Chapter Text
Akira Kurusu has just turned four years old when his pediatrician calls his mother to deliver the bad news that a routine blood test during his annual physical has shown a predisposition for a rare but dangerous health condition that needs immediate follow-up.
"It's not very well understood," the doctor tells the anxious mother over the phone, as her unconcerned preschooler plays on the floor in front of her. "It's a rare condition, one that's only just starting to be screened for."
"Is it--dangerous?" she asks. "I mean, is it something that--" She's not a doctor, she's an architect, and she's never had a health scare like this in her own life. She fumbles for the questions she wants to ask. "Is he going to be okay, doctor?"
"Well the good news," he says. "Is that the symptoms rarely appear until puberty, and there's very promising research being done right now into preventing them from developing to the point where it could interfere with his ability to live a normal life."
The phrase ability to live a normal life is, of course, alarming. Alarming enough that Akira's life, ironically, is almost immediately upended. His pediatrician had mentioned research being done into preventing future symptoms from appearing, and after a lot of discussion with each other and with the doctor, they agree to let him be a part of that. For almost six years, he spends weeks or months at a time in clinical labs, undergoing surgeries and tests in the name of preserving his future health.
It doesn't entirely work. The laboratory funding runs out in 2010, around the same time that Akira starts to really feel the impacts of the condition he's known he had all his life. There's a variety of different symptoms, he's always been told, that this particular condition could manifest. In his particular case, it comes out in his bones and in the muscles of his back and shoulders, neither of which ever quite develop right. HIs bones are too light, he's told. They aren't exactly brittle or easily broken, but he's warned that it'll probably get worse when he's older. His musculature structure along his back twists as he grows, to the point where pain and even occasional seizures are something that he eventually learns to live with.
Things could have been worse, probably. An older boy that had been involved in the program had actually died not long after it ended, Akira knows. At least he's still alive and--as his doctors keep phrasing it--doing as well as can be expected.
He gets used to it. Gets used to people giving him sideways looks, gets used to missing school for doctor appointments, gets used to a pain that ebbs and flows but never completely goes away. What else is he supposed to do? He's been told all his life that one day he's just going to break, and if he's not actually quite there yet, it sometimes feels like the people around him don't see anything else.
Friends don't exactly happen for him as he's growing up. Akira figures out pretty quickly that the pain gets worse when he's angry or upset, or when the sheer unfairness of the world--to himself or to anyone else--seems to press in on him. Other kids at school figure that out too. Or at least, they figure out that if they tease and provoke him enough, if their verbal bullying gets bad enough, then Akira's body will do the rest of their work for them.
He learns two things from this. The first is how to hide his feelings, to cover every expression in a kind of mask, to never let anyone close enough to figure out what's going on inside his head. It's really hard to convince teachers or even his parents that he's being bullied at school when it can all be waved away with well you know you need to be careful, they probably don't know how fragile you are.
(They know exactly what they're doing)
The second thing he learns is how to spend his time alone. At school he lingers in the library during lunch or--whenever he can--up on the roof. Almost no one goes up there, which he's pretty sure is why it's always felt like one of the only places he can actually relax and let his guard down.
And then comes the day that changes everything. Akira is heading home from school, late, well after dark, when he stumbles into the middle of an attempted rape. He steps in, because of course he does, because who wouldn't, in a situation like that. The burst of adrenaline and outrage sends stabbing pain across his shoulders and down his back, so intense that it feels like something's trying to break out of it. But he grits his teeth and holds his ground, and when the attempted rapist falls drunkenly flat on his face, Akira gets his first experience of being judged for something other than his health.
Guilty. He's judged guilty.
He'd tried to help someone and somehow it's all backfired, and now here he is, alone in the middle of Tokyo, facing a year of probation for something that he still can't quite convince himself was the wrong thing to do.
"You can do this," he reminds himself as he stands at the edge of the diagonal crosswalk in Shibuya, waiting for the light to change. "You can do this."
Nobody even glances at him as he stands there muttering to himself. There's a crowd of people all around him, even in the middle of the afternoon, some of them talking to each other, others on their phones. He doesn't stand out, and as the light finally changes and the crowd surges forward into the crossing, he's just another face among many.
