. Damn. Akira stands to walk into his bathroom to get the ibuprofen to combat the headache. Must be from the stress of the move.
 
Speaking of moves, Akira takes some of his medicine from his bathroom and shoves it into his big cardboard box. Pain medication, bandages, disinfectant. Everything he can carry.
 
It takes a moment for Akira to realize he might be over packing, coming to that thought while he was shoving a bottle of Tylenol into his underwear. Even though he might be overpacking, Akira can’t bring himself to pull any of the medicine out and put it back in the bathroom.
 
So he simply keeps it in, pushes his clothes down a little further, packs his things a little tighter, and tapes the box up more securely than he normally would. He has to place a few more stamps on it than he normally would and ships it off to the address that been texted to him via his parents.
 
--
 
Akira gets off the train, his new school uniform is stiff in the shoulders, he looks up at the city around him with a sense of awe. Tokyo’s a lot larger than Inaba, huge towering buildings and people bustling around him with nary a glance in his direction. It’s almost a breath of fresh air after spending a week with Inaba’s not so subtle glares, the whispering in the streets as Akira passed. In Tokyo Akira’s just is another face in the crowd, seamlessly blending into the background like he wasn’t a criminal.
 
It was, for one instant, amazing.
 
Akira’s phone made a sound, a notification chirp.
 
What was? What was this app? Akira’s never seen this before? What the-
 
(

metaverse,castle,bank,museum,casino,spaceship,boat)

The world around him slows, almost to a stop, the people, the movement, they all halt. What the hell? What’s?
 
Fire, burning blue flames come from the crowd about 100 meters down. The form isn’t distinct, but Akira feels the burn of a headache flaring between his eyes again. He can almost see the shape of a elegant horns, the sharp sting of a wicked smile. Akira see’s another shape in the flames for a moment, one much more familiar, with bright bright bright yellow eyes.
 
The pain in his head bursts, like a gunshot, and the world begins to move again.  
 
Akira grabs his head, wincing. It only takes him a moment to drag the app on his phone to the garbage.  
 
--
 
Getting off the train at Yongen-Jaya was familiar, somehow.
 
Maybe it was the dinginess of the station. Maybe it was the crowded streets all packed together. Akira finds himself not even looking at the map as he has it pulled up on his phone as he travels the narrow pathways.
 
It only seems like moments before Akira finds himself in front of the cafe, LeBlanc.
 
Plants litter the storefront, the red and white sign’s a little bland, but somehow Akira feels like this is home. The smell of coffee and spices seep out into the alley, Akira knows this blend, Blue Mountain with just the barest hint of a darker roast that located on the bottom back left shelf near the sink, it’s usually for rainy days.
 
Akira walks in, the soft jingle of the bell of the door eases something inside him, something deep in his brain clicks off and says ‘welcome home’.
 
Three people are inside, two older customers and then the singular barista.

That.

That is Sojiro Sakura.
 
Akira knows it in his bones, that this wary man in front of him is his new caretaker. Slicked back hair, finely groomed, elbows of his pink shirt stained with coffee and flour, the man’s sitting casually on his barstools, simply talking with his patrons.
 
(

carefullymadecoffee,agooddad,caretaker,worker,tired,love)

The news on the TV playing says something about mental shutdowns, about how a terrible bus accident has caused a lot of pain for a lot of people.
 
Sojiro recognizes Akira, and for a moment Akira can see the warmth in his eyes of a father. For an instant, Akira knows what this man’s hugs feel like, what staying inside on rainy days and simply chatting over the coffee machine is like with this man, this father.
 
Then in an instant Sojiro’s eyes go cold, he tells Akira to stand aside as he locks up the place after the older couple leaves.
 
The attic’s filthy, Akira’s skin crawls as he looks over the place. Dust is everywhere and that poor plant looks like it hasn't been watered in about a month in a half. The bed’s got clean sheets on it at least, the light looks newly changed, cleaning supplies are provided near the large box that Akira recognizes from his own packing. Sojiro tells Akira to unpack and clean.
 
Akira simply sighs, and gets to work.
 
--
 
Everything goes rather smoothly, the school is nice enough, larger than Yasogami High at least, and the teacher seems nice enough.
 
Akira sets his phone alarm to wake him up early. He groggily goes through his morning and uses the sink to wash his hair so it's not just a ball of grease.
 
The trains are a mess, everyone’s all backed up because of some delay or another. As soon as he can, Akira managed to wrangle himself out of the tight hold of the subway and onto the street. He sighs when he realizes it's raining, Akira quickly finds an overhang to duck under.
 
There’s another person here with him, a girl.
 
She’s beautiful.
 
(

herlaughiswonderful,quickwitted,lazydaylargesweaterstolenfromRyujiHaru,sweettooth)

That's the first thought that goes through Akira’s head.
 
The second is that she looks way too lonely.
 
Her hair is done up in twin tails, a soft white blonde, with blue eyes. She’s wearing what looks to be the Shujin Academy school uniform too, maybe she’s in his grade? She notices him, and smiles.
 
Akira smiles back, softly, maybe she can show him the way to school-
 
A car pulls up, a nicer model. The car window rolls down. Akira knows that face, the one inside the car, a face of a perverted disgusting teacher who smiles are like oil slicks and whose hands only guided students to pain. The man asks if the girl beside him needs a ride to school, his eyes only focused on her chest.
 
(

slimly,yelloweyes,kingofkinkcastle,handsthatgrabbedandbrokeandbrokeandbroke)

She hesitates beside him, clutching her bag tighter. Her eyes flicker to Akira for a moment, and Akira knows what he needs to do.
 
“Sorry sir, I’m new and she’s showing me the way to school. I don’t know this area very well so as much as I appreciate the thought, maybe another time?” Akira’s own body moves before he thinks about it, putting himself slightly in front of the girl.
 
The teacher’s eyes flicker to him, and for a brief moment Akira is surprised they aren’t yellow, burning bright with the promise of pain. Kamoshida doesn't look too happy, mouth twisting into a grimace, but he agrees for another time and pulls away.
 
The car drives only about ten meters before the sound of running alerts Akira to another person altogether.
 
“Oh thank god-” It’s another student, a boy this time, with shimmery blond dyed hair and a limp. “Takamaki! Thank god you didn’t get in that car with Kamoshida.”
 
“Sakamoto?” Takamaki’s grip on her bag finally loosens, she relaxes fully. “Were- Were you running to stop me from taking a ride?” Her voice is bright, happy, a smile cracks across her face bright and happy.
 
(

brightsmilesbrightboy,ramenlovingexcercise,hardworking,brokenoncebutnotagain)

Sakamoto blinks, almost confused, “Well yeah, I couldn’t let you get in the car with that massive pervert. Think’s he’s the king of his goddamn castle and does what he wants, even if it puts you in a bad position.”
 
Ann laughs, openly and with heart. “My white knight in shining armour.” Her entire demeanor has changed.
 
Akira’s phone buzzes in his hand.
 
“On a steel horse I ride.” Ryuji laughs along with Ann. “Anyway, I heard you’re new? Do you really need directions?” He turns to Akira, voice trailing up in question.
 
Akira shrugs. “Yeah, I mostly said it to get that person,

teacher?

, off our backs and to go away, but I would love to get directions to Shujin. Don’t want to be late on my first day after all.”
 
Ryuji snorts another laugh, even Ann smirks. The three of them settle together, Ann’s shoulder bumping into Akira, Ryuji’s elbow brushes Akira’s every other step. The three of them walk in tandem, maybe too close for just meeting, but nobody’s feeling awkward, nobody’s trying to find their place. It’s easy. Akira feels like he’s known them for a while now, that this is a group he’s truly apart of.
 
Their steps make quick splashes in the puddles of the Tokyo back alleys, their laughter echoes up the sidewalk, they each grasp onto each other through the twists and the turns. Ann reaches out her hand to help Ryuji jump over a large puddle, Akira twirls Ann as they round a corner, Ryuji bows as Akira slips his hand into Ryuji’s when they both slip a little too far on the slick sidewalk.
 
Ryuji calls Akira ‘leader’ when Akira silently supports his weaker side, Akira slips Ann a baton pass when the two of them catch one another from crossing the street when a car rushes by, Ann calls Ryuji ‘Skull’ when Ryuji only just narrowly avoids an irate civilian.
 
They make it to the school, and halt.
 
Because where the school is, is now a castle.
 
“Oh fuck this, not again.” Ryuji groans to his side.
 
“Oh gross! No!” Ann tenses up, huddling closer to her two boys.
 
“Oh I feel dirty looking at this place.” Akira mumbles, his mind supplies the flashes of rooms full of steamy pink skimpy things, and he’s disgusted at the thought.
 
It takes the three of them a moment to realize.
 
“Wait a fucking second!” Ryuji turns, “Why’s our school a castle!?”
 
The three of them are huddled together, Ryuji and Akira standing tall in front of Ann. They’re all a little confused, a little off kilter.
 
Akira knows this place, knows the grimy walls, knows the way the screams echo from the depths. Ryuji’s face is pale, ashen with fear and pain. Ann’s arms are cross across her chest, she’s pulled in on herself as if trying to hide.
 
Akira’s head hurts, the skin across his forehead burns, he feels fire in his blood, his heartbeat fast in his chest. The panic hit him hard, the echo of something that hurts screaming at his body. This castle will hurt him, badly, all the while making Akira hate something with all his heart. This place will break something in him, but Akira still looks at the castle and is willing to enter into this domain.
 
It’s Akira that moves forward first, walking across the drawbridge and going to the door. The large wood is dark, solid oak. Intimidating and very much closed.
 
“Akira …” Ryuji’s voice makes Akira look back, “Akira, we can’t go in the front door.”
 
Akira hums low, “Why do you figure that?”
 
Akira doesn't ask how Ryuji knows his name, because thinking about that just makes his head hurt harder, makes it pulse in sharp biting pain. The throb echos only once though, before fading.
 
“This is a castle, right?” Ryuji’s eyes trail the walls around them, drawn to a loose looking grate. “It must have guards, guards that won’t be too happy about use intruding.”
 
Akira gets a flash of sharp swords, yellow eyes, and a soft cry of ‘

I don’t want to die!’

.
 
“We can find another way.”
 
The other two nod, and follow his orders flawlessly, like they had done this a million times before, like they knew already his commands and wishes. Ryuji goes up first into the loose grate, Akira pushing him up via a vault and Ryuji grabbing onto the edge, getting his fingers underneath the loose bars and prying them away.
 
Akira and Ann follow after him into the rabbit hole, slipping into the castle almost silently.
 
Its red inside, almost gaudy in its decorations, the disgustingly carved statues of people that Akira vaguely can place as the volleyball team. (He’s never seen the volleyball team, has never interacted with these people, who are they?

whoarethey?

)
 
The screaming echos around the castle, coming from underneath. The whole place seems to shimmer, pulse, shudder. The smells are foul, cleaning bleach mixed with sweat and tears and blood, the sounds are of pain and something laid overtop that nearly sounded like gasping gurgling retching.
 
Akira winces everytime he moves through a new hallway,

why does this hurt?

It’s almost memories, almost so easy to move through, almost like he’s done this

before

. It makes his heart beat, head pound, breath come quick. The anxiety he feels races up, racks his rib cage, he feels dizzy, nauseous, it’s hard to

breathe

.
 
