Chapter Text
Click click click.
Click click click.
Click click click fwoosh! One of the burners on the stove lit up intensely with a red flame, providing some light to the dim kitchen. It wasn’t much to speak of – a countertop, a beaten, unplugged refrigerator, a small round table with three stools by it, and the aforementioned, now operational, stove.
Akira glanced at the barely turned knob. “That’s some potent fuel.”
“Yeah, it’s for flamethrowers,” Courier explained. “Use store-bought stuff, homemade fuel wreaks havoc on the internals.”
“Are flame weapons, uh, common in the area?”
“Not really common, but they pop up from time to time,” Courier replied, not going into details. “Also, some cars run on that thing.”
The two heard a door open and poked their heads out of the kitchen to see Ryuji and Makoto enter the antechamber. “And where’s the medic and the sinister kid?”
“They went back to the store for foodstuffs, they’ll bring them here in a moment,” Ryuji told Courier, then glanced at Akira. “[Can we talk?]”
Akira stepped out of the kitchen “[What is it?]”
“[I’m not gonna throw hissy fits like Crow did, but why do you trust that guy?]” he said, glancing at Courier.
“[He helped me out when I popped up in this world, and apparently helped fight off a bunch of convicts a day or so ago,]” Akira replied. “[He also suggested a backstory to explain why we’re so ignorant about all the stuff around us – by the way, if anyone asks, we’re from an isolated underground bunker called Vault 37, and that’s why we look and sound Japanese.]”
“You’re talking about me, aren’t you?”
All three turned towards Courier. “Where did you get that idea?” Ryuji asked.
“From you switching to your language and then looking at me.”
Makoto spoke up: “While we appreciate your assistance, Courier, you have to understand there are legitimate reasons to distrust a man you’ve known for a few hours, especially in an environment as hostile as the Mojave.”
“I don’t get why-” Courier stopped himself, “okay, I get why you’re worried. But come on, there's three of you and one of me. If I do anything stupid, one of you will just shoot me.”
For some reason, that didn’t reassure them. Akira noticed Makoto and Ryuji turning a bit paler in unison. “That’s an effed-up way of thinking,” Ryuji blurted out, visibly uncomfortable.
“Eh,” Courier shrugged. “I thought it’d sound more convincing than ‘I’m reasonable and so are you three’. I’m still on the fence about the other kid.”
“Can someone open the door?” Akechi shouted from outside. “We don’t have our hands free.”
“Speak of the devil.” Ryuji, standing closest to the door, turned the knob and let Akechi and Kristoff in. They carried a bunch of prepackaged food and equipment, which they brought into the kitchen and left on the counters.
“Could you come over here, Amamiya-sama?”
Amamiya-sama rolled his eyes at the overt submission. “‘Akira’ is fine.”
“Just get over here so I can explain what’s what.”
Akira walked back to the kitchen and Akechi pointed at the equipment on the counter next to the window. “I’ve seen that big pot on your backpack, but I’ve got you a bunch of other pots and pans to use. Mostly clean. There’s also two cutting boards, a few knives and a spatula.”
“Awesome, thank you,” Akira said.
“As for food,” Akechi turned to the other counter, with a bunch of boxes, tins and raw veggies on it, “Cram is some nondescript canned meat, InstaMash is dehydrated mashed potatoes, Salisbury Steak is more or less a pre-cooked hamburg with a gravy packet, Pork ‘n’ Beans are beans in tomato sauce with way too little pork, and you know how carrots, potatoes, and spicy peppers work.”
“And that?” Akira pointed at an opened white box on the side, with ‘Fancy Lads’ written on it.
“Snack cakes.” Akechi grabbed one and took a bite from it. “Stale enough that I’m sure they’ve been around for centuries, but I’ve eaten worse.” He grabbed the box with his other hand and presented it to Akira. “Want one?”
Akira glanced into the box, at a bunch of tiny snacks covered in cracked glaze arranged in a row, with a few empty spots. With some hesitation he took one and shoved it into his mouth. Stale as heck, but sweet, but not too sweet. Alright.
Akechi got out of the kitchen. “Who else wants a snack?”