Akira looks down at his own phone, fingers tapping away to pull up a map. He's not exactly sure where he's going, and even though he'd checked and rechecked on the way here, but seeing it for himself makes him nervous all over again. This isn't a city he wants to be lost in.
He pauses, fingers going still on the screen and feet slowing to a stop in his walk. There's something new on his phone, an app he hadn't installed himself. A menacing eye on a red background, basically screaming virus.
"Nope," Akira mutters, and drags the app into his phone's trash.
And as he does so, the world around him seems to freeze.
He looks up, confused, and before he can really process anything at all, there’s a fire in the muscles of his back, an absolute tearing pain like something is just burning right through him, all the way past his skin, through his twisted muscles and malformed bones, into something as deep as his soul.
He might have screamed, he isn’t sure and never afterward remembers. But then in another moment the pain is gone, and Akira is on the ground in the middle of a busy intersection, clutching at his phone as strangers step around him and try not to look.
Shaking slightly, Akira pushes himself to his feet and forces himself to move forward before the light changes. A few people give him weird looks, but Akira’s pretty sure that has more to do with him collapsing in the middle of the intersection than anything else.
No one else seems to have noticed anything weird.
On the far side of the road, Akira stops and takes just a second to pull himself together. The pain itself is nothing new, if a little more intense than usual, and the tingling aftershocks across his shoulders are horribly familiar. But the fire is new. The way it feels like it had been reaching right into him, that's new.
Stress, he tells himself firmly, forcing himself to keep walking. That's all it is, just stress, because he's on his own in a city he's never been to before, on probation for a crime he didn't commit, and was in fact committed by no one, because the alleged victim had actually tripped and fallen flat on his face. Stress has always made the pain worse, and this is a whole new level.
He makes it, after a while, to the neighborhood where he'll be staying for the school year. It takes him a couple of tries to find his guardian, because no one answers at his house, and the only reason he finds the cafe where Sojiro Sakura apparently works is because a helpful postal worker points him in that direction. Not, Akira decides, a very good sign. He'd only been given the address of the house, and no one's there, so... had Sakura forgotten that he's coming today? Or does he just not care that Akira could have been stuck outside for who knows how long if there hadn't happened to be anyone around when he showed up?
This is the person he's going to have to live with for a year. He'd braced himself to be seen as a delinquent, but apparently he hasn't been bracing himself enough.
His nerves mount as he finally steps inside the cafe, eyes sweeping the small space like he's looking for threats. Maybe he is. He doesn't know what kind of greeting he's going to get here, or if he'll be welcome at all. His gaze takes in an a row of booths along one wall, a long counter along the other end. At the back of the room, a dim hallway leads to what looks like a bathroom and a set of stairs. The whole place smells like coffee, a strangely homey smell considering the circumstances.
"Are you looking for something, kid?"
Akira's gaze snaps to the man behind the counter, who's watching him with a flat expression that implies his interest in Akira only extends as far as maybe getting him to stop blocking the doorway.
He steps quickly forward, and asks, "Are you Sakura-san?"
The man cocks an eyebrow, and then his posture suddenly straightens a little. Akira tries hard not to cringe under the sudden intensity of the man's expression, and finds himself abruptly frozen halfway between the door and the counter, unable to take another step.
"They said you'd be coming today," Sakura says. "Akira, right?"
Akira nods. Nervously, he moves to adjust his bag over his shoulder, then stops when a fresh stab of pain ripples through him. "I went by the house," he says. "But no one was there, and someone said--"
"Yeah," Sakura says. "Well, you won't be staying at the house anyway, so it's good you ended up here." He steps out from behind the counter, and gestures for Akira to follow him. "Come on."
He moves past Akira, down the length of the narrow room. When he gets to the stairs he turns around and gestures impatiently for Akira to follow him. Akira follows, climbing up the short set of stairs into a surprisingly spacious attic room.
"I don't have enough space for you at the house," Sakura says. "But this should have everything you need."
"It..." He weighs his words, which is hard since he doesn't know himself how he feels about this. On the one hand, it's pretty clear that Sakura isn't exactly thrilled about having him around, so staying in his house could have been incredibly awkward. On the other hand, this set-up says clearer than words ever could exactly how little he's wanted here.