“We need to go to the basement.” Akira says, knowing that something of great importance was there. “We need to get there.”
 
Ryuji agrees, Ann seems neutral on the idea and willing to go wherever her leader takes them.
 
Moving through the castle wasn’t easy, but it was natural. Akira easily leading his team to the shadows, slipping around the lumbering guards that drag themselves around the palace.
 
The basement is just a long narrow corridor, cells on either side filled with faces of crying teenagers, bruised up to hell and back. The entire place was terrible, it smelt like death down here, cold and frigid, the cries of ‘help!’ were only broken by sobs.
 
“Hey!” A higher pitched voice calls their attention. “Hey!”
 
Akira moves towards it, he knows this voice.
 
(

gotosleep,thisishowyoumakelockpicks,itwillbeokay,thismightbetheanswer)

A cat monster sits on the other side of the cage, large blue eyes watery and ears perked up. The cat mascot jumps up, ecstatic, and sticking his little paws through the bars. “Akira! Joker!”
 
The cat’s so happy to see Akira, that Akira almost feels bad when he asks:
 
“Who are you?”
 
--
 
The cat’s

distraught

.
 
Akira doesn’t know how to help, Ryuji’s tries seemed to make it worse, Ann’s been the only successful one so far, but even then it’s not terribly effective.
 Morgana, because that’s this cats name even if the cat hasn’t said it yet and Akira has no idea how he knows that, is screaming, crying, yelling. Ann’s trying to calm the thing down, hands help up in surrender, asking please to just explain- 
“No!” The cat’s eyes are so blue, Akira’s never seen Morgana really

cry

before. “It’s all wrong! This is a

terrible

joke!”
 
Ryuji’s by Akira, their shoulders touching silently supporting one another. They both feel awful, like they’ve betrayed an old friend so badly that they’ve broken something essential within the relationship.
 
“I’m sorry.” Akira mumbles for the fifth time.
 
“You

died!

” the cat’s crying, “You don’t get a say in this conversation!”
 
Akira’s mind flashes the feeling of cold metal, the sharp burning smell of skin, the pain of something big, then just

nothing

and it’s something that makes his hands shake. The connection isn’t fully there, something just outside of Akira’s reach, but the images he gets make his heart race, beat hard and fast in his chest, makes breathing hard. Akira hates it, hates the way it makes his eyes water, his head flare in pain, his fingers ache in phantom pain, his wrist twinge with every movement.
 
Akira didn’t feel dead, most of the time, but it’s moments like that that make him question.
 
Ann shushes Morgana, noticing Akira’s uncomfortable expression.
 
The noise attracts attention, the bad kind of attention, the kind of attention that got Akira into all this trouble in the first place. The guards calling to each other, asking who goes there, getting backup.
 
Ryuji’s pulling Akira away from the wall, away from the voices, his face is pure panic. Ann’s looking between the team and the location of the sounds. Morgana’s

broken

.
 
So Akira acts.
 
He simply grabs Morgana, picking up the cat bodily, and

moves

. He calls to his team, his friends, to follow him, to stay close behind. They obey with nary a thought, their bodies moving before their minds could comprehend the action. Ryuji’s not limping as he strides, Ann’s not caring that her skirt rides up with the running.
 
The guards clanking armour is close, too close, and Akira knows that a fight is about to happen. Akira knows that their team is too weak to deal with these monsters, knows that they need to train, get to the metaverse, get stronger, call in backup, where the

fuck

was Yusuke? Was Makoto? Futaba? Haru? Hell Akira would even take

Akec-

The pain flares, Akira bites his lip so hard that he tastes

blood

.
 
The world flutters, darkens.
 
Akira’s whole body tilts, his balanced fucked, what-
 
Akira hits the ground.
 
Morgana cries out, Akira had taken most of the fall with his shoulder at the last minute, but the cat was still in his arms. Oh god. Oh god, please, was Morgana okay? He’s wiggling in Akira’s limp arms, so he’s gotta be okay right?
 
Ryuji’s there, on one side, trying to support Akira’s slumped body, Ann’s on the other side and she’s slipping Akira’s arm over her shoulder. Akira tries to move, tries to help them all run away, get away, not be

hurt

by the things hunting them down, but he just

can’t.

Why can’t he? Why does he hurt so bad? Is he crying? He’s crying, huge, wet, fat tears pouring down his face uncontrollably. His whole body is on

fire

with something burning in his blood.
 
They all hit a dead end.
 
Ryuji curses, a rare actual “

Fuck!

” escaping his mouth. Ann’s more silent in her fear, her breathing quick and racing as she panics. Morgana’s at their feet, grim determination as he squares up against the steadily gaining threat.
 
Akira’s mind supplies him the extent of Morgana’s abilities, the sharp cutting winds intermingled with the soft balm of healing. He won’t be able to hold off everyone on his own. Not while protecting the three of them.
 
The guards round the corner, their armor gleans in the low firelight, the shadows leak out of their joints, ready and willing to kill the four of them without mercy. They burst, exploding outwards with a horrid smell, a tearing painful sound, and screams.
 
Morgana’s persona gets summoned quick, tears into the first advancing guard, but is getting overwhelmed. Mercurius is a great persona, quick and deadly, but it’s not meant for frontline fighting all alone like this. Mercurius takes a hard hit and dissolves, Morgana’s cry is full of sharp pain.
 
Ann’s screaming, her eyes are wide. Her hands grip tight into Ryuji’s shirt.
 
Ryuji’s got both of them in his arms, holding them both close to him, ready and willing to take the hit.
 
Akira’s whole world still throbs, the pain making everything a hazy blur, but Akira’s still fucking

standing

, still the leader of the

Phantom Thieves

, and he

will not

let his team down a second time.
 
--
 
“

I am thou... Thou art I... From the sea of thy soul, I come… Call upon my name, and release thy rage! Show the strength of thy will for this second time to ascertain all on thine own, though thou be chained to Hell itself! I am the pillager of twilight, Arsene!”

--
 
Akira first notices the relief that floods his veins.
 
The blue fire starts from that point of his forehead a bullet buried through, raking through dark hair, softly caressing soft skin. The stiff new uniform gets eaten by the flame, transformed through the fire that burned in Akira’s blood into something sturdier, something that’ll take a beating, something more fitting, more protective, in this terrible place. The fire gently fans across his fingers, almost gently, as if Akira could hold its hand and kiss the backside, the fire grants him gloves as red as his rage as a thank you for the cordiality.
 
Akira knows this persona, knows this feeling like it’s a second breath, a second heartbeat beating alongside his own. Akira falls into the feeling, the fire cooling down onto a stone mask across the bridge of his nose, heavy in the weight of its abilities, fusing to the delicate skin around his eyes.
 
Akira reaches up, grips the side, and rips it off his face.
 
The skin underneath the mask tears, rips away with it, makes Akira

bleed

with the motion.
 
Akira’s heart

sings

, and for the first time ever since waking up that morning back in Inaba Akira feels

right

.
 
Arsene’s broken chains fling around the room, his great wings spread far and wide, the sharp claws of his open up, as if welcoming the fight that is about to happen. Arsene practically is vibrating with power, with the urge to protect his treasures, what is his and his charges. The curse that Arsene lays down is powerful, sharp, deadly.
 
The shadows of the guards fall before him, not even remotely ready for how powerful Arsene truly is. Arsene’s claws slice through the lot of them like a hot knife through

butter

.
 
Akira’s mind is a whirlwind, a huge mess of information all at once that’s just layed on and on and on and

on.

It’s like a year long movie that gets watched in an instant, like time itself compressed into nothing and then expanded all at once when the right thing was tripped.
 
Akira knows what to do, knows how things should happen, knows how to

fix

things.
 
Arsene disappears, fading out into the world around them with a soft laugh and a nearly fond look. The bright blue flame of a summoned persona leaves with him, plunging the dungeon into the idle darkness once again.
 
Akira sighs as the feeling of summoning Arsene fades, his eyes fluttering closed, knowing intrinsically that Arsene is lodged now permanently right underneath his soul. He can feel the persona nearly

purr

when Akira prods, happy and content that Akira can feel him again, hear him again.
 
Akira’s eyes open slowly, seeing the group in front of him.
 
Morgana’s proud of him, and damn, Akira feels terrible for forgetting him now, for not remembering Mona’s effort and work and friendship.
 
Ryuji’s eyes shine with want, with awe, with d

etermination

. Ryuji’s shoulders are set, he’s standing straight and Akira knows that Ryuji’s already figuring it all out, already putting pieces together.
 
Ann’s less sure, but no less ready and willing to be apart of this. She has a hand on her own face, tracing where her own mask is meant to rest. Her eyes are hard, she knows what's going to happen here, and she’s going to be apart of it.
 
Akira see’s his team come together for a second time and the world begins to make just a little more sense.
 
--
 
They get out of the castle with very little trouble, they only stumble a bit at the very end, when Ryuji catches a glimpse of Kamoshida and his fake princess and becomes angry, hands twitching towards a weapon he doesn’t have yet, a persona he can’t summon. Akira doesn’t think Ryuji or Ann remembers, doesn’t think anyone remembers but him and Morgana, but the muscle memory of a fight is not something the body forgets. Ryuji knows how to jump into the battle, knows how to stay standing through hit after hit, Ryuji’s willing to lay himself down at the feet of the opponent if that means his team’s not going to take a single point of damage. Ann’s more careful, her eyes scanning each shadow, she’s already calling out weakness and strengths as they pass another guard.
 
The metaverse gets left behind with a single click of the button, the castle falling apart, fading, morphing into the school they all knew, all attended.
 
Kamoshida’s waiting for them at the gate, hands on his hip and the glare sharp.
 
Akira’s not phased, knows the glare of

god

and this terrible man can not even begin to compare. Ryuji’s back is straight, unflinching. Ann simply glares back, gives as good as she gets. Morgana is curled up in Akira’s bag, a warm weight that’s comforting to all three of them.
 
Kamoshida brings the three of them into the school building, to their homeroom teachers, all while lecturing them.
 
Akira can’t find it in himself to really care.
 
He introduces himself to the class with a grin and a wink, a cheeky way to tell the whole class he cares not for their rather low opinion of him, knows they all think of him as a criminal already.
 
And hey, it's not as if these students are wrong after all, about him being a criminal.
 
Akira

has

stolen a few treasures, after all.
 
--
 
Ryuji is standing outside Akira’s classroom as soon as the ending bell rings. His slouch makes him look dangerous, his eyes sharp as he glares at the people who give him a wide berth and whisper nasty things. Akira sees how ready Ryuji is, the way his body sways to a beat that’s only evident in the metaverse, the way his shoulders are tensed for a hit that he’ll always take for the team.
 
Kawakami’s hand is already on Akira’s elbow, pulling him back and away from the hallway where Ryuji’s shark smile waits for him.
 
“Don’t be friends with Sakamoto.” She’s telling him, her eyes tired and her entire posture one of a defeated woman. Akira

knows

that she’s going through something, but he can’t recall what exactly she’s going through. “He’s a thug, you’re reputation is not going to be helped if you associate with him.”
 
Akira is

offended

. Ryuji was as much of a

thug

as Ann was an actor.
 
Akira gently pulls his arm away from Kawakami, and keeps eye contact as he slips back into the hallway and towards Ryuji’s side.
 