Kristoff and Courier both took one each, but Makoto and Ryuji just stared at the box, still pale. Makoto shook her head.
“They’re not poisoned or anything,” he reassured them. “Look, you can pick a random one-”
“[I have to fess up to something,]” Ryuji interrupted him. “[Akira. Makoto.]”
Akira stepped out of the kitchen, while Kristoff and Courier inched away to give them some space. “[What is it?]”
“[I…]” He hesitated. It was easier to confess that to Akechi than to the people whose opinions he cared about. “[In that- in that mad science place I escaped, there were others.]”
“[And you couldn't save them?]” Akira asked, sympathetic.
“[There was nothing to save.]” Ryuji found his shoes particularly interesting. “[The mad scientists took a frickin’ egg beater to their brains. And…]”
Ryuji trailed off and Akechi decided to rip off the band-aid. “[He was attacked and forced to kill in self-defense. Do not hold it against him.]”
“[I wasn’t going to,]” Akira hissed at him, then turned back to Ryuji. His head was still lowered. “[And… how are you holding up now?]”
“[Good enough,]” Ryuji looked at him. “[Most of us are alive and safe and that keeps me together.]”
Akira wasn’t sure what to say. Again. But silence could’ve been taken as disapproval that Ryuji would definitely take to heart, so he had to come up with something.
He went for a hug. Ryuji reciprocated. This was a good enough choice.
“[I must confess as well,]” Makoto spoke up, looking at Ryuji. “[Before I joined Akira, I stumbled upon two men. They fired without warning, wounding me. Did not back off when threatened.]” Brief pause. “[Their bodies are now lying in the desert sun, by the road between Mojave Outpost and Primm!]”
Ryuji grabbed her wrist and pulled her into what was now a group hug. She did not protest.
“Uh, what just happened?” Kristoff asked.
“[Am I allowed to tell them?]” Akechi asked. After some confirmatory murmurs, he turned to the two. “Niijima-san and Sakamoto-san-”
“Who?” Courier and Kristoff replied in unison.
“Just use our given names,” Makoto grumbled.
“Unless you feel like explaining the intricacies of Japanese honorifics,” Akira added.
Akechi sighed in irritation. “Makoto and Ryuji have just confessed to their first kills in self-defense. As you might have gathered by my continued breathing, they… do not want to kill people, even if they had it coming.” He reached into his short pocket and pulled out a box of mints for when the three were done hugging.
“Yeah, you’re all from pre-War, aren’t you?” Kristoff remarked. “Mr. Akechi mentioned it during some self-loathing monologue.”
Everyone turned to Akechi, who rolled his eyes in exasperation. “I was in a bad mental state and didn’t keep my mouth shut.”
The group hug split up. “Don’t worry about that,” Akira reassured Akechi. “Courier saw through me more or less instantly so I fessed up about… honestly, the entire story from my point of view.”
Akechi offered Makoto a mint. “This is to get the taste of vomit out of your mouth, Ryuji got one already,” he told her.
Makoto hadn’t vomited after that, but took the mint without arguing.
Akechi turned to Akira. “Back to you, you’ve given out a lot of information about yourself to a guy you just met.”
“I assumed he wouldn’t give me grief for things that happened in the other hemisphere two-and-a-half centuries before his time,” Akira defended himself.
“Also, you told the medic you’re a time-traveling serial killer,” Ryuji added.
“Yeah,” Akechi conceded, then sighed wearily. “And speaking of… I have a confession to make. I’ve already told Saka- Ryuji, Ann and Yusuke, and I assume you two are also wondering how the fuck I’m still alive.”
Akira inspected the cutting board and the knife as everyone gathered in the kitchen, with Akechi, Makoto and Ryuji sitting down by the table and Kristoff and Courier leaning against the walls.
“Right,” Akechi said. “Just to make sure everyone is on the same page: I am a serial killer, an assassin who has operated in an alternate reality formed from human cognitions, called the Metaverse.”
“Okay, the alternate reality part is new,” Kristoff remarked.
“Akira mentioned it earlier to me, and I’m willing to believe him,” Courier added.
“My goal was simple:” Akechi continued, “elevate my estranged father to the position of head of Japanese government, then reveal all his - and my own - crimes to the world, bringing him down. The intended side effect was vengeance against Japanese society as a whole, to show them how little their standards are worth.”