"Thank you," he says.
"Hmm," Sakura says. His gaze, which has been wandering around the room as if taking it in for the first time himself, lands abruptly on Akira. "Did anyone tell you why I ended up as your guardian for the year?" he asks.
"No," Akira says. Honestly, he hadn't really thought about it. The name and address had come in the mail from the courts about a week after his official sentencing, but Akira has no idea what byzantine process decided it behind the scenes. "I guess it was all automatic, right? They have a list or something?"
Sakura studies him for another second, then finally looks away. "Or something," he agrees.
The next several minutes are filled with a dozen little details about life here that Akira tries hard to keep up with. He nods along as Sakura explains that he'll have to use the bathhouse down the street, since there's nothing in the cafe. That he'll be getting a train pass that he can use on the line that takes him to school, but that it won't cover anywhere else he wants to go in the city. That he is under no circumstances to go into the house, get into trouble, or otherwise violate the terms of his probation.
"I have to make reports on your progress," Sakura says. "So don't go getting into trouble while you're here, either."
"I won't," Akira says.
Sakura sighs, then gestures at a familiar cardboard box at the bottom of a shelf. "Your stuff came in the mail yesterday," he says. "I brought it up here."
"Thanks," Akira says.
"And I think that's about it," Sakura says. "We'll need to go into your school tomorrow to finish getting you registered, but for now you might as well move in. This place could probably use some dusting, too."
All Akira wants to do is lie face down on the mattress and pretend none of today is real. "I'll do that," he says.
Sakura nods, and starts to move toward the stairs again. On the top step, though, he hesitates and half turns back. "I got a copy of your medical records with the rest of the temporary guardianship paperwork," he says. "Are you... going to be okay, kid?"
Akira can't help himself. He laughs, a short, involuntary noise that doesn't seem to be what Sakura wants to hear. His frown gets deeper, and Akira suddenly feels like he's caught in a searchlight, Sakura's gaze is so intense. He finds himself scrambling for reassurances. "I'll be fine," he says. "It's nothing new, I can handle it."
Sakura opens his mouth, but Akira has no idea what he'd been about to say because he just shuts it again and shakes his head. He heads downstairs without another word, and--after a second or two--Akira turns his attention to the room that's going to be his for the next year.
It's dusty, and crowded with junk, and the window over the bed is open, letting in a breeze that carries an early spring chill. Standing there, looking at it, Akira's shoulders twinge again.
He sighs, puts down his bag, and gets to work cleaning.
-//-
He makes it through two strangely nights in the creaky emptiness of the cafe's attic before his first day at Shujin Academy. He's been there once already, had gone to register with Sakura (or Sojiro, as is guardian had eventually told Akira to call him). But that had been as a passenger in a car, and this is going to involve taking two trains and a transfer in Shibuya Station.
Akira leaves half an hour earlier than he probably needs to, which is the only reason he makes it to Aoyama-Itchome anywhere close to on time. Transferring train lines is a confusing experience that Akira does correctly more or less on accident, and when he emerges from the station nearest to Shujin, it’s raining hard. He’s still a block or two away from where he needs to be, which adds just another exciting new wrinkle to his morning.
He doesn’t have an umbrella. He’s… actually not entirely sure he’d even remembered to pack an umbrella? So that’s another thing to worry about later--for now he hunches his shoulders and tries to walk as quickly as possible. As much as possible he sticks to the covered areas close to the buildings, and more than once he finds himself walking side by side with other students in Shujin uniforms who are trying the same thing to stay out of the rain. At one point he ends up standing next to a sad looking blonde girl for a few seconds until a car pulls up and the man inside gives her a ride the rest of the way to school.
One of the car tires splashes up a wave of water in Akira's direction as it speeds away through a puddle, and he jumps back with a noise of surprise. His shoes and the bottoms of his pants are soaked immediately, and as he's taking this in, he hears running footsteps, and someone slides to a stop next to him.
“Bastard,” the newcomer says, panting hard from the run. “Did you see that guy?”
“Uh--” Akira glances around, but there’s no one else there and the question is obviously meant for him. “The guy in the car, you mean?”
“Yeah, Kamoshida. Bastard.”
“Who?”