Ann’s not far behind, already slipping her hands into Ryuji’s, grabbing at Akira’s blazer. Akira keeps his bag, the bag with Morgana in it, close to his chest. Ryuji uses his own body to shield the other three from looks and whispers.
 
The three Shujin students head to the roof, they don’t speak their plan aloud. Their bodies just move on a muscle memory. Ryuji holds the door open for them, allowing Akira and Ann to pass under and onto the roof.
 
It’s full of desks that need repairing and stacked chairs under bright blue tarps. The garden is in full swing, brimming with all kinds of greens and herbs. Akira can see the new sprouts of carrots in the garden closest to him. The roof has puddles of rainwater everywhere, the smell of the new soil and leafy greens almost cover up the smell of the city that towers over the school.
 
Akira opens his bag and places Morgana on the ground the cat bristles his haunches and stretches after being cramped in a bag for several hours. Morgana is quick to find his place on Akira’s lap, carefully folding his paws under his chest and settling down like a stone.
 
“What's happening?” Akira asks, low and quiet. “

Why

is it happening?”
 
“I can’t tell you.” Morgana says, his tone of voice uncomfortable and slightly off kilter. “I don’t know what’s happening, besides a second chance.”
 
--
 
Ryuji and Ann demand to go back into the metaverse, demand to go back into the castle and make it right. It takes almost three days.
 
Ryuji wants justice for the members of a team suffering the same abuse that he once suffered, that he once went through.  The kind of pain that ended up ruining his future, his dreams. He wants to stop Kamoshida from breaking anyone the same way that bastard of a teacher broke him. Ann wants desperately for the unwanted advances to stop, she wants Kamoshida to stop grabbing at, to stop reaching out and

touching

when his hands are not asked for. Ann wants the man gone before something

terrible

happens. She can feel something eating at her

bones

about Kamoshida, that he’s already pushed more than one person to the edge and sooner or later someone's going to fall.
 
Akira holds the two of them close as the world around them melts back to Kamoshida’s shitty castle.
 
Ryuji has his head in the crook of Akira’s neck, Ann has her arms looped around Akira’s waist. The starched uniform blazer melts and changes into a well loved leather tank top, a jacket that fit Akira’s body perfectly, it feels

right

.
 
Morgana changes from the elegant form of a normal cat into his metaverse form, and oh Akira knows the soft roundness of Mona’s cheeks, the wide expressive eyes. How did Akira

forget

his little buddy, his little quasi-brother.
 
The four of them hike back into the castle, the distorted school twisting and turning around them.
 
Akira goes through the hole in the wall first, catching Ann and Ryuji as they also pass through the secret passage. Morgana takes the rear and Akira lands after him.
 
It’s easy to direct themselves deeper into the castle, but it's also dangerous, Akira has to be aware of what’s happening, what kind of shadows he faces. Ryuji and Ann still don’t have their persona’s yet, the snippets of memory of the both of them in leather, attacks waiting on Akira’s call give him hope that these two will be in his party soon enough, apart of his team of thieves.
 
Ryuji is the one who awakens first.
 
The sharp turn of a hallway leads the team to a wide open room with King Kamoshida and his guard passing through. Kamoshida’s lazy smile is too wide to be anything but sleazy, his hands all over an imaginary scantily clad ‘Princess Ann’.  The caped king looks over the intruders with a bored eye, and calls for his guards to kill them all.
 
The guards attack from all sides, slamming bodily into Morgana and stopping Akira in his tracks with blinding light. Akira calls out to his team, screaming out for them to run, get away from something that will

hurt

them.
 
Kamoshida’s laughing, rich and deep and ugly. “Oh I recognize you Sakamoto! The former star of the track team! Broken and beaten and so easy to make cry!” The king marches forward, off the beat of a human rhythm. “Are you here for more punishment? Have you not already

learned

your place?”
 
Ryuji falters, his shoulders ticking up and his hand grabbing his barely healed injury.
 
The pain from Kamoshida’s hands is still searingly new, still ingrained in Ryuji’s mind every time his leg twinges with protest. But he needs to stand up to this man, he’s done it once before and he’ll do it again now. His soul rages in his ribs, slamming hard into Ryuji’s lungs and demanding to be freed from this cage, to rip apart the makeshift gibbet of Ryuji’s chest.
 
Ryuji rips the skull mask from his face like he can’t breathe through it, his soul is tearing at his chest and demanded to be realized, demanded to be released.  
 
The ease of calling his persona is like settling into bed after a long day, of finally washing clean caked on layers of mud and dirt. The fire that burns in Ryuji’s soul releases itself in a rage of lighting strikes and the physical prowess of a eight ton lighting rod. Seiten Taisei cracks the

ground

with how hard his strikes area against the weak shadows that Kamoshida called his personal guard.
 
Kamoshida

runs

.
 
Ryuji’s lighting strikes follow the man as he desperately tries to outrun the enraged, vulgar boy. Kamoshida slips away into the confines of his castle just as Ryuji slips to the ground.
 
Akira and Ann catch him before he falls, holding him carefully as Ryuji’s smile spreads wide. “Oh man.”
 
Ryuji’s arms slip around Akira’s neck, holding Akira close to him, tight and unwilling to let go. “Oh man, Akira. I’ve- I’ve missed you.”
 
Akira hugs his best bro back just as tight, just as needy. The two of them feel their memories fill in, build up moments of ramen shops after a hard day of exercise. Ryuji remembers shaking hands and soft secrets shared in the dusty attic above LeBlanc, support for two outcasts when no other person wanted anything to do with them. Akira remembers sunshine through dyed hair with the roots just starting to show through, the smell of sweat after a workout, a soft press of Ryuji’s weight against Akira’s body as nightmares woke Akira up screaming.
 
Akira’s red gloves mingle with Ryuji’s yellow ones as their memories come back in bits and pieces, blurry background faces that they both want to be clearer.
 
Ryuji and Akira pull themselves away from each other, and the party continues onwards.
 
Ann’s turn is next.
 
They have to explore a few more times before they run into the princess’s room.
 
A twisted image of Ann sits carefully on a bed with her legs lewdy spread and a pout on its face. The doppelganger screams at the intruders, twisting and calling for guards all the while being annoying and downright

disgusting

with the way the thing used the image of Ann like a

plaything

.
 
The guards go down easy between three persona users, but it's the twisted doppelganger that makes Ann scream with a rage. That

thing

is how Kamoshida saw her, saw most women. The soft fuzzy pink outlines of girls that vaguely looked like the girl track and volleyball team members moaning and

writhing

around the pillows around the room make Ann want to tear apart Kamoshida with her bare hands. Ann wants to make Kamoshida feel like a object, like a fucking window mannequin that just gets leered at all fucking day. Ann wants Kamoshida to know how it feels to be grabbed at, to be cat called in the streets, to have nasty dirty things whispered about your body by people you didn’t even fucking

know

.
 
Ann takes the sharp pocket knife that Akira had been using to deal melee damage and plunges the knife deep into her dopplegangers throat. Ann’s screaming as Hecate coos so sweetly to her soul. The fire around her burns bright and hot, burning a rich red leather onto her and giving her an unspoken kind of magic power to wield with a sweet vengeance. Ann rips her mask off with a kind of unholy rage, using the fire that it gave her to

burn

.
 
The doppelganger screeches as it dissolves, black blood bubbling down Ann’s pink gloves and claws digging into Ann’s face.
 
Ann turns, looking at her two boys, and sobbing as she lets out a laugh.
 
Ryuji catches Ann as she sways, falling into his chest. She’s laughing as she’s crying, trying to wipe at the tears under her mask. “My boys.” She manages, yanking Akira and hugging them both close to her. Her hands bury deep in their hair, her head resting on their shoulders. “My boys, Skull, Joker, oh my god have I been lonely without you.”
 
Ann’s mind supplies her a great dinner at a nice hotel, two boys who held her tight as she cried in the hospital lounge after visiting a close friend. She remembers Akira’s accepting smiles and soft giggles as the two of them go to get sweets at the park, Ryuji’s whooping laughter as he beats Ann at a video game for the fourth time that night, as the two of them do their hair up in wild and crazy style. The memories become more solid, more real, as the persona users grow.
 
Morgana gets roped into the hug, Ryuji picking the cat up bodily and holding him tight. Morgana relaxes in their hold, allowing the teeangers around him to gain comfort from the support they give each other.
 
The group of four keeps the hold on each other for just a while longer.
 
--
 
Akira taps the ‘return to the real world’ icon in the app and sighs as the world around him dissolves back into something that makes more sense. The air in the real world feels

better

, feels more

alive

. The sounds and the smells and the feel of the city come to Akira all at once as the metaverse slides off his shoulders like thick syrup.
 
Ryuji groans, rolling his shoulders and flexing his fingers, his hair is mused up and messy and it just makes Akira want to run his fingers through it. Ann shakes out the feeling of the metaverse out of her limbs by jerking her limbs out, wringing out her wrists and cracking her fingers. Morgana settles down in Akira’s bag, head poking out the back.
 
“We need to send the calling card tomorrow.” Morgana remarks casually. “We’ve made it to the treasure room, so now we just need to send a calling card.”
 
“Think we can get the actual artist we had to make our cards?” Ryuji laughs, peaking out to make sure that there are no students looking at their small alley.
 
“Depends, do you remember his name?” Ann follows Ryuji out of the alley, her hand grabbing Ryuji’s blazer and keeping him from running ahead. “I only have a very vague idea of what he looks like.”
 
“Something that begins with a ‘Y’, I think.” Akira comments, following slightly behind the two blondes. “Tall too, skinny. Morgana do you remember him?”
 
“Yes.” Morgana yawns. “I know all the names of the Phantom Thieves of Hearts.”
 
The three stop for a second at the admission, at the name. Something about that name is so

right

that it shakes the very soul of the three of them, makes their persona’s preen and flare up deep in their chests. The Phantom Thieves of Hearts was something to be apart of, it was a team, it was a

family

. The Phantom Thieves of Hearts was something that Akira

needed

, Ryuji

yearned for

, and Ann

wanted.

“You can tell us who’s apart of our team?” Akira asks, pointedly trying to pry information out of Morgana.
 
“I won’t.” The cat cuts Akira off immediately, “It happened naturally before, I don’t want to ruin anything by forcing bonds that you aren't ready to make yet. I’ll try to help you if you really need it, but I refuse to be the thing that potentially causes problems.”
 
Akira gets a flash of memory, a feeling of loneliness and the sound of Morgana screaming and Ryuji arguing and a night alone in an attic that was just a little too cold without a tiny heater on his chest.
 
Ryuji reaches out and gently pets Morgana, rubbing his thumb along Morgana’s muzzle. “I’m sorry. For a lot of things.”
 
Morgana purrs so loudly that Akira can feel the bag that holds the cat vibrate with the force of it. “It’s okay. We’re both partially to blame, there was a whole bunch of screaming and a lot of terrible words thrown around. We can put what hasn’t happened yet behind us.”
 
Ryuji rubs Morgana’s head, “Thanks buddy.”
 
--
 
The art on the calling card is mostly just a terrible recreation of what was once a great logo. Ryuji’s hand wasn’t nearly as steady as the one that once did amazing things with nothing more than a pencil. Ryuji’s art wasn’t

bad

by any means, but it wasn’t what Akira knew in his heart to be the correct symbol of their pride.
 