“Kristoff’s going to need that context Akira gave me,” Courier pointed out.
“What context?”
“[Am I allowed to tell them everything, Goro?]” Akira asked, opening a can of Cram.
Akechi hesitated for a bit. “[Go ahead.]”
Akira chose his next words carefully. “Goro… is a child of a sex worker and a father that did not acknowledge him. His mother couldn’t handle the pressure of raising a child alone and committed suicide, leaving him an orphan. Each of those things alone carries a stigma in Japan, and-”
“Two atom bombs weren’t enough for that fucking country,” Akechi remarked.
“Hey!” Makoto and Ryuji protested, and even Akira shot Akechi a glare.
“Don’t act all offended,” Akechi remarked. “You got fucked over as well, in different ways. And why are you looking at me like that?” he screamed at Courier.
Courier wondered if he should bite his tongue, then decided to rip off the band-aid. “Two nukes sound like rookie numbers.”
All the Japanese in the room stared at him in shock.
“I mean,” he continued, “even now if you’ve got caps to spare, you can buy a portable catapult that launches nuclear warheads.”
In unison, Akira, Akechi, Makoto, and Ryuji went: “What the FUCK?!”
“Let’s just move on,” Kristoff pleaded. “We’ll keep the, uh, cultural differences in mind.”
“In summary,” Akechi continued, as Akira went back to choppin’ that meat, “not only my life was fucked, without hyperbole, from my conception, with the way the way Japanese society,” air quotes, “‘works’, all the stigmas would drag behind me until my last fucking breath. The best I could hope for in life is spectacular self-destruction.”
“I respectfully disagree,” Akira commented.
“Shut the face,” Akechi snapped back, then caught himself. “[Please don’t interrupt.] Anyway, as you can imagine my sociopathy ended up with me clashing with,” he gestured at the other three, “these fine fellows. Phantom Thieves of Bleeding Hearts.”
“That implies we steal bleeding hearts as opposed to having them,” Makoto couldn’t help herself.
“Whatever.” Akechi groaned. “To simplify things, the methods I used to assassinate people could also be used to brainwash them to get them to pull their heads out of their asses and be less morally bankrupt.”
“Or help them with debilitating trauma,” Makoto added.
“You make us sound like we’re the bad guys,” Ryuji protested.
“I am merely stating a fact,” Akechi replied. “Another fact is, considering what you had to fight against, your methods were completely justifiable and anyone claiming otherwise doesn’t have the full picture or lies for their own benefit.”
“If you wanna brainwash both the Legion and NCR brass so they all piss off, be my guest,” Courier shrugged.
“Back to the main topic,” Akechi continued, “I underestimated the Phantom Thieves. I thought I could blackmail them into being where I want them to be, then get the leader arrested and have him ‘commit suicide’ in police custody. They saw through me and effortlessly duped me and I was none the wiser for weeks.”
“That’s not how Akira told that story,” Courier remarked.
“Huh?”
“The way he told it, it was a desperate move that barely panned out, and only gave them a few weeks of extra time.”
Akechi just looked at Akira with the look of utter confusion.
“That’s true,” he confirmed.
“Oh.”
The two gormlessly stared at one another before Courier interjected: “Okay, you figured out the Thieves duped you, guessed they’re in your dad’s capital-P Palace to make him confess to his crimes, and attacked them. Even though you had the same goal at that point.”
“Fuck off,” Akechi barked at him. “We fought, they kicked my ass, then we got separated with them on one side and me and a bunch of uncontrolled monsters on the other.”
“And now the fun part,” Ryuji survived. “How did you survive?”
Another weary sigh from Akechi. “I did not.”
To Akechi’s immeasurable disappointment, only Kristoff seemed as shocked as he wanted them all to be.
“A few hours ago we got erased from existence, slowly, and brought back to life imprisoned,” Akira said. “Makes sense you’d get something similar.”
“Well, I died in a more banal way,” Akechi replied, concealing his shock. “Slowly bled to death with Shadows ripping my body to shreds.”
“Oh dear,” Kristoff muttered under his breath.