The other kid, who has so far been mostly glaring at the departing car, turns and gives Akira a skeptical look. “How do you not know who Kamoshida is? You go to Shujin, don’t you?”
“Yea,” Akira says. “But it’s my first day, I’m just transferring in.”
“Oh! Yeah, well…” His expression is sour. “That guy’s an ass, just in case no one’s told you.”
No one has. Mostly they’ve just given him sideways looks like they’re waiting for him to turn around and hit someone. “Kamoshida, you mean?” he asks.
“Right.” The guy nods, his expression dark. “Treats Shujin like it’s his personal castle, or something.” He looks up at the sky, directing his scowl at the clouds, and says, “Looks like the rain’s not going to let up anytime soon. I know a shortcut, if you want to…?”
“Sure,” Akira says. If there’s a shortcut, they might actually get to school early, and they’ll be out of the rain. “Lead the way.”
But as they head down the gap between two buildings to what the other guy swears is a shortcut to school, something sends a shiver down his spine, and there’s a feeling of sudden disorientation that clings, and doesn’t go away. He shifts his bag against his shoulder, trying to find a comfortable position for it. But suddenly his skin is crawling and there’s a definite sense of… of wrongness.
“We should be careful,” he said slowly, not entirely sure what they need to be careful of. “There’s something weird going on here.”
“Yeah, no kidding.” The other boy's voice echoes strangely on the stone, louder than it feels like it should be, and Akira winces. The two of them share a look, and half-intentionally draw a little closer. “I swear this is where the school should be,” the kid says, more quietly this time. There’s less of an echo when he keeps his voice down, which is a relief. Akira does not want to be found wandering around in this place, whatever it is.
As if summoned by that thought, Akira hears sudden, heavy footsteps coming toward them. Before either of them have a chance to think about running or hiding, a man wearing a king’s cloak and basically nothing else marches into the room with a pair of guards. Akira’s first thought (after about thirty seconds of numb confusion as he pinches himself to make sure this isn’t some kind of weird nightmare) is that this looks a lot like the guy that had picked up the blonde girl a little while ago. If he’s here now and wearing… that, what does that mean for the girl?
He comes back to himself with a start and realizes that his new companion has been shouting something at the naked man. Kamoshida, he’d said. Akira hadn’t really been listening to the conversation, too focused on just trying to process that any of this is happening at all, but he snaps back to attention when he realizes that the two guards are coming at them. He tries to scramble back and away, but it’s too late and a heavy arm grabs at his arm, squeezing so tightly Akira half expects to hear his bones crack.
With his other hand, the one not holding Akira’s arm like he’s trying to tear it right out of his shoulder, he shoves him forward, pushing him toward a dark looking hallway. Akira protests, he shouts--something, more surprise and alarm than any kind of actual words, and digs his heels in. That deep, almost instinctual sense of wrongness hasn’t let up, and if anything it’s only gotten worse the more he sees. His heart is pounding and his shoulders (already painful in the way they always seem to be in stressful situations) feel suddenly like they’re about to burst.
The guard smashes him back against the floor, and the sudden strike combined with spiking fear is enough to trigger not just pain, but a sudden, painful seizure. Blackness comes up to claim him, and for a long time that’s all he knows.
When he finally comes back to himself, he has a vague sense of time having passed, and a deep pain that seems to go all the way down to his bones. Usually when this happens--and it doesn't get this bad too often--he wakes up with his parents or at the school nurse, depending where he is. This time, he wakes up on the floor of a dungeon cell, with a terrified looking stranger staring at him from the other side of the tiny room. It takes Akira a few muddled seconds to remember what had happened, and to recognize the boy he’d walked in with.
“You, uh…” The other boy is quieter now than he had been when they ran into the half naked Kamoshida. “You okay?”
Akira almost wants to laugh. Every single inch of him hurts, even more now that he’s blacked out and had a seizure. His messed up shoulders still feel like they’re trying to tear open and turn themselves inside out. He’s locked in some kind of dungeon with a total stranger, and there’s a naked teacher on a power trip strutting around out there somewhere.
And to top it all off, they’re definitely not going to be on time for class. Akira isn’t exactly sure what that’ll do to his probation, but he can guess the answer isn’t going to be anything good.