The card was written better than the first one, at least, more elegant and flowing. The way into the school is the exact same, a hole that had been worn into the fence over time. Ryuji knew it from back when he ran track constantly, using it to slip out into the city to run before coming back the same way.  Ryuji places the cards in the same places as last time, pastes them all over the school, over posters in the hallways and over the shoe lockers. Akira and Ann help this time, slipping cards into desks, into classrooms, on windows and across the floor. The three of them slip back out of school when the sunlight thinks about showing, Ryuji going first, before Ann and Akira get helped through the sharp broken fence by Ryuji’s careful hand.
 
The three of them sit at a nearby cafe, commenting on the coffee and how the drinks weren’t as good as the one Sojiro makes for them all, how the boss knew their preferences perfectly and made them coffee before they had even walked in. The boss knew his way around the coffee machine, even Ryuji, who didn’t have a strong inclination towards coffee, liked what boss made him there.
 
By the time they’re all done they head to the school, taking their time to leisurely stroll along as other students raced on by, trying to get to their early morning clubs on time.
 
By the time that the three Phantom Thieves had made it to school the entire building was abuzz with gossip. Students were pulling the cards from everywhere, whispering loudly about what in the actual hell any of this nonsense could

mean

.
 
Akira and Ann pass the student council president looking at a hallway display that got covered, see’s her expression full of awe, full of something determined, full of

hope

. A girl in a pink sweater stands beside her, carefully picking cards from the display and holding them recently, like the result of all of this is something much bigger than anyone could imagine, like these cards would be worshiped and respected one day.
 
(

fireinhereyes,herfists,braidedhairsprayedwithblood,gentlehandswithbandages,strategist)

(pinksweaters,softspoken,greenvinesgreenviens,carrotsandsoil,beatthemuntiltheystop)

Akira pulled a card from his desk, inspecting it closely as he and Ann waited in their classroom. Ann was sitting on his desk, scrolling through her phone and making it appear like she wasn’t watching the entire class react. Ryuji was keeping the two updated on his own class, how they seemed to be curious,

enthusiastically

curious about what was happening what this ‘Phantom Thieves of Hearts’ business was about.
 
The day goes by quickly, almost too quickly.
 
The three of them meet up after school, and they all smile as the world fades into the metaverse.
 
--
 
The battle goes by quickly, almost too quickly. Arsene is a terror as he tears through the chalice at Kamoshida’s feet, Seiten Taisei hitting hard physical attacks and Hecate burning through every single kind of defense.
 
It only takes them four hits. Mercurius jamming the staff he carries into the large shadow’s eye, making Kamoshida cry out in echoing pain.
 
Kamoshida runs, just like he did once before, and they let him go, just like they did once before.
 
The school assembly focuses this time on the wrong of Kamoshida himself, and Shiho Suzui stands tall by Ann’s side. Ann knows that they’ve prevented something catastrophic from happening to her, they just don't know what.
 
Ann meets with her boys after school, Akira smiling and Ryuji laughing.
 
Akira produces the cash for their dinner, and they eat incredibly well that night. It might be the same hotel restaurant as last time or it might not be, the memories outside of the metaverse are incredibly fuzzy, not distinct like the ones that include battle, the metaverse, or each other.
 
“I propose,” Morgana’s hums as he steals something from Akira’s plate, “That you'll only remember the ones who’s persona’s are active and usable. Meaning you each remember each other, and no one else until they also activate their own persona.”
 
“That makes sense.” Ann agrees, eating a slice of something sweet. “I know I know you both, and it’s all weird and makes my head hurt, but I know that something’s going on with the metaverse. We’ve fought it before and we can fight it now.”
 
Ryuji laughs and agrees, “I only had a good gut feeling about you both, its kinda like when your body moves without your mind, muscle memory, and I’m real thankful for the memories we’ve recovered, even though those memories aint complete yet.”
 
Akira leans more into his friends, thankful that they are by his side once again.
 
“I felt

wrong

without you, dude.” Ryuji continues. “LIke, something big was missing and I couldn’t figure out what it was. I knew I was looking for something, but didn’t realize that something was you until you showed up.”
 
“Yeah.” Ann finishes her cake and nods. “I spent the last week of my break trying to figure out what I wanted, why I was looking for something. I’m really glad that I’ve found my way to you both.”
 
Akira raises his glass in a toast, and the three of them, toast to the Phantom Thieves of Hearts, round two.
 
--
 
The lull of Kamoshida makes the four Phantom Thieves tense up in anticipation. They know that something’s going to happen, they just don’t know

what.

Ann kept her eyes out, looking around and trying to remember the faces around her, Ryuji tried to pull the other two into better shape, keeping an eye out on diets and making sure they have a good workout routine. Akira works on lockpicks, works on his academics to keep his grades up, and works on his charm and kindness and gets job after job to support the high prices of the weaponry that he gets at discount.
 
Ryuji bets money on the student council President, Makoto Niijima. He sees the way her eyes trail after them in the hallways, the way she confronts them about the Phantom Thieves like she

knows

already. Niijima doesn’t accuse them of being in the wrong, she just heavily suggests that they are the Phantom Thieves and they need to be way more careful or else

other

people investigating will realize how obvious they are.
 
Akira bets money on the third year with the pink sweater that plants on the rooftop garden. She watches them closely, silently. Her name isn’t something that most people know, but Akira sees her reach out to the people around her and hesitate, something holding her back. Akira’s nearly sure that she’s one of them, one of their party members.
 
It’s Ann that takes both their money.
 
They ride the train together, all four of them, when Ann stiffens. Her hand curls into Ryuji’s bicep, her body presses into Akira’s side. Both boys are on high alert immediately, closing Ann in between them to keep her away from the other pushing body’s in the subway car. They change trains, and Ann’s still got a wary eye on the people around her.
 
The three of them get off the train at their station, bunched up together against the crowd of people around them. Morgana’s peeking out of Akira’s bag, watching carefully for the people behind them. When they walk up the stairs of the station, she looks behind her, worried. She locks eyes with someone and lets out a little gasp.
 
Ryuji sighs, and slips his hand into hers and pulls her forward. Ann follows, with Akira behind her as a body shield.
 
When they emerge from the subway tunnel, Ann squeezed both her boys hands and even through her fear she whispers low and steady, “I think something big’s about to happen.”
 
The boy who emerges from the subway tunnel, the boy who chased them down across two trains and an entire busy subway exit, is skinny, tall, and his face has a kind of half crazed desperation that Akira

knows.

At least. He thinks he does.
 
(

thesmellofpaint,colorfulwordsandcanvases,awkwardposes,rainydays,coldhands

)
 
“Will-“ the boy across from them struggles to find his words, get the right meaning across. “Will you please be my models?”
 
Ann’s tense posture deflates into something more confused, Ryuji’s goes from defensive to apprehensive. The two of them always defer to their leader on these kinds of matters though, and they angle their bodies towards Akira as if asking him a silent question.
 
“For my next art piece!” The boy continues on, determined to be heard, to get the people in front of him to say yes.
 
“This isn’t some shady business offer?” Ryuji says, a low hint of laughter in his voice, his question makes the artist in front of them scramble harder, and try to explain more.
 
Akira shushes him, and Ann huffs a bit of laughter.
 
Yusuke seems not terribly affected by the interjections, but then again he’s never really off put by anything when he’s gotten the passion about something.
 
“My muse has been

gone

these past weeks, months. I haven’t been able to create anything, nothing inspired me. I was painting without

passion

.” The artists dark blue-grey eyes catch Akira’s, and Akira’s Persona

yearns

. “I was hopeless, until I saw you four. Sitting perfectly together! Such dynamics! The contrast of colors! The harmony of movements! Please-!”
 
“Yusuke! There you are!”
 
The five jump, Morgana into Akira’s bag retreating fast as to not get caught and called out.
 
An older man, in a

very

nice car.
 
Yusuke tenses, eye’s wild with a deep rooted fear, a flash of hatred so strong that Ann’s hand squeezes Akira’s tighter.
 
Madarame calls Yusuke back, beckoning him like a naughty dog back to it’s master. Madarame pulls Yusuke closer with his words, with smiles that didn’t reach his eyes and laughter that fell flat.
 
Yusuke invited the three of them to an artists show, a new exhibit, next week. “

Please

.” His voice is soft, low, as Yusuke pushes tickets into Akira’s open hands. “I would love for you four to come, so we can talk more.”
 
“Yusuke! Hurry up! I will

not

be late this morning!” Madarame barks from the car.
 
Yusuke hesitates, his hands curling in and his body shifting closer to Ryuji, just for a moment, before frowning, and turning to leave.
 
Akira takes a second and looks down at the tickets in his hand, and finds a slip of paper with a number written down hastily. Akira smiles, and fishes out his phone to type in a new contact.
 
—
 
“He said

four

.” Ann whispers to the others as they walk through the gates of school.
 
“What?” Ryuji questions, not following.
 
“Yusuke. He said he wanted all

four

of us at his art exhibit.”
 
The three people blink, a beat of silence passes between them. It gets so quiet that Morgana pokes his head from Akira’s bag, shifting so he can see over Akira’s shoulders.
 
“He counted Morgana.” Akira says, slowly as if still trying to figure out if it was real or not.
 
Ann’s smiling, wide and devious. “He did, in fact, count Morgana.”
 
“Fuck.” Ryuji lets out a laugh and starts to dig in his pockets. “Damn it Ann, I ain’t ever gonna win a bet against you am I?”
 
Ann holds out her hand as her boys place two thousand yen in her palm, smiling.
 
—
 
The artist gets entered into a group chat, between the three of them, and he’s fit right in. He only texts every now and then, asking for some random information, or asking to clarify a point or a moment.
 
It gets to the point that Ryuji forgets to type something about mementos in the Phantom Thieves of Hearts chat, the separate chat with just the three of them. Ryuji asked something about the upper levels of mementos, about the safety of walking around casually to just look around.
 
Yusuke is the one that replies. Tells them Mementos is perfectly safe to walk around in as long as you didn’t stray into the lower levels.
 
Ryuji gets chewed out by Morgana for being so dumb, but Akira just simply leans heavy into Ryuji’s warm space and laughs.
 
—
 
They get to the art exhibit, and each of them look at all the paintings all around them and can simply

tell

that most of them had been carefully crafted by Yusuke.
 
Bright, vivid colors contrasted with dark blacks and strong thick brushstrokes intermingled with thinner, more delicate ones.
 
Akira sees

Yusuke

in each painting he passes. Can tell it’s the careful eye and careful work of the artist in each new critically acclaimed canvas.
 
Yusuke himself stands by one of his bigger works, leaning casually against the wall and blending in perfectly with the crowd around him. He’s clearly more invested in listing to people talk about the works instead of looking around the exhibit.
 
Akira raises his hand, and calls out to him.
 
Yusuke perks up, and jerks to actual attention, moving from the wall and to the rest of the Phantom Thieves.
 
“Your art looks fucking great all hung up like this dude.” Ryuji comments when Yusuke gets within their little circle.
 
“Yeah!” Ann’s still looking at the piece they’re standing by. “I mean! It’s kinda like when you see the final photo in a magazine! Everything comes together in the right setting.”
 
Akira’s about to chime in to agree with them, when Yusuke makes a low sound, almost a hiss, “

It’s sensei’s work.”