“Shit, what a way to go,” Courier said, sympathetic. For a bunch of fish outta water from more peaceful times, they were really fucking nonchalant about their deaths and resurrections.
“[We should have just shot that fucking cognition and the Shadows ourselves,]” Akira muttered under his breath, apologetic.
“[Don’t blame yourself for this, Amamiya-sa-]”
Akira embedded the knife in the table with a thud, startling everyone. “[You do not have to, and never had to, grovel in front of me,]” he turned to Akechi, “[so stop doing that, please!]”
The snarl was enough to intimidate Akechi. “[Y-yes. Understood.]”
“¿Podemos hablar inglés?” Courier snarked.
“Hai, Ei-ghk.” Akechi caught himself. “Yes, English.” He took a breath. “I woke up… though I feel ‘regained consciousness’ works better here. And the first thing I registered was someone playing the piano.”
“Can I interject?” Akira asked, pulling the knife out of the counter and putting it away. “I think I know where this is going, and I could fill in some potential gaps Goro might have.”
“I’m trying to pace this story right,” Akechi retorted. “I’ll give you some space for addendums later.”
I found myself standing upright again. I looked down as my eyes refocused and noticed all my missing body parts were back in place, somehow.
“Hm.”
I recoiled away from the source of the voice and took inventory.
I was in a small, circular, blue room with no exits. Its entire circumference was taken by small, barred cells, like a fun-sized panopticon. In the middle of it was a desk, by which was sitting a weird humanoid with a long nose sitting by the desk. On his left and right were two kid-sized eyepatched assistants, one with a riding crop and the other with a clipboard.
I recognized that being’s voice. He – it? – granted me my abilities years ago. And now I was standing in front of him, defenseless, as he was piercing me with his gaze, with a fixed grin on his face.
He then said: “That… is not the right outcome.”
I did not understand it at the time, and blurted out some sound in response.
“Humanity is a lost cause,” the being continued. “It is self-evident. And yet, you perished. This cannot be right.”
The being then dismissively waved his hand at me. I found myself gasping for air and sitting up on the sight of my quote-unquote ‘final’ battle with the Phantom Thieves.
Alive. Alone.
Something revolted in me. I just died. I have fucked up so many things but I was finally done and I do not even get to fucking rest at the end of it all?!
With a cry of ‘fuck this’, I pulled out my laser pistol, put it under my chin and pulled the trigger.
“Just to be clear,” Makoto interjected, “if you will need emotional support in the future, we’ll provide it to the best of our abilities.”
Everyone else murmured in agreement. Akechi glanced at her with frustration. “If you pardon a brief codeswitch, [that’s one of the things driving me insane right now, Niijima-san. The fact that if I just… pulled my head out of my ass and spun a yarn about me being the victim you would’ve accepted me with open arms.]”
“[Considering everything we know now… would it really be a lie?]”
Akechi didn’t answer.
Anyway, as you might have guessed, my suicide attempt didn’t work as I hoped, and I was back in the blue panopticon, in front of that being. He stared at me with what I assume was disapproval.
“I should have been more explicit,” he said. “Goro Akechi, you have been chosen to bring ruin to humanity and stop the other Wild Card’s futile efforts to save it. It is your duty. You are not allowed to perish, and you are not allowed to fail in your goal. Do you understand?”
After everything that happened, I wasn’t feeling defiant, so I just nodded.
“Good. Now finish your task.”
And I was back alive again.
“What’s a Wild Card in this context?” Kristoff asked, fearing he’s losing the plot.
Akechi did not want to get bogged down with too many details. “In this context, it refers to yours truly and Ama-Ren.”
“Again, you can call me Akira,” Ama-Ren remarked, re-mincing Salisbury steaks.
“Me and Akira then,” Akechi glanced at him. “I assume that the description I had just quoted was full of shit and that you figured out the truth.”
“Yes.” Akira turned to Kristoff. “In brief, that being has set up a rigged game, which was supposed to determine the fate of humanity, and both Goro and I were pawns in that game. He was supposed to sow chaos among the masses to justify destroying humanity and starting anew, and I was supposed to try and prove they are worth saving.”
“As you can tell, he put his thumb on the scales to make sure I win,” Akechi added.