“Ha,” he says, and the stranger’s mouth kind of twitches like he’s about to smile himself.
“Okay,” he says. “Yea, that was a pretty stupid question. You need a hand?” He offers one without waiting for an answer, and Akira lets himself be hauled off the floor. The pain gets a little worse when he’s standing, but lying around on the hard stone floor probably isn’t the best situation to be in right this second.
“Thanks,” he says. “I’m Akira Kurusu, by the way. But, uh--you can call me Akira.” They’re locked in some weird dungeon together, he’s pretty sure they’ve reached the given name level of friendship.
“Ryuji Sakamoto,” the other answers. “Ryuji’s fine too.”
“How’d we get here?” Akira asks. “I don’t really remember anything after those guards.”
“You, uh… I don’t really know what they did to you,” Ryuji says.
“Seizure,” Akira mutters. “It's just a thing that happens sometimes. Not a big deal."
“If you say so, I guess,” Ryuji says. “Anyway, one of those guards picked you up and carried you down here. I couldn’t really get away either, and I mean…” He shrugs, slightly self consciously. “Leaving you on your own would’ve been a pretty crappy thing to do, right?”
“Thanks,” Akira says. He can’t imagine how much worse it would have been to wake up here on his own.
“Yeah. So… what do we do now?” Ryuji glances toward the cell door, and Akira doesn’t have to try it to tell it’s locked up tight.
“I guess we wait,” he says. “Unless we can find a way to break out of here.”
Ryuji shakes his head. “I did some poking around while I was waiting for you to wake up,” he says. “It’s pretty solid, I couldn’t find a way out of here.”
“We could always dig our way out with a spoon,” Akira says.
“Yea, maybe,” Ryuji says. “If we had a spoon.”
The two of them are quiet for a little while. Akira can’t help looking around, checking the walls Ryuji says he’s already looked at for anything that looks like a weak spot. When he doesn’t find anything either, he lets out a sigh and sits back down, gingerly resting his back against the wall. After a second or two, Ryuji flops in a similar position on the other side of the cell. “This really sucks,” Ryuji announces. “I mean, I knew Kamoshida was bad news, but I never figured he had anything like this going on.”
“Anything like what, though?” Akira asks. “You said this is where the school is supposed to be--”
“It is!” Ryuji insists. “I’ve taken that shortcut a million times!”
“But it’s obviously not the school,” Akira continues. He’s only been there once, but this is a castle, not a school--a full out castle, in the middle of a normal Tokyo neighborhood, in the place where a normal high school is supposed to be. That... is not a thing that makes sense.
Just to be sure, he pinches himself again.
“Do you hear something?” Ryuji asks.
Akira's subconscious has been trying to convince himself that he doesn’t hear anything, actually, and the distant sounds of screaming are just his imagination.
“Sounds like someone’s coming,” Ryuji says, and Akira forces himself to listen a little more carefully. Sure enough, beyond the distant, echoing sound that might possibly be screaming (but he really hopes is something else), there are footsteps getting louder. He looks over at Ryuji and nods, and the two of them stand up together and face the cell door.
“Kamoshida again,” Ryuji says, followed by something he mutters too quietly for Akira to hear, but judging the tone is probably very, very rude.
The two of them are dragged out of the cell (Akira grits his teeth and braces himself, but luckily this time he doesn’t black out), and Kamoshida struts around, smug in his power over them, spewing insults and hate and a few really pointed barbs that seem like they’re aimed at Ryuji. Akira stays quiet and listens, waiting for the other shoe to drop. He doesn’t know what’s going to happen, what Kamoshida is building up to, but it doesn't feel like he's here just to mock them. There’s a building tension behind the words, and a definite sense that something is going to happen.
And then it does.
When Kamoshida’s strutting and preening finally winds up to its peak and he orders Akira and Ryuji executed, when the guard holding Akira down points a sword at him and swings back for a killing blow… time seems to slow. The sounds of Kamoshida’s shouting, of the clanking of the guards’ armor, of Ryuji’s horrified protests, all seem to fade. The only sound is his own breathing, ragged and too loud in his ears. He’s going to die here, with no idea where he is or how he got here.
Are you truly going to lie down and accept this?
His breath catches.