Akira

knows

that’s a lie though. It’s mostly Yusuke’s artwork that’s hung up on the walls, that’s incredibly clear.
 
“Is it?” Akira asks, softly, because something isn’t right here.
 
Yusuke’s mouth presses in a thin line, his eyes glance quickly behind Akira, before he responds. “Yes. It’s all sensei's. He

owns

these works you see on the walls.”
 
“Ah! Yusuke!”
 
The Phantom Thieves jump, whirling around to face the voice that called out to them, walking ever closer Madarame.
 
“I see you’ve found a new muse.” The man wonders, raking his eyes over Ann, before flicking to the other two. Akira feels the man’s gaze lingers in strange places, gaze as if Akira was bare before him. Ryuji shifted, not liking how the man’s gaze zeros in on his tilted hips, the way he’s keeping weight off his injured leg, accessing the way his muscles move under his skin.
 
“Yes sensei. I was just asking them to model for me, for a new art piece I want to work on.” Yusuke’s tone is soft, demure.
 
Akira knows that something is horribly, terribly wrong. Yusuke

never

sounds demure, is usually so sure of himself, is wildly bizzare and has no shame about being slightly tilted from reality.
 
“All of them? Interesting. Usually you only choose one model at a time.” Madarame’s eyes flick across the three of them again.
 
Yusuke just shrugs, his body leaning to try to cover up Ann, who’s the closest one to him.
 
Madarame pauses only for a moment more, before moving on.
 
—
 
“He lives in a shack?” Ryuji’s loud voice carries far, and Ann smacks the back of his head and hisses at him to ‘

be quiet!’

“Damn it Ann!”

Ryuji hisses right back, holding his head and glaring at her. “Just tell to be quiet don’t hit me!”
 
“I also thought he lived at the Kosei Dorms.” Akira says, reaching up and rubbing when Ann had playfully smacked Ryuji, trailing fingers through dyed blond hair. ond hair.
 
The shack did match the address that Yusuke had given to them, falling apart and barely holding onto its own self. The metal siding was rusted, the roof looked half caved in, some of the windows had pasted up tarps on the other side, showing off the broken glass on every other window.
 
It looked, honestly, horrible.
 
Knocking on the door, Yusuke answered the call, and brought the three of them through a rickety space that was just a little too large for two people. A little too large for even a whole family.
 
Yusuke clearly lived alone.
 
Oh, they passed by the kitchen, seeing Madarame brewing some hot tea and smiling at them as they walked by, but the way the house was set up was for one single student. There was no evidence of anyone other than one person living here, there was evidence of people having

used

to live here, but there was only one set of house slippers, one cup and one plate in the sink, one blanket draped over the back of the shitty couch in the living room.
 
Yusuke stops at a room on the second floor, pulling the handle up, then back down to open the faulty handle.
 
His room was neat, if barren. Canvases littered the space, paint stains smear on the furniture, the bed was made, but thin. Yusuke already has a canvas or two prepared, ready to paint. The paint itself wasn’t pulled out yet, still laying in tubes that were tucked away in bins.
 
Yuske sits on the small stool in the room, carefully folding his long legs to sit poised. Akira, Ann, and Ryuji simply sit on the floor, as there’s no actual chairs to be seen.
 
Ryuji settles easily, relaxing into himself and letting Ann lean heavy into his side. “So.”
 
“So?” Yusuke prompts, quirking his visible eyebrow.
 
“So your

sensei

is stealing your artwork.” Ryuji continues, putting his head on Akira’s shoulder. The way he sneers the word ‘sensei’ is enough to inform everyone on what Ryuji really thinks of Madarame.
 
Yusuke tenses up, eyes cutting to the open door behind them, as if waiting to see his sensei waiting and listening in.
 
Ann sighs from where she’s leaned up against Ryuji, “You usually make small talk before you accuse people of crimes you big goof.”
 
“H-he would never!”
 
“But you’re artwork was on display at that exhibit yesterday, wasn't it? Displayed under Madarame’s name.” Akira moves forward, slips his hands forward, slipping his fingers into Yusuke cold ones.
 
Yusuke’s hands are shaking, trembling in Akira’s grip.
 
Ann goes to one side, holding Yusuke close as he shakes apart, and Ryuji on the other.
 
Yusuke slips down from the stool that is too short for him, sits down on floor in the middle of the three Phantom Thieves who hold him together as his world finally shakes itself apart. Yusuke’s carefully held together facade crumbles easily like wet paper. Yusuke spent

years

in the care of a man who simply

used

him, who wanted him for a talent that could be

abused

.
 
Yusuke sits and holds onto the three people who came into his life like a fire and burned all the bad things away.
 
Yusuke took the constant hits, took the twisting and the taking like a champ. It wasn’t until a month ago that everything suddenly was

wrong.

The people living around him left for good, the last student packing up and hitting the road. Madarame had simply sighed, and left Yusuke alone for a week, left Yusuke to destroy the one that left, like he always had done.
 
Yusuke got his work taken out from under him, had it stolen from his room while he was in school, yanked from his canvas half finished for sensei’s ‘

finishing touches’

. Yusuke walked into the kitchen, to find the fridge empty, always empty, and it took four or five reminders to get the kitchen restocked, with anything that Madarame could think about off the top of his head. Yusuke dealt with years of screaming, of accusations, of people leaving and coming back.
 
When Yusuke was only seven his artwork was on display for the first time in an exhibit, it was huge, it was beautiful, it was

his

. People came by, complement after complement. Praise after praise.
 
All for the wrong artist.
 
Yusuke’s artwork, hung under the wrong name, was given praise to the wrong man.
 
That was the first time that Yusuke

knew

something was wrong.
 
Now, tucked in between the people who might really be the best people that Yusuke has ever known, he shatters into a million pieces.
 
It takes a moment, but Ann pops her head up from the impromptu cuddle pile and takes a moment to reassess the room. “Where’s Morgana?”
 
The four of them shift to look around, not actually tugging themselves from the others grip, and come to the conclusion that Morgana’s not in the room with them. They have to actually untangle themselves to start to look for the cat, but none of them seem too interested in going. Yusuke’s felt

right

for the first time in a month, feels like he’s found something that he lost. Akira feels like that hole inside of him is finally filling. Ann feels like she’s finally found people who won’t judge her, Ryuji’s found a team again.
 
They continue to hold onto one another as they get up, Yusuke’s hand still slipped into Akira’s, Ryuji’s palm in the back pocket of Akira’s pants, Ann’s arms linked up with Yusuke and Ryuji.
 
They find Morgana staring up at a door that's decorated with metallic peacock feathers.
 
Morgana simply looks at the gathered Thieves, and smiles.
 
--
 
The room is the same as it was last time.
 
Yusuke finds the thought both comforting and terrifying at the same time.
 
He’s never seen this room before, never been allowed into it, but he

knows

.
 
Ann’s almost in a trace with how fast she moves to the covered canvas, how she breaks away from the group of her boys and finds herself clutching onto the thick burlap fabric.
 
“Yusuke!”
 
They turn, seeing Madarame’s furious face, red with anger and shoulders held with a furious tick.
 
Yusuke turns white as a sheet, and he holds onto Ryuji and Akira

harder

. Yusuke holds onto them like a lifeline, like his whole world is being upheaved for the second time today.
 
Ann rips off the sheet, revealing the painting underneath.
 
--
 
The metaverse brings them to a museum, right in the heart of it all.
 
The three Phantom Thieves bounce right back up, outfits already changed into thick leather and weapons at the ready. It's only Yusuke who’s fallen, fallen hard onto his side and cried out in both shock and pain. Yusuke, the graceful artist, is crumpled on the ground and trying not to make any noise.
 
They had gotten a security team called on them, Yusuke had been kicked out, they had been

threatened

with being put into jail.
 
And Yusuke knows

everything

.
 
Well, mostly everything.
 
He knows that Madarame has

lied

to him. Was nothing more than a conniving con-man, a money hoarding man who

used

people, his own students.
 
Yusuke pulls himself up, dusts himself off, and holds his head high.
 
It’s only when they reach the peacock door that the shadow of Madarame comes out to them, a sneer on his face and clothes dripping with gold. The shadow of Yusuke’s mentor reveals all, shouting out all kinds of nasty, terrible things.
 
Something clicks within Yusuke, something dark and deep and screaming out for him to rebel.
 
So he does.
 
Pain, bright and blaring, echoing through Yusuke’s soul. It brings him to his knees, then claws its way back up again.
 
Yusuke, with bloody fingers and torn nails,

rips

his mask off his face.
 
—
 
Madarame falls within two days of entering his palace. The Phantom Thieves of hearts go in, wreck shop, and leave. It only takes as long as it does because the need for a calling card, to make Madarame visualise his treasure.
 
The internet goes wild, the card being posted all over the exhibit and all over the Phansite.
 
Yusuke takes his mother’s painting for the second time, extracting it from the grasp of a desperate man.
 
Yusuke fits back into the team he didn’t even know he lost. Fits like another cog in the wheel moving in harmony with all the others. He’s cool ice to Ann’s hot fire, a level head to Ryuji’s excitable one.
 
Akira makes sure Yusuke comes over for dinner, often and regularly. The artists always just a little too thin, a little too awkward around human contact.
 
Yusuke slips into the team with a little sigh, and a Fox max.
 
—
 
Akira’s been getting texts lately.
 
A number he doesn't know, and can’t text back. The icon’s a little graphic logo, and the texts are always a little strange, but Akira doesn't mind them.
 
Ann thinks the texts are cute, Ryuji gets memes, and Yusuke gets into deep philosophical debates with the unknown number.
 
The more the number texts them, the more it comes out of it’s little shell. Akira gets texts anywhere from commenting on his conversation with the other Phantom Thieves in the attic to frantic panicking texts at four in the morning.
 
Ann bets that the unknown number will be next, the next to join them, but Yusuke says the unknown texter will be the one after that

.

Ryuji bets on Makoto again, Akira wildly makes a guess at that detective prince that’s all over the air, the one they had run into.
 
The three of them had run into him during a field trip, a school trip to the TV station. The ‘

detective prince

’ had been oddly subdued at the sight of them all, fine and perfect until he had caught sight of the three Shujin Phantom Thief students in the crowd and stumbled over one of his lines. Akechi Goro had smoothed it over just fine, smiling his award winning TV smile and citing nervousness, but Akira had

seen

it. Seen the way Akechi was unsure around them, hesitating, trying to say words but thinking twice, three times about them.
 
They had met in the back hallways of the station after the broadcast, and Akechi said almost nothing, eyes almost

scared

of the three of them. He had not made eye contact, spoken low, and disappeared quickly.
 
Akira had

hated

him.
 
(

sharpeyes,sharplaugh,quickwitted,toosmartforowngood,underminedhimself

)
 
Ryuji didn’t have a terribly high opinion of him either, Ann seemed hesitant to make judgements, and when asked later Yusuke seemed to also refrain from laying down his thoughts. Akira felt bad, for hating him so fiercely so quickly, but there was something about Akechi that just rubbed Akira the

wrong way

.
 
The anonymous text number says nothing when asked, but three days after asking Akira gets a huge document over some untraceable web server of email chains, text logs, and transcribed phone calls.
 
All from Akechi’s phone.
 
Which was, for lack of better word,

enlightening

.
 