Kristoff mulled the explanation over before replying with the only answer that made sense: “...what are you two on about?”
“We do RPGs differently, just don’t question it.” Akira waved him off.
“Of course,” he gave up. “So… did Akira win? Will Akira win? I mean, we’re all here and Mr. Akechi doesn't want to fight you, so I assume humanity won?”
“Well, the Thieves got banished here during the final fight with that guy,” Ryuji replied, “but we fought him to a standstill, so… a tie?”
Akira snapped his fingers. “I didn’t tell you yet – we might be able to go back to our time and space to finish the job, but that hinges on things going right for us.”
“For real?” Ryuji gasped.
“Yeah. But we need everyone in one place, and Morgana has to be alive for us to find our world. Otherwise, we’re stuck here.”
Akechi did not want to reveal what he knew but wanted to reassure them. “I’m positive the fleabag’s too clever to die anticlimactically.”
Akira desperately wanted to change the topic. “Okay then, that mad god revived you and then you didn’t go after us for some reason. Why?”
“Because I just like you all so much,” Akechi snarked back.
“You took a bullet for me earlier today,” Ryuji stated matter-of-factly.
Akechi grunted. “[Alright, fine, a small part of me didn’t want to fuck with you anymore. I still hate Japan as a whole but you and yours did not deserve my wrath and I shouldn’t have fucked you over the way I did.]”
“Okay, I gotta ask,” Courier spoke up, “do you switch to your language when you want to be more open and earnest with your buddies?”
Akechi stared daggers at him. “At that point my main motivation was spiteful defiance.” he said, ignoring his question.
I feel I have to explain my logic here, insane as it was.
The revenge plan I concocted, self-destructive as it was, was mine. It was supposed to be my act of defiance against my piece of shit fa-
…
My piece of shit handler and the Japanese society. Even when he had ordered me to murder Akira, I thought of it as fulfilling my own baseless envy-fueled tantrum that’d appease the fucker as a secondary goal.
And then, not only I realized that my handler played me like a fucking fiddle, but also that this all was a rigged game of some mad god, who wanted me to do what I had done, who put me up against a handicapped opponent that I couldn’t beat anyway, and who now ordered me to go and finish the job.
And I just… gave up, for the time being. I wasn’t going to follow the orders of another asshole, but I couldn’t figure out what to do instead of that. I could have tried to approach the Thieves about what I had just learned, but they would… I was convinced they would kill me on the spot, and I knew what just happened would sound like another lie of a traitor that had burned all his bridges.
I felt tired. The adrenaline was beginning to wear off and months of sleeping five-six hours a day started catching up with me. So I didn’t stand up. I lied down, closed my eyes, and fell asleep.
Akechi paused for a moment, then turned to Akira. “The fact you didn’t realize I was still there means you didn’t go back to check for my corpse.”
“Futaba has set up some scripts looking for your cell phone.”
“Airplane mode exists,” he countered. “I put that on before leaving the Metaverse and Sakura-san can’t do shit.”
Akira inhaled air through his nose. He then put the knife on the counter and turned back to Akechi. “I did not feel like circling back to the engine room to see your mutilated body, because despite everything you’ve done, I did not and do not want you dead.”
“This was an unforced mistake on your part,” Akechi replied, as politely as he could.
“Not the first one, and not the last one.” Akira retorted.
Akechi hesitated for a moment, before continuing: “[A-Akira, I am not saying this to mock you. I am concerned that if you make another blunder like this-]”
“[I know,]” Akira said firmly, then caught himself: “[I appreciate your concern though.] Now continue with the story, please.”
Akechi did not want to argue.
I woke up hit in the face with a lot of water.
I won’t avoid explaining that one – capital-P Palaces are places that demonstrate how skewed the Palace owner’s way of seeing the world was completely out of order. When you either kill the owner or do the Phantom Thievery, the Palace slowly begins to collapse and disappear.
Except this one was collapsing much more rapidly than usual. And since my handler saw himself as the captain of a luxury liner leaving everyone else to drown, I was, for all intents and purposes, stuck at the bottom of a sinking ship.