Or will you rebel against your situation? Have your actions thus far been a mistake?
The voice is a stranger’s, and as familiar to Akira as his own.
Do you regret standing up against unfairness?
He does not. In the frozen, silent moment, Akira looks past the anonymous guard and into Kamoshida’s leering face. He does not regret trying to protect someone from being hurt. If he could do something about Kamoshida then he absolutely would.
Something calcifies onto his face and Akira’s hands fly up to it (he finds something hard and smooth and alien) and he pulls. He ignores the pain, and the sharp tang of blood that comes with it. Pulling the thing away from his face is a struggle but he doesn't let up until finally it gives way. Akira gets a brief, confused glimpse of a mask before blue fire pours out from him, and he feels…
Powerful.
Time speeds up again, sound comes rushing back, as the force of the flames exploding out of Akira sends everyone in the vicinity flying backwards. There is blood on his face from where he’s torn the mask away, and his mind is suddenly racing faster than his heart. There’s a kind of presence in his head that he doesn’t (quite) recognize, although it comes with a feeling that he should know it, that he should know it as well as he knows himself.
Persona, something whispers to him. It’s called a Persona.
Knowledge, all at once new and familiar and terrifying, is settling into his mind like drifting snow. Akira doesn’t understand what’s happening, or how, or why, but he knows that he can use this to fight back.
Persona.
Akira echoes the cry, shouting the word and then watching in wide eyed amazement as something dark and winged forms from nothingness in front of him, and lashes out with some kind of magic that Akira can feel, deep down in his bones, at the two guards at Kamoshida’s side. They go up in smoke, just disintegrate and vanish like they were never even there, and Kamoshida turns tail and runs.
Akira watches, a genuine smile growing on his face, until Kamoshida is out of sight. Next to him, Ryuji whoops and makes a rude hand gesture.
“Dude!” he says, turning back to Akira. “That was awesome! That was crazy!”
It was absolutely crazy, Akira can agree with that. He just wishes he knew what exactly it was, but even that doesn’t seem too important right now compared to the buzzing wave of adrenaline carrying him along. “Y-yeah,” he says, and he’s almost surprised when his voice sounds the same as it always does. He feels different. Looks different, too, when he finally looks down and realizes that his clothes have changed. He's wearing some kind of long coat he’s never seen before, along with gloves, boots, and…
And the mask he'd worked so hard to pull off is back on his face.
“We should probably try to get out of here while we can,” he says, squeezing one hand into a fist, feeling the way the fabric of the glove rubs up against his fingers. He’s still not entirely sure that this isn’t some kind of dream, despite all the pinching he’d done earlier. Maybe this has something to do with the seizure he’d had earlier. Maybe hallucinations are just the next step in whatever weird medical issues he’s been dealing with since he was a kid. But then, Ryuji wouldn't have seen it too, would he?
“No kidding,” Ryuji says. “C’mon… Kamoshida went that way, we should probably try the other hall.”
He starts off, and Akira starts to follow. He only makes it a step or two before stumbling, though, and he realizes that behind the surge of adrenaline and energy that had come with… with whatever that was, the pain hasn’t exactly faded.
Ryuji’s footsteps slow and then stop. “Hey,” he says. “You coming?”
“I… yeah, hang on…”
But if anything, now that he’s noticed it, the pain is getting worse. Akira stops, reaching out a hand to brace himself against the closest wall, and grimaces as the burning in his shoulders starts to build. In a distant kind of way, he realizes he can feel something moving under his skin, and shudders involuntarily.
Ryuji jogs back, expression visibly worried now. “Are you going to be okay to get out of here?” he asks.
“I just need a second,” Akira lies. “I…”
This time, when he trails off, it’s because he’s just spotted something. The thing that had attacked Kamoshida and his guards is still there. It's just standing completely still, eyes fixed on Akira, waiting.
(It's called a Persona, whispers the voice in his head. His name is Arsene)
He hasn't moved since destroying the two guards and scaring away Kamoshida, not even when Akira started to move off after Ryuji.
“Think it wants something?” Ryuji mutters, shifting his weight nervously.
You are not ready, yet.
Akira swallows hard. “I think so," he says. "Yeah."
Come.