--
 
“There’s a gang hanging around Shibuya.” The student council president, Makoto, says one hot summer day.
 
Akira’s in his gym uniform, his class has gym right now, and he’s covered in a thin sheen of sweat and trying to look cool while chugging water. Ann’s looking a whole lot better than him, but she always looked good, Akira knew underneath that model smile Ann was dying of the humidity. Her hair was starting to uncurl, to lay flat against her face and neck and she had a water bottle in one hand.
 
“O … okay?” Akira has no idea what Makoto’s on about, he’s trying to not die from playing ‘dodge my throws’ with Ann for all the period, trying to keep up with her killer wrist flick as she sent the basketball hurling at his head.
 
“Aren’t you

Joker

? Can you not do something about it? Students are starting to complain about getting their money stolen.”
 
Akira chokes on the water he was drinking, wheezing hard as Ann’s head whips around at the sound of her leader’s distress.
 
Ann runs over, hits him hard on the back once, twice, and Akira straightens up and manages a soft wheeze of “

What?”

Makoto just raises her eyebrow, unimpressed with the oh so great ‘leader of the Phantom Thieves’ as he tries to not die from lack of air as Ann slaps him on the back gently. “You’re the Phantom Thieves, are you not? I am requesting you to-”
 
Akira and Ann slap a hand over Makoto’s mouth, eyes wide with panic.
 
The student council president makes a horrible face at the taste of salt and the smell of sweaty teeanger all in her mouth.
 
--
 
“Why are you here?” Ryuji grumbles, leaning heavily against the handrail of the station, his ankles crossed with Akira’s, and Ann complains about the heat but keeps her thigh pressed up against Yusuke’s anyway. Yusuke’s looking at Ryuji’s rough hands, thumbs brushing over the callouses and Akira’s head rests on Ryuji’s shoulder. Makoto stands opposite of them, arms crossed over her chest and posture tight, tense, like she’s unsure of how to interact with them.
 
“I need to make sure that this is done right, I don’t want Principle Kobayakawa to continue to belittle me on this matter. I will accompany you.”
 
“No you the fuck won’t.” Ryuji says, standing his ground on this matter.
 
“No need for

language,

Sakamoto.”
 
Ryuji scoffs a laugh, and turns to look away, pressing his face into Yusuke’s shoulder, the crook of his neck.  “You shouldn’t hop into this blind, you’ll get hurt.”
 
Makoto narrows her eyes, her gaze sharp and calculated, her gaze lingers on the way Ryuji’s calluses have gotten worse, more pronounced over the course of the school year. The way that Ann’s makeup is heavy around her eye, the black and blue of her bruise visible in the right light anyway. Makoto’s seen Akira’s knees give out on him, the busted scabs making dark stains on his red gym uniform. Makoto can look at the boy she doesn't recognize, the uniform marking him from Kosei, and see’s the expertly applied wrapping around his left elbow. Each of them hides marks from heavy hits, and they stand like the only thing holding them up was the other group members.
 
Makoto nods, and backs down, letting the four in front of her relax for a moment. Akira doesn't look fooled, his eyes narrow slits from where his cheek is pressed against Ryuji’s sharp shoulder and boring holes into Makoto’s lies.
 
They Phantom Thieves leave, they dissipate into the crowd to gather information, and Makoto follows them.
 She slips into the slot between Akira and Ann, the thieves spread throughout the city but they have strange gaps in their ranks that make simultaneously no sense and perfect sense to Makoto. She finds her place, and fills it. Her eyes scan the streets like she’s used to it, her mind gearing into police mode, as she scans the people and faces around her. She moves, seeing Ann’s blonde hair in the crowd every now and again, when they wander too close, seeing the cat in Akira’s bag watch her with its wide blue eyes whenever she wanders near him.  
Eventually Ann wanders close to her, hand grabbing onto Makoto’s shirt sleeve and gently tugging.
 
Makoto gets led back to the station, where Akira, Ryuji, and Yusuke wait for her and Ann.
 
“You’re not coming.” Ryuji says again, his voice is much less confident this time, his hands tucked deep into the pockets of the boys around him, Akira’s eyes tell Makoto that Akira

knows

things that she has no real idea of, that she only has inklings of, that Makoto only has dreams of, that something is barely escaping her grasp.
 
She wants to slip her hand into Ann’s, wants to run her fingers through Akira’s hair, let Ryuji use her shoulder as a support on his bad days, wants to let Yusuke use her form and figure to create art with. She knows nothing about the four in front of her and wants to be apart of them, whatever they have without her, so badly that she feels is pump hard in her veins, through her heart, whispering in her soul.
 
Makoto squares her shoulders, and stands tall amongst her juniors. “I’m going. I’m going to make sure that whatever disgusting fly is bothering the students of Shujin Academy doesn't bother them for very long. I’m going.”
 
Silence, for just a moment, before Ann curses softly under her breath. She reaches around in her pockets for a moment before pulling out her wallet. Akira’s smile is wide on his face, and his own hands search around his bag for a moment, moving Morgana out of the way to retrieve his own stash. Ryuji holds out his hand and pockets the money.
 
Yusuke simply shrugs, as his bet technically hasn’t been won or lost yet.
 
Makoto, for her part, is aghast.
 
“You’ve

bet on me?

” She demands, voice high and warbly and nothing like her normal determined student council demeanor.
 
“Ryuji fucking won.” Ann sighs, slipping her hand back to its previous position on Makoto’s sleeves. “I hate him.”
 
“You love me.” Ryuji laughs, leaning closer, and in that moment the whole group makes a single circle. A single unit.
 
Akira feels his soul fill in just a little more, just a bit more whole, and he relaxes a little more into Yusuke’s side. Makoto’s flustered, not used to the energy of her younger peers all focused on her all at once, but she’s clearly happy.
 
Akira knows that they need more to really bring Makoto into them, into the Phantom Thieves, but he’s not sure how to go about it. Something needs to

happen

, some event needs to be pushed so that Akira can get a solid read on the palace that needs to be solved so that he can move on, can get Makoto fully from the deal and move onto filling that space in his soul a little bit more. Akira’s

anxious

in a way that he’s unused to. He knows that something dangerous will happen, something that will endanger the group of them all, but he doesn't know what, or why, or even

how.

Akira

hates

not knowing. Hates not being able to see the full picture of the year laid out in front of him, instead of this strange version of dejavu that overlays itself over the months as they pass by. It makes Akira’s head

hurt

, makes him want to curl up in that shitty attic in LeBlanc and never wake up. Akira sometimes wakes up in the morning thinking that Morgana was right all along, and maybe he really was dead, but at this point he wants to at least make something like the Phantom Thieves whole and complete before he finally shuffles off the mortal coil.
 
--
 
It takes a while, to get what they need.
 
Makoto does research, she looks at the students that come to her with teary eyes and pleading cases and takes them with gentle hands and ask them what has happened, what they need. She throws herself into knowing every single facet of this case, because she can’t actually help yet.
 
She sees the others open an app she doesn't have, turn their heads to Morgana when he meows and respond back in kind, and she

knows

that she’s missing something vital. The others disappear for hours at a time, into a place that Makoto doesn't know, and they come back with split knuckles and busted lips, Yusuke’s hands shake with the frost that builds on the tips of his fingers, Ryuji’s hair stands on end with the static he’s built up in his body, Ann runs hot hot hot with a fever. Akira’s a mixture of a whole bunch of side effects, sometimes four or five at once, and Makoto can do

nothing

to help. She’s missing something, some kind of strange disconnect that she simply can’t grasp yet.
 
It takes a girl coming into the student council office, late in the afternoon with tears down her face and a debt too large for her to possibly pay off for Makoto to finally stroll into the Phantom Thieves hangout at the station with a smile.
 
She knows,

knows

that she shouldn’t be smiling, but she’s ready to finally be apart of the team she’s seen work together so flawlessly even if she’s just shouldered a debt that amounts to 30 Million yen and is being threatened by a man named

Kaneshiro

via angry text messages.
 
“I have a lead.” She says, smiling wide and flashing her phone to the rest of them.
 
The others, of course, don’t react as well as she would like. Cries of outrage, shaking hands, they all pull her close, soft hands and warm hugs. They ask her things like ‘

why

’ and ‘

please’

and ‘

what’

.
 
Makoto, for all the fact that she has just sunk herself into a hole deeper than she could ever dig her out of, is perfectly happy in the situation she’s in. She’s

happy

being close to her team, she’s

safe

in the arms of the strongest people she knows. Her sister's snide comments can’t reach her here, the expectations of the people around her, the perfect student the perfect sister the perfect child the perfect

everything

simply melt away in this band of outcasts that mesh so well together.
 
Akira’s shoulders are tense with worry, Ryuji’s mouth is a thin line, Ann’s eyes are watery, Yusuke’s hands shake, but Makoto’s not worried.
 
Morgana, that infuriating cat, simply pops his head out of the bag he calls his second home and smiles.
 
--
 
The world around them melts into the metaverse as the name they’ve entered finally gets a hit, the app pings softly and the Phantom Thieves are back on a heist.
 
After the monotony of Momentos, hunting down shadows of people involved in the gang of Shibuya the puzzle of the bank is interesting.
 
Makoto brings the bank down from the sky with a demand, she was a deposit, after all, now that she’s taken the debt of one of the students that had been taken advantage of. She walks right through the door and with a flourish she demands to speak to the bank’s manager.
 
That causes laughter amongst the ranks of the Phantom Thieves, giggling and a quick exchange of memes, of Yusuke groaning and asking the people around him to stop being simpletons, please.
 
The laughing stops when the manager comes out, with guard after guard after

guard

of shadows that beat the ever loving

shit

out of you.
 
It turns out, that asking to speak to one's manager results in having to rip off your own face.
 
But that was fine, Makoto did get a motorcycle out of it after all.
 
She also gets, more importantly,

memories

. Snippets of Akira’s laughter, of a printed portrait from Yusuke, of Ann’s warm smiles and Ryuji’s constant support. Makoto remembers soft nights in the attic of a coffee shop surrounded by warm people and warm wards, soft blankets a a

trust

between people that is not easily broken.
 
Makoto’s masks fades back onto the bridge of her nose, she turns, and runs into the arms of her waiting team. They open willingly for her, and she curls in on them. There’s too many limbs, too many people, too many words, but it's

fine

, it’s more than fine it's

amazing

. Akira feels his heart heal a little more, and simply hugs the closest people in his life a little closer.
 
Makoto wipes the tears from her eyes, slipping her dark blue gloves underneath her mask and rubs her eyes. She beats the shit out of the invading guards around her with just the metal accessories on her gloves, her rage

burns

and she uses it explosively, slamming the pulses of intrinsic magic into the enemies around her. She

screams

into her punches, she watches the metal of the gloves she wears fractures into the faces of the shadows she deforms, even with the shards of her own knuckles embedded into the faces of the shadows she keeps going, beating them down until they are a bloody pile of useless mess.
 
Ryuji laughed, about a quarter of the way into the rampage, and keeps up with Makoto’s punches, he calls her

Queen

as they tear apart a shadow using only the strength in their blood. Ann’s sharp magic attacks keep the worst of the crowd at bay, and Yusuke keeps his ice strong as he and Morgana hurt the masses before they could get even close to the two heavy hitters in the middle.
 
