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The first thing Akechi noticed upon entering Leblanc was the utter absence of Amamiya.
Which was strange, of course, due to the fact that he lived here and literally every other phantom thief was present and accounted for throughout the room. Hell, even the damn cat was there, sitting on a barstool and giving him the evil eye, even though Akechi couldn't recall a single time he'd seen the two separated in the real world. If Amamiya was there, it was safe to assume the cat was nearby.
Although, he supposed this explained why the invitation for this meeting had been sent to him by Niijima instead of Amamiya himself. He'd found that odd at the time, but from what he observed, the younger Niijima sister seemed to act as the closest thing to a “second in command” that the group had, which made the situation a bit more understandable. Though, of course, that was all very unofficial. The Phantom Thieves were too moral for things like command structure or rankings. Amamiya may be the leader but everyone had a hand in decisions and blah blah blah blah. It was all very saccharine and cute and Akechi could not care less.
Still, out of all of the thieves, Amamiya was the one he was most familiar with. So seeing him absent was… concerning in a mildly unsettling way. Akechi found himself clutching his briefcase a bit harder than he intended, remaining in the doorway instead of properly entering the room.
"Amamiya is late, I see," he said instead of asking what the fuck they thought they were trying to pull here. He kept his tone light and pleasant, with just the slightest hint of you've-done-something-wrong-and-should-feel-bad-about-it underlying the words.
It worked like a charm. Instantly, Sakamoto and Takamaki were sharing guilty glances, and Sakura was hunching down at her laptop like she was trying to hack the floor into opening beneath her feet and swallowing her whole.
Niijima, however, appeared totally unphased, with the single exception of a slight tightening of the skin around her eyes.
"Actually, Akechi," she said, her voice calm and measured in that way that made Akechi want to punch her every time she opened her damn mouth, "Ren won't be joining us for a bit. I apologize for implying he would be here, but seeing as this meeting is about him, we all thought it'd be inappropriate for him to be in attendance."
Now, wasn't that interesting.
"Oh?" he asked, with a plastic smile and a little tilt of his head. He knew from experience that it caused the light to cast a shadow on his face in such a way that it gave him the brief illusion of dimples. It was, in other words, unbearably cute and utterly infuriating to people who didn't like him.
Niijima’s eyes narrowed. Akechi smiled brighter.
"It's not like Ren doesn't know about it!" Sakamoto cut in, his voice too loud and grating in the cozy atmosphere of Leblanc. Reluctantly, Akechi disengaged from his stare off with Niijima and turned in his direction instead.
"Does he now?" he asked, his tone making obvious just how much he believed that statement. Sakamoto puffed up like an angry pigeon, but it was Takamaki that actually responded.
"Yeah, we do this every time we get a new member!" the blonde girl said cheerfully, and Akechi had to concede she was telling the truth because the alternative was she'd actually learned to act. "Ren will be by after a bit so he doesn't interrupt anything."
"I see," said Akechi, despite not seeing at all. He flashed a smile that was more teeth than lips. "Well then, if this is part of some long standing tradition, far be it from me to judge."
"Sounds like you're already judging to me," muttered the cat. The others ignored it.
"So," said Akechi, casually moving from his place in the doorway to his usual spot at the counter. He gently set his briefcase on the stool next to him before turning to face the group, leaning his weight back on the bar behind him while loosely crossing his arms. "What is this meeting about then? Something about Amamiya, you said?"
The entire group exchanged a look. Akechi felt his irritation mounting.
He waited for someone to speak up. They continued to hold a silent conversation with their eyes.
“Well?” he prompted, fighting the urge to snap at them. He had a role to play after all, and that role didn’t involve strangling six people and a cat with his bare hands.
“So, uh,” Sakura hesitantly spoke up, finally breaking the silent stare off and glancing at him nervously from over her laptop. “This is gonna be a bit of a doozy. You miiiiight wanna sit down for this one.”
Akechi raised a single eyebrow, unimpressed.
“I believe I am fine where I am.”
Sakura snorted, then shrugged, a little bit of her nervousness leaving her.
“Suit yourself, detective boy.”
Akechi just barely kept his eye from twitching.
“So!” said Takamaki, her voice loud and awkward. Akechi turned his attention back to her, and she seemed to wilt under his gaze. “So, uh. This meeting! It’s about. Um, well. It’s about…God, how do I phrase this?”
Not with her words apparently.
“Akechi, you spend a lot of time with Ren, correct?”