“Think we can trust it?” Ryuji asks, and although his voice is skeptical, and Akira himself feels like he’s going to throw up out of sheer nerves, he knows in his gut that the answer is yes. He should be afraid, but as he stands there, leaning against the wall and feeling the weight of Arsene's gaze on him, he can't bring himself to feel scared.
“Yeah,” he tells Ryuji. “Yeah, I think so.”
It’s easier to walk back than it had been to walk away, and Akira manages to retrace his steps without needing to stop and lean against the wall again. He stops a foot or two away from Arsene, and for a second the two study each other in silence. The only sounds are the screams in the distance, the dripping of water from somewhere, and Ryuji shuffling his feet impatiently.
“I’m ready,” Akira says, although he doesn’t really know what he's ready for or what he’s agreeing to. It just… feels like the right thing to say. "Or I want to be ready."
Arsene watches for a moment longer. Then he nods, once, and reaches forward. His hand rests on Akira's shoulder for a moment, insubstantial but strangely heavy. Akira takes a deep breath, steadying himself, just in time to feel Arsene's long, ghostly fingers pass through his skin.
Ryuji stops shuffling. “Uh,” he says. “What?”
Akira feels Arsene’s fingers go farther, past muscle, past bone, until they come up against something inside him that he does not know how to name. He braces himself, not knowing what to expect but trying to be ready. There’s a tension building in the air around them, so thick that it's almost a physical thing. Arense’s hand tightens into a fist, gripping tight.
And then he pulls, and Akira screams.
The pain is like nothing he's ever felt before, like Arsene is pulling something vital out of him, something that stabs and burns and forces its way out through his back. He falls to his knees, or tries to, hanging limply as Arsene refuses to release his hold, refuses to ease up on his steady pulling. Akira's back arches in a kind of spasm, his vision swimming as he gasps for air and struggles not to pass out.
After several long, agonizing seconds, Arsene releases him. Something heavy and wet falls across Akira's back and shoulder like a kind of limp, malformed cloak, and he falls hard to the ground where he curls in on himself on his hands and knees, dry heaving, ears ringing. He can vaguely hear Ryuji shouting something, but even the act of listening is too much right now, and Akira can't seem to force his brain to make sense of the words.
He's still on the floor, shaking and trembling, when Arsene leans over and puts his hand on Akira's other shoulder. He opens his mouth, shakes his head, tries to say something, but the only thing that comes out is a kind of frail, wordless noise of pain. Useless, too, because Arsene does not even slow. Again his finger reach past Akira's skin and muscle and bone, again they grab onto something too deep inside him to name, again he pulls and tears and wrenches, and the only mercy this time is that this time Akira does actually black out for a few seconds.
When the black spots dancing in front of his eyes finally fade, he's collapsed on the ground, and every inch of him hurts, either from what Arsene had done, or from his fall to the floor afterwards. Ryuji is suddenly at his side, trying to help him stand, although he doesn't seem completely sure what to do with his hands. Akira grits his teeth and pushes against the pain, forcing himself to stand.
He faces Arsene for a second time, stands there panting and slightly swaying. He should be angry, or afraid, or something, but...
But Arsene's expression is one of pride. Not anger, or malice, or anything else that Akira would have expected after what the Persona has just done to him. And Akira, even after everything, can't dredge up even a shadow of anger toward him, either.
Now you are ready.
The Persona vanishes in a flash of fire, and Akira sucks in a shuddering breath. So that's over. Whatever it had been, it's over now, and he can just focus on finding...
On... finding a way out.
Except that as he turns, his eyes catch on something. On a glimpse of dark feathers, matted with blood and something else that feels almost embryonic. And as he sees them he becomes aware, also, of the new weight on his back, on the raw, torn open feeling of his shoulders. And he knows, even before he turns his head with a kind of frantic terror, what he's going to see.
On his back. There are…
“Hey, Akira,” Ryuji says. His voice sounds slightly too high, and he has to stop and compose himself before he can finish the sentence. “Akira, if you're, um... if you're okay, can we hurry up and get out of here before anything else weird happens?”
There are wings on his back, wet and matted, weighed down by the aftermath of their sudden arrival, but otherwise identical to Arsene's.
His Persona has given him wings.