Akira’s laughing at the carnage around him, because this is just like his friends to do. They’ve all been pent up lately, and this just gives everyone some stress relief. Akira simply smiles wide at the people that he has chosen to surround himself with a second time and watches them demolish the things that stand in their way.
 
Man.
 
He

loves

these people.
 
--
 
Makoto leaves the bank exhausted, but they’ve gotten to the boss room, solved the bank maze, and the only thing they have to do is set out a calling card.
 
At first they debate heavily on what kind of card they need to have, what it needs to say to catch the attention of a man like Kaneshiro, what kind of words will cut him right ot the core of the matter and steal his very safety away from him.
 
Makoto promises to help Ryuji craft what they need, Yusuke once again giving his logo to the cause. But the debate is still on how to get the card

out there

to the public masses, to get the card visible and seen and recognized to be a real threat. They could post it around Shibuya, but that could draw unwanted attention to them, as individuals, seen pasting the cards up at all hours of the day. It could bring attention to the fact that they’re only high schoolers, disobeying the rules doing something that's breaking the law.
 
Makoto’s just about to break, to say

fine

, lets

litter

all over the place, when their phones ping a message into the Phantom Thieves of Hearts chat.
 
It’s from the mysterious texter, the one that they don’t know the name of yet, and they say that they have a perfect solution for what they need.
 
The mysterious texter sends a smiley face, when the phantom thieves agree to it, and the plan is set into motion.
 
They need to gather supplies, they need to set up a place to be able to get everything they need, it would be difficult, the little odds and ends they had to acquire, but it would be

worth it

to see the most perfect calling card yet.
 
--
 
Mishima nearly knocks Akira

over

with excitement two days later during school.
 
(

brightyelloweyes,anpc,carefulmoderation,helpfuulhints)

Mishima has his phone in hand, the Phansite pulled up on the browser and is practically

vibrating

with excitement. Akira has to gently take the phone from the poor moderators hand to see what he’s incredibly hype about.
 
It’s their calling card, posted this morning to multiple sites all over the internet, across high traffic news stories. The picture shows the Phantom Thieves lounging against the giant bank vault door, looking for all the world like the dangerous thieves they are, masks covering each face and a casual slant to their shoulders and hips. They each have a large sign in their hands, cut out letters taken from street signs and advertisements, yanked right out from the stores under the control of the yakuza. It reads perfectly, the Phantom Thieves are coming for you, Kaneshiro, and there’s nothing you can do about it. The leader holds the logo large in the center of the lineup, casually hiding the bottom half of his face, only allowing the sharp glare of silver eyes to be seen.
 
The Phansite got a special edition photograph, one with their code names pasted over their knees in bright, vivid colors. The same colors as their gloves.
 
The Phansite is going

nuts

.
 
Mishima’s so happy he’s nearly crying, babbling on and on about how

cool

the Phantom Thieves were! How awesome it was that they were doing something like this. How cool it was that Mishima was friends with them all.
 
Akira nods, because yeah, that’s about right. Of course Mishima knows about them, he had figured it out during the Hawaii trip, right? Maybe even before tha-
 
Akira shakes his head, getting rid of the headache, and thanking Mishima for showing him how cool it was, and to put that add revenue to somewhere good.
 
--
 
Kaneshiro’s shadow is just as disgusting as the man himself was, a fly rubbing his little hands together and demanding them to give up the gold.
 
Makoto ends the battle with a sharp crack of her knuckles, busting the mechanical piggy bank into a million shards with a nuclear hit.
 
They let the man run, escape away from them with a promise to return the money he’s stolen and to delete all the terrible pictures of high school aged students on his phone.
 
Akira feels the metaverse fade from them with the destruction of the bank around them. The air going from the stale blankness of the metaverse to something

more

. Something that makes it very clear that the air is from the actual real world instead of the mindscape of a corrupted heart.
 
Makoto gets a ping from Kaneshiro, and all of the money she ‘owed’ him gets erased.
 
The Phantom Thieves pull Makoto into their arms, and they take the briefcase as they begin to walk to the station to go to LeBlanc.
 
--
 
The mysterious texter gets more into their conversations. They put themselves into any new chat the five of them make, so they simply stop trying to avoid the hacker, and they all come to a mutual agreement of some kind.
 
The no name texter knows that the people she’s texting are the Phantom Thieves, and the Phantom Thieves know that the texter is just a harmless shut in. She’s a little quirky, a little tilted from the rest of reality, but she means well whenever she says or does something. She wants to keep the Phantom Thieves in contact for some reason, reaching out to them and keeping a hold on their active internet lives, their eye in the sky. Their navigator.
 
All the while, the pause between new party members, the Thieves get on with their schoolwork, they watch as summer hits its stride and the days turn to blistering hot sweating summer moments. The burning of the hot summer brings the heat to Mementos when they go fight shadows that Mishima gives them through the Phansite. The Monabus has no air conditioning, and leather isn’t the most breathable fabric, but that’s not something any of them complain about much as they all go through the motions of tearing apart the shadows around them.
 
Speaking of summer, the garden on the roof of the school has blossomed into a monster.
 
Akira had a strange urge for carrots one day, and found himself on the roof with Ryuji quietly following behind. The greenery has found itself tangled up in the unused desks, the flowering of vegetables vines and fruits are laid out carefully on bright blue tarps. It's a verifiable jungle, and Akira is in

awe

.  
 
Even Ryuji, who had wandered after Akira without a word when his best buddy had gotten up and left the room without real warning, was impressed.
 
“Oh! Hello!” The soft voice of a woman comes from behind them.
 
Akira and Ryuji don’t scream, they’re too cool for that.
 
They do let out a wild strangled noise however.
 
It’s the girl with the soft pink sweater and a the strawberry pink hair. She’s covered with dirt, and her hair’s pulled back into a ponytail, her fingernails are blackened, but she looks happy enough. She is also carrying a bag of fertilizer that looks to be about fifty pounds in one arm, and a bunch of new pots in another.
 
Akira and Ryuji jump to help her, offering to carry the bag and the pots for her.
 
Haru laughs, smiling the whole time, and lets them carry the pots, but she has the large bag of soil covered. Ryuji started to argue, but he sees Haru’s biceps and accepts the fact that the small woman in front of him could probably bench press half his weight, or more.
 
“What brings you to the roof?” She asks them after they help her with her gardening load.
 
“I had the urge for carrots.” Akira answers, truthfully.
 
Ryuji snorts a quick breath of laughter, choking on the air he was breathing.
 
Haru also laughs, a high sound, like a bell. She moves easily, quickly, and reaches a large potted area and shoves her hands into the soil.
 
She rips out the carrots from the soil like it was nothing, Huge bundles of greenery emerge from her grasp as she pulls out multiple harvests of various foods. She seems happy to explain each one, to let Akira kneel down on the hot roof and help her. Haru laughs gently again, like an angel, and helps Ryuji’s harsh tugs turn into something that won’t hurt the plant, but get him what he wants anyway.
 
They spend the rest of that lunch on the roof, with the promise to come back again to help her.
 
Haru smiles, and thanks them.
 
--
 
It turns out, Akechi Goro knows where LeBlanc is, and Akira stops point blank as he enters his house one day.
 
Ann, who was directly behind him, runs right into his back, making Yusuke and Ryuji also stumble a bit, making Morgana yowl with displeasure at being squished, and making Makoto sigh deeply at the comotion.
 
Akechi Goro’s sitting at the counter, eyes wide as he sips the tea that he’s been served by Boss.
 
“You’re here early.” Sojiro makes the comment, not looking up from the newspaper as he reads the news from today.
 
Akira nods, giving Akechi a wide berth as he begins to snake his way upstairs. The rest of the law breakers follow him, nodding politely as they tiptoe by the two at the counter and race their way up the stairs.
 
Akira feels a little bad about running away, but everytime he looks at Akechi all he sees is the shining barrel of a gun and a malicious laugh. A sharp pain flares in Akira’s mind, and he’s trying not to tire himself out thinking of the fact that he’s stealing this year to try again. Akira thinks that just maybe he’s gonna have to face Akechi eventually, he knows he’ll have to, but at this point he’s too wrapped up with the Phantom Thieves around him to really care.
 
--
 
The mysterious texter asks them all one day to steal her heart.
 
She’s sick, and she’s tired, and she’s not sure how much longer she can stand having to keep up what she’s been doing.
 
Akira looks up from his phone to see all the other Phantom Thieves, and to ask their reactions.
 
They’re all on the roof, helping Haru garden. The patches of veggies and fruits has turned into a verifiable greenhouse under the tedious care of a group of five people, sometimes six if Yusuke skips and slips his way into Shujin, and a cat. The ivy is starting to grow over the side of the building, and Haru’s careful to snip it away, careful to not let the principle know that she’s brutally overtaking the roof with her ‘little garden project’. Ryuji’s with Ann currently, watering the plants that need water, Makoto’s bent over a row of flowering zucchini and trying to harvest the bountiful vegetables before they go bad. Morgana’s somewhere in the catnip, and Akira’s not going to get him back until the school bell rings. Yusuke’s here today, having skipped out on his lunch period to come to Shujin and hang out with his friends, he gets food here, and the class after his lunch is his art class, in which he can basically do whatever he wants. He’s half invested in his small plot of bean’s, and half invested in drawing the way Haru’s hair looks pulled back.
 
“Guys. Futaba wants our help.” Akira calls out to them, standing up from where he was tending to the carrots.
 
The thieves look up at their leaders call, and then they proceed to think about the request.
 
It takes only a second or two, but everyone seems to agree that they’ll help her, they’ll steal the mysterious texters heart and help her heal from a sickness she has long carried.
 
Akira texts Futaba that they’ll help her, that she only needs to accept their calling card when it comes, and she says thank you, thank you so much.
 
The group of them all head to the LeBlanc, Haru bringing a bundle of fresh curry ingredients and a smile to Sojiro, as she pardons herself for intruding. Sojiro seems esactic at the gift, already looking to the stove to cook something with it all. Haru trails after them, going upstairs to sit down on the couch with everyone else and to discuss the plan of attack with everyone.
 
She gives good input, and Makoto tells her such, and Akira thinks she looks beautiful with her strawberry pink hair curling against the backdrop of the bright red phantom thieves flag that’s hung up on the wall.
 
The group of them makes a rough idea of a plan, and heads off to Sojiro’s actual apartment, using the key that Akira knew about to slip inside and they follow the hallway down deeper into the house to the door that’s covered with stickers and with various ‘

go away

’ signs.
 
“Futaba?” Akira asks, questioning and making sure he’s loud enough to be heard through the headphones that he knows she’s wearing.
 
A shuffle sounds on the other side of the door, and a soft voice from the other side echos out a quiet “Who-who is it?”
 
“Akira, and everyone else.”
 
The sounds on the other side of the door get louder, as if Futaba’s trying to shuffle around things on the floor to get closer to the group of people she’s talked with for the past few weeks.
 
They discuss a plan, the group of them, and they leave Haru to stay with Futaba saying that it would be much safer for Haru to help Futaba stay calm than for the thieves to involve Haru any more than they already have.
 
The Phantom Thieves back up to the living room, asking Haru to try and convince Haru to let her in the closed room, and Haru eagerly says that she’ll help them anyway she can.
 
Akira and the others bundle together, and start to work out the logistics of Futaba’s tomb.
 