Akechi stiffened slightly, then slowly turned his gaze in the direction of the soft voice that nevertheless managed to cut through the awkward tension like a hot knife aimed at his throat. He fought to keep his movements smooth and natural, unwilling to show weakness in the face of goddamn Haru Okumura of all people, but that horrible twisting feeling welled up in his gut like it always did when he was forced to meet her eyes.
And then her words registered.
A meeting without Amamiya. A meeting about Amamiya. A meeting in which all the members of his precious little team spoke to the new member alone, without Amamiya’s intervention.
Oh hell no.
“I’m not sure what you’re trying to imply, Okumura, but I assure you that any assumptions you have made are wrong,” he said stiffly, now eyeing the door with a great deal more longing than he had before.
He didn’t sign up for this shit. This was supposed to be a simple infiltration mission with a nice little assassination at the end. And sure, maybe he enjoyed a few casual games of darts and pool with his target every now and then, but it didn’t mean anything. Certainly not anything to warrant this.
Okumura blinked at him, her head tilting in the same move of fake puzzlement that he had used only minutes before, before her eyes "lit up" with realization.
"Oh!" she said, lifting her hand to her mouth as her cheeks flushed pink. "Oh no no no! I didn't mean to imply anything like that."
Sure she didn't. Akechi wasn't stupid. He had been playing this game just as long as she had, and he knew she knew what she was doing.
"Wait, what was she- ow!" Akechi turned just in time to see Takamaki remove her elbow from Sakamoto's side. She flashed him a sheepish smile, and Akechi contemplated walking off the edge of a very tall building. Preferably where she could see him.
Give her the old Akechi family special: Trauma guaranteed!
“I just meant, well,” Okumura said, forcibly dragging his attention back to her. Her expression was surprisingly serious, though there was still a hint of pink dusting her face. “Surely, you’ve noticed that sometimes Ren seems to just… know things he has no right knowing? You’ve spent enough time with him; it must have happened at least once.”
Akechi blinked once in bewilderment, then stared at her, trying to switch mental tracks and figure out what the hell she was trying to imply here.
“Yeah, has he ever, like, finished your sentences for you?” Takamaki chimed in again, giving him a significant look that he had no idea how to decipher. Sakamoto was still rubbing his ribs with a disgruntled look on his face at her side. “Or, like, taken you somewhere that you absolutely love without you having ever mentioned it to him before?”
“I personally found he was able to give voice to my thoughts in a much more concise way than I would have ever vocalized them myself,” said Kitagawa, his tone thoughtful, which was the exact moment when Akechi accepted that they were being serious about whatever this was and that it wasn’t just some elaborate prank.
Because the thing was, Amamiya had finished his sentences before, many times in fact, and always with a fond expression on his face before he seemed to realize what he had done and sheepishly apologized. And he had taken him to a place he loved before; he’d taken him to the Jazz Jin as casually as you pleased, then seemed confused when Akechi mentioned that he was actually a regular there and that he had never gone with someone else before.
And these things had struck him as odd, of course. The Jazz Jin incident in particular had sent him spiraling into an episode of paranoia so deep that he'd actually built an honest to god conspiracy board in his bedroom at 2 am, trying to figure out when the hell the other boy could have seen him entering the building without him noticing before he passed out from exhaustion on his bedroom floor and woke up 13 hours later with 3 missed calls from Shido and the dawning realization that he'd lost his damn mind.
That had not been his proudest moment.
But the biggest thing, the most common occurrence that Akechi had noticed when he spent time with Amamiya, was the other boy's tendency to just… summarize the topic he was talking about.
At first, he'd taken it as a bit of an insult. It seemed as if damn attic trash was trying to act like he was smarter than him, repeating what he said with fewer words. But after a bit of time, Akechi realized he never interrupted him when he spoke, only summarized after. Which meant, no matter how glazed he looked or how much he fiddled with his phone, he was intently listening to him. And that… made him willing to overlook some things.
But apparently this wasn't a phenomena unique to himself. And the implications of that were…
Well. He wasn't sure yet. The pieces weren't quite lining up to make a complete picture, but judging by the churning in his gut, it wasn't one he would like.
He leveled the Thieves a flat look.
"Is there a point here, or are you just going to talk in circles until Amamiya arrives and explains it himself?" he snipped, then nearly bit his tongue as he realized that was too harsh. Too true. He had a role to play, damn it, and if he was already dropping his mask now, before they'd even entered Sae's Palace, there was no way he was going to make it until the day of The Plan.
Thankfully, the others didn't seem to clock his "uncharacteristic" behavior, too busy giving each other looks that clearly conveyed the words: you tell him, no you tell him! As if they were siblings fighting over who had to tell mother they broke the vase.