There wasn’t any way for me to escape, and even if there was, I was risking running into evacuating Phantom Thieves and – as I thought – being murdered on the spot. In desperation, I pulled out my…
[If I say ‘phone app’, will they understand me?]
I pulled out a tool I had used to enter and exit this alternate reality and pressed a random active entry, to try and get anywhere else before water consumes me.
Right before a wave taller than me could knock me down, I found myself standing elsewhere. In front of a different Palace. One that – and I am abridging a lot here – the Phantom Thieves had used to fake their leader’s death.
I had pieced that together before trying to attack them – they have tampered with my Metaverse-entering tool, so that in a pivotal moment instead of entering the real interrogation room in the police station Akira was being held in, I entered a Metaverse copy of it and shot the Palace’s owner perception of the real Akira. And since she had just ended interrogating him at the time, it all looked accurate enough to fool me for a time.
Though…
Akechi turned to the Phantom Thieves. “[Please satisfy my curiosity – how did you know a shot cognition would convincingly die?]”
“[Take a guess, Detective Prick,]” Ryuji barked.
Akechi moved on. “Since I was already in that Palace, I got curious about something. I walked into the copy of the police station, and then to the interrogation room where I had pulled the trigger. The gun I left behind was still there.”
He unholstered his pistol and presented it to the room, finger off the trigger and barrel pointed at the ceiling.
“This gun. Sig Sauer P226R. Most likely a quote-unquote ‘decommissioned’ unit from some branch of the Japanese Self-Defense Force. Weighs less than a kilogram fully loaded. This one has a double action/single action trigger and a threaded barrel for attaching a suppressor. It is chambered in 9mm Parabellum, and carries 15 rounds in the magazine. It’s sturdy and reliable enough to remain in working order even after a suicidal asshole repeatedly throws it at a wall.” He holstered it back. “I assume the Thieves decided to leave it there untouched, but…” He thought about his feelings. “But I wanted to have it with me. Just in case. I had no clue what to expect but I wanted to be prepared.”
“You like guns, Goro?” Courier asked. Getting a glare in response, he added: “Look, we’re in a frontier in the middle of a war. No one’s going to judge you for that.”
With some hesitation, Akechi went: “They… I find them interesting from a mechanical standpoint. What, you expected me to be like ‘I love how easy they make it to kill people’?”
“Yeah, actually,” Courier shrugged. “You sound like the type to try and hide something you’re excited about so people don’t mock you for it. And this whole ‘roar I am evil and dangerous’ bit you’re doing-”
“Courier, that’s enough,” Akira firmly butted in, before turning back to Akechi. “Continue your story, Goro.”
I dawdled around that Palace for a bit before hiding my pistol in my suit jacket and deciding to get back to the real world and brace for whatever I had missed.
I could tell from the buzz on the street that something big had happened. People were excitedly talking to one another, but when I tried to approach some of them they suddenly got quiet. One of them laughed at me and called me a loser. Fuck, that one sounded more sincere that most of my interactions in life.
I finally pulled out my phone and… wait, you guys don’t know what internet is. Let’s say I found a place selling the evening papers and bought the first one. And the cover story was just a picture of Akira in his Phantom Thief get-up, facing whatever camera was filming him at the time.
As it turns out, those goddamn madmen have managed to broadcast to the entire country that not only Akira is still alive and they’re still in business, but they’re going for my handler because he’s an evil piece of shit. And I remember just standing there for a long while, staring at the photo as it stared back at me.
…
It was a taunt. Not directed at me specifically, but at the whole world watching. It’s as if it was saying that this goddamn attic-dweller with a criminal record would climb to the top of the pile and anyone opposing him would be outmanoeuvred and humiliated.
I wanted to die. I wanted to pull out my gun in the middle of the street, put it to my head and traumatize some fucking bystanders. But I knew I wasn’t even allowed that one last middle finger to society because whatever gave me my powers would drag me out of my grave to pull my strings.
I went back home to rot. I expected the situation to get wrapped up in a few days. I get arrested, tried, maybe executed, my handler will kill himself out of grief, the fucker, and the Phantom Thieves would get recognition as heroes.
“Yeah, that didn’t happen,” Ryuji commented.
“I am getting to that part,” Akechi retorted.