--
 
It takes them a good while to come up with the keywords, but by the time the metaverse wraps around them Akira’s

ready

to fight, to get his team again. He’s so close, he can taste it. He’s ready, ready to have his

team

again.
 
The desert is wide, vast, and it’s

hot

.
 
Their clothing still is school uniforms, so that's a benefit. The cotton much more breathable than their usual getup. Yusuke’s half out the back window, dying in the heat, and Ann and Makoto have taken the front, rolling down the windows and trying to keep cool. Ryuji’s almost laid out flat on both Yusuke’s and Akira’s lap, shirt off and ankles crossed. Akira’s shoes are off, his pants rolled up and cuffed like Ryuji normally wore them. Akira wishes for a moment for his sleeveless vest, but settles for simply rolling up his sleeves.
 
The pyramid is huge, and Akira finds the way into it with little difficulty.
 
It takes a moment, but Futaba’s mind, her own shadow self, was tired. The pharaoh of this pyramid was a hiccuping, crying, shattered mess. They walk right up to the solid closed door, and the pyramid goes on high defense.
 
It takes them

hours

to sort through the puzzles, the mess, but it all works back to a flat, closed door.
 
It’s the door to Futaba’s room. Closed.
 
They have to come out of the metaverse, to work in the

real

world.
 
Turns out, that Haru’s actually magic.
 
Or

terrifying

, either one.
 
Haru has managed to wiggle her way into Futaba’s room, her calming voice soothing as she almost sing-songs a soft story. Her voice is whimsical, almost trance like, and when Akira knocks gently on the door it's Haru who raises her voice to answer.
 
Akira gently explains the situation about how they needed to open the door and see Futaba in person, how they need her to open the door herself.
 
“Can-can I open the door tomorrow?”
 
Futaba’s shaky voice comes from the other side, and Akira agrees to that deal. “We’ll be by tomorrow, around noon, okay? There’s no school happening so we can all be here.”
 
“Can Haru be here too?” Futaba asks.
 
“Yes, if she wants to be here she is welcome to come.” Akira agrees to that.
 
“I’ll be here.” Haru agrees.
 
And with that, the plan is made and set.
 
--
 
The next day they slip away from LeBlanc with a smile and a hope that boss stays busy again.
 
Haru gets sent in first, slowly coaxing open the door and slipping inside.
 
It takes Haru a good few minutes to get Futaba to open the door by herself, but Futaba does in fact do it.
 Futaba’s hands are shaking, her eyes screwed up tight and her body tense as she throws herself out of her door, asking them please take her heart. 
(

littlesister,littlehacker,orangehairsplayedinthesun,brightsmile,encouragment,sibling)

Akira says that they will, to not worry, and Ryuji walks forward and gives Futaba a small card.
 
The calling card for her heart.
 
Futaba thanks them, thanks them so much, and the Phantom Thieves go back outside in the hallway and leave Haru to console Futaba as they enter her palace to get everything sorted out.
 
--
 
The boss fight is such a fucking

bother

.
 
It’s a constant back and forth, too far away to actually do any damage but whenever the distorted version of Futaba’s mom got anywhere close all she did was land one huge attack on everybody and jump back again before anybody got in any hard hits. Wakaba screams loud and proud about how

terrible

her daughter is, how

awful

Futaba was to kill her.
 
Akira hates this, hates how this is what Futaba had to deal with all these years. Wakaba is huge, a cognitive monster that does nothing but hit and run hit and run

hit and run

.
 
What Akira has no idea about however is that Futaba herself slips into the metaverse after them, determined to help them, to help the people she’s talked to. The people she loves, respects, wants to be friends with. Futaba wants to

help

in ways she knows she can but can't quite figure out yet.
 
Futaba has figured this out once before, she can do it once again. She’s smart enough, her mind is her best asset, it's the thing that has brought her to victory more than once, and she’s gonna use it once again here.
 
Haru asks to go with her, to help her through it. Haru’s not useless, she knows this, she just hasn't had the time to prove to the others that she

knows

she’s able to fight alongside them.
 
The two of them slip into the darkness of the technical tomb, and they make their way to the battle that rages on in the desert above them.
 
The palace screams at her, at Futaba, calls her filthy names, horrible things, the people around her

rage

, they

accuse and point fingers

.
 
Futaba collapses on herself while the Phantom Thieves defend their two party members that don't have a persona from the winds that rip and tear around them. Haru has a comforting hand gracing Futaba’s shoulder, asking Futaba to please just

breathe

.
 
Futaba screams out, screams that she didn’t kill her mom, that she didn't push her mother to suicide. Futaba was a

child

when her mother died, a child who loved her mother with everything she had while her mother did the exact same.
 
Futaba’s persona comes with a blazing glory, Prometheus burning bright in a technicolor ball.
 
The battle’s a whole lot quicker after that.
 
--
 
Futaba, when the exit the collapsing metaverse, crashing into Akira’s arms with huge wracking sobs. She’s so happy, her big brother came back, he came back safe and sound and right where he belongs. The rest of the team brings her close, embracing her as she sobs out that they left her

alone

in that room the whole time while they collected other party members.
 
With Futaba back in the game more and more memories come rushing back, and Akira’s ready to face the whole world again, almost.
 
Haru’s still a little hung back, still knowing that she belongs but not knowing

why

exactly.
 
Akira knows that they need her, they want her on their side just like everyone else. But they don’t know

how

to bring Haru to them just yet.
 
Futaba takes her days to rest, slipping into a heavy sleep as the team thinks its way through until June starts to come to an end.
 
Futaba wakes up, jerking like she’s been startled from a strange dream, and begins her work.
 
Her first order of business is to shutdown any large scale cyber attacks on the Phantom Thieves or their identities. Multiple people have started investigations into the identities of the group ever since their calling card, so Futaba got into a huge war against the internet, and she was going to win.  
 
Her second order of business is to look deeper into Haru, into Okumura Food’s and the rumours about their employees.
 
It takes her a week and a half, but Futaba does manage to digitally slap a huge stack of files into the group chat after her exhausted triadae and tells them she’s logging out.
 
Haru gets

mad

.
 
She’s frustrated with her father, her shitty finance, the absolute shitty situation she’s in. She even feels terrible that she’s even calling the situation she’s in shitty, because she knows that the others on her team have faced much worse. Haru wants to walk to her father, walk right to his face while he’s in a huge company board meeting and

scream

at him.
 
The Thieves convince her to wait, and they talk about how to get into Okumura’s palace.
 
It takes them until the middle of July to start on Haru’s palace.
 
Akira

knows

that this is so much faster than the first timeline, he knows that this would normally be so much later, that he would be wearing a jacket during Haru’s gardening, that the foods would be fall ones, but he’s happy that she’s in his party early.
 
Haru’s smiles, Futaba’s jokes, Yusuke’s quirkiness, Ann’s eagerness, Ryuji’s excitement, Makoto’s fond exasperation. Morgana makes sly comments during the night, about how Akira’s gathered the people he’s once loved, once again.
 
Akira’s incredibly

happy

.
 
He has friends sleeping over more often than not, they all give boundless love and receive boundless love in return.
 
Akira’s shoulders are occupied with Ann resting her head, Yusuke’s arm draped over it, Akira’s hands are occupied with Makoto’s soft tugging directions, Ryuji’s calloused palm, Akira’s middle is occupied with Haru’s firm hugs, with Morgana purring loudly from his lap.
 
--
 
The spaceship isn’t a huge surprise as they all run through it, Haru leading the charge.
 
The robots fall easily to their overpowered attacks, they dodge whatever gets through their main attacking line and the Phantom Thieves are on top of the world.
 
They reach the door that only Haru can pass, and she nearly rips it open with the force of her anger.
 
Her fiance stands happily on the other side.
 
The rest of the Phantom Thieves simply back up as the man lays every dirty thought he’s ever had into Haru, every filthy horrible thing he had thought up.
 
Haru

screams

and rips her mask off her face with a smile.
 
Her guns make it so that the robot cognition of the man has nothing left of him to dissolve after the battle is over. She’s shot him so full of holes that he might as well have been a window.
 
The shadow of Haru's father sees what his daughter has become, see’s the woman that she is willing to be when pushed into a corner with no real escape, and he throws his hands up.
 
Okumura isn’t about to risk his life in a battle that he has no stakes in. He’s only

just

been branching out into the political world, he can still back out without any huge repercussions to his industry. He’s not going to fight his only child, not like this.
 
Haru beats the shit out of him anyway. It only takes two swings with her axe, and he’s down for the count.
 
“He still needs the calling card right?” Haru says, looking at the prone crumpled version of the man she used to admire on the floor.
 
Akira nods, and Haru makes one hiccuping terrible sob, and she turns to leave.
 
They walk away, Haru’s shoulders stiff as she walks tall back into the real world.
 
She remember them all now, remembers how wonderful it feels to be apart of a family that values her opinion. With the awakening of Haru, they all remember

everything

of the past year that never was. All the persona’s had been awakened, and gaps filled in from there. Akira finally felt full, felt relieved as the persona’s within him all screamed out with joy.
 
The Phantom Thieves of Heart stash themselves away in the attic of LeBlanc for a long time, they curl into each other, bundle up together even through the summer’s hottest moments. They need one another, they need to feel that the others are alive, awake, and that they

remember

.
 
Akira knows what’s going to happen next, he knows that Sae’s palace awaits them, and Akechi does too. Akechi has a persona to, they all discuss, so he must

know

that they know he’s the one causing everyone’s accidents. He has to

understand

they won’t do the same damn thing twice. The Phantom Thieves are

going

to save their leader, whether it kills them or not.
 
They wait a day or two, and they send another huge public card.
 
A photoshoot of them all in Mementos, posed perfectly along the disgusting wreckage of the twisting subway system. They each hold a part of the card, spelling out the words and phrases for the card once again, Joker holding onto the logo once again.
 
The internet went wild, looking over the new members, asking please to get more information on them, they

needed

to know.
 
They all walked into the spaceship one more time, with no real opposition.
 
Okumura handed Haru his treasure personally, and said that he was so sorry that she had to deal with what was happening while the palace around him fell into a thousand, million pieces.
 
They barely made it out, the long ends of Ann’s hair singed from the burning fire that they barely out run.
 
Haru grips the plastic toy box in her hands, shaking as the Phantom Thieves surround her, as they offer support.
 
Haru promises to give it to her father that night, over the dinner table.
 
--
 
The group of them are hanging out in LeBlanc when Akechi walks in, almost a whole week later.
 
He’s clearly frazzled, full of some kind of pent up anger and frustration. He looks like he hasn’t been sleeping, looks like he hasn’t been eating well either.
 
He enters the shop and startles at the sight of everyone all piled together in one booth.
 
The Phantom Thieves all look at once another, each of them silently communicating something that Akechi never was apart of, not really.
 
Akechi’s about to leave, to run away to hide away from the people who had already seen the worse side of him, who knows how depraved he is. He turns to run away from the Phantom Thieves who have managed to subvert his plans so badly he’s had to relive the past

three years

of his life.
 
Akechi stops from the hand that grabs his wrist, and looks back once.
 
Akira’s face is hard, stony as he looks to Akechi, catches his wrist and pulls him back further into the cafe.
 
“Don’t go anywhere, Akechi, we have a whole lot to talk about.”