Predictably, Sakamoto was the one to cave first.
"Ren's from the future!" he blurted out, and then froze, as if regretting it immediately.
Akechi blinked.
Stared.
Watched as the boy's face grew progressively redder and redder.
Watched as the other Thieves watched him.
Finally, he opened his mouth.
"What."
The group collectively winced.
"I know it's hard to believe," said Nijima, as if that wasn't the understatement of the century. "I, myself, was skeptical when I was first told, as well. But I've seen enough proof that I've been forced to concede that it must be the truth."
Akechi stared at her, unable to comprehend the words coming out of her mouth. He'd known that the pressure her sister was putting on her at home was taking its toll on her, but he hadn't realized it was so severe that she had completely lost all sense of reality.
He wondered if this plan was really worth it. With the way everyone was earnestly looking at him, it was clear they were all under this shared delusion. If they really, honestly, believed that their leader was some godsent hero from the future to save the world, he'd greatly underestimated the level of danger here.
Cults were insidious after all.
No. It was fine. He could work with this. He had to.
"And what was that proof, exactly?" he asked, keeping his voice as level as possible. Which must not have been all that level because all the Thieves winced upon hearing it.
Niijima in particular, blushed and refused to meet his eyes.
"Ah, well, you see…" she stuttered, looking increasingly embarrassed. "Ren ended up knowing some… personal things about me that I had never shared with anyone before."
Akechi lifted an eyebrow. She did not elaborate.
"You want proof?" Sakura suddenly blurted out, almost causing him to instinctively grab for a weapon that wasn't there. Thankfully, he stopped himself in time to turn the movement toward his waist into casually resting his hand on the counter as he turned to face her properly. She didn't seem to notice, too busy giving him a nervous look of determination. "I've got your proof right here!"
She turned her laptop to face him, revealing a series of messages between herself and who he could only assume based on context was Amamiya. His name appeared as BeGayDoCrime. They seemed to be talking about some video game.
Akechi frowned, quickly skimming over the conversation before lifting his gaze to Sakura once more.
"I'm not sure how this counts as proof?" he said, doing his best to keep the judgment out of his voice. He smiled instead, very aware that it gave off the same effect. It was all about plausible deniability after all.
Sakura huffed and turned the laptop to face herself again.
"This," she said, waving at the conversation on the screen, “is a chat me and Ren had about the new Featherman Fighters game months ago. Like, right after I woke up from my nap, months ago."
"I believe after thirty six hours, it's considered a coma," Kitagawa said thoughtfully. Sakura made a face at him.
"Shut up, Inari! It was a nap," she huffed, folding her arms and looking away. "My systems needed rebooting after my change of heart, that's all."
"I don't believe that's how-" began Niijima, only to be cut off by Sakura.
"Anyway!" she shouted, gesturing to the screen again. "The point is-! That Ren and I had this conversation months ago! And he told me about the super ultra extra secret level that you can only access by collecting all the trophies and then clipping through the wall of the 7th stage of the 6th level as one specific character! Which is something not even the developers knew you could do because they never finished that stage and it's supposed to be completely inaccessible!"
"And the point of all this is…?"
"The point is," said Sakura, looking extremely proud of herself, "that this conversation happened months ago. And the new Featherman Fighters game dropped two weeks ago."
She flashed him a smug smile, clearly convinced she had ironclad proof.
Akechi was less impressed.
"So he knows someone who got their hands on an advance copy. Or perhaps he found the information leaked somewhere online before the publishing company had it taken down." He shook his head and gave her a condescending smile. "Sorry, but this proves nothing except for the fact that Amamiya is a particularly devoted fan of the series."
Sakura turned red, though whether it was from rage or embarrassment, he couldn't tell.
Looking at the faces of the others, he realized that they, at least, found that spiel entirely convincing. Which, of course they did. Because every one of them already believed in this madness. It wasn't hard to convince a believer after all.
Akechi resisted the urge to pinch the bridge of his nose.
This wasn't working. In fact, he wasn't sure what he was trying to achieve here. Trying to convince them that their leader wasn't some weird Messiah from the future? Why? That had nothing to do with his own goals. He wasn't here to reveal the faults in their logic; he was here to guide them on the path of their own ruin.
It was time to switch tactics.
"Okay," he said, turning to properly face the rest of the group head on. He made sure to keep his arms uncrossed and his body language open. "Say I do believe you. Why would you even bother to tell me about this? I am not actually a part of your group. I blackmailed you into working with me, and I have made very clear my intention to force you to disband after this mission is over. Why would you share such an… important secret with me in the face of all that?"
Don't question the belief, question the motive. He'd already painted himself as skeptical, but if he slowly eased himself into being "convinced"...
Well, cult leaders often met tragic ends.
Surprisingly enough, it was Sakamoto that answered him.
"Well," he said, awkwardly rubbing the back of his head and giving him a sheepish smile, "it's ‘cause Ren said you're part of the group."
Akechi stared, momentarily floored.
"So just because your leader caved to my demands and allowed me to temporarily 'join' your group, you shared with me your most guarded secret?" he asked incredulously.
Jesus Christ, maybe he should just hand them the gun himself. If that's all it took, his entire plan was superfluous and unnecessary.
"Wha- no!" Sakamoto spluttered, face scrunched up in an unflattering look of offense as he scrambled to defend himself. "That's not-! I meant that-! It's-!"
"What he means to say," said Takamaki, shoving her hand in Sakamoto's face and forcing him to shut up, "is that Ren isn't really good at hiding he's from the future. So, like, we all know about it. But he won't tell us anything about it because he's afraid that if he does, we'll do stuff because we think we're supposed to, not because we want to."
Akechi narrowed his eyes.
"And that has to do with Amamiya saying I'm a part of the group, how…?"
"Right," Takamaki continued with a firm nod to herself, unphased in the face of his confusion. "So Ren won't tell us specifics about the future, but he'll generally give us a hint that we're on the right track. And one of the biggest hints he gives us is if the team is complete yet."
Sakamoto decided to cut in, apparently recovered from his earlier embarrassment.
"Yeah," he agreed, nodding his head and looking nostalgic. "I think it started right after Yusuke joined the team. We asked if this was going to be the whole team."
"Yeah, it's like a tradition now," said Takamaki cheerfully. "A new person joins and we're like, 'Is this all of us?' And he'll be like, 'No we've got two more to go.' And we needle him for more information that he never gives us and then we move on to the next mission."
"After I joined the team, they asked the same question." Okumara chimed in, causing Akechi's spine to straighten unintentionally. "I remember it quite distinctly. He said, 'Almost. We're just waiting for Crow now.' And then a few weeks later you were blackmailing your way onto the team."
But Akechi was no longer listening.
He couldn't, because his ears were filled with a high pitch ringing as he struggled to keep his breathing under control. Because suddenly this situation had spiraled wildly out of hand. Because suddenly this wasn't just some strange shared delusion. Because suddenly, they had real proof.
Because that was his name.
From the moment he had first begun stalking the Thieves through the gaudy hallways of Madarame's Palace, Akechi had noted that they all had silly little code names that they used for each other whenever they entered the Metaverse. He could understand the logic of it, not wishing to throw around your real name in what was essentially the subconscious for very real, very powerful people that could ruin their lives in the real world. Although, of course, it was a problem he himself had never encountered, due to the fact that he worked alone.
However, once he had realized that Shido's plan to use the Thieves as a scapegoat would require him to temporarily join them, he knew that they would insist on giving him a code name as well. Thus, he'd spent a decent amount of time coming up with a name he would be able to stomach being called by. Because if he didn't, they'd surely come up with something terrible on their own. He'd even come up with with an “incorrect” name to suggest first, deciding to ask to be called Karasu, knowing full well that the others would veto it and insist he use the English version to fit the theme the other Thieves had going.
And that name would be Crow.
There was no way - no way - that anyone could know this. It wasn't just the fact that he hadn't told anyone about this plan; it was the fact that he'd never spoken the name aloud. The only ones who knew about that name were himself and his Persona. And the fact that Amamiya had known to call him that…
And then another thought struck him.
The plan. The “Frame The Phantom Thieves For Shido’s Crimes And Kill Their Leader” plan. The very intricate plan that heavily relied on the Thieves being ignorant of his true nature and future betrayal. That plan.
“Tell me, exactly how far into the future did you say Amamiya was from again?” Akechi said, cutting through whatever useless drivel that Sakamoto was in the middle of saying.
The group paused, shooting each other uncertain looks, before Takamaki tentatively offered him an answer.
“Uh, well, like I said, Ren won’t actually give specifics because of reasons but, like, we’re pretty sure it's at least some time in December? I think I’ve heard him mention Christmas Eve before…”
Akechi abruptly pushed away from the counter.
“Well, this has been nice, and I appreciate you all bringing me into the loop, as it were, but I suddenly remembered a very important bit of information for a case I am working on, and I need to inform my colleagues of it before it spirals wildly out of control,” Akechi announced as he made his way to the door, refusing to slow down even as everyone started to make sounds of protest.
He didn’t listen to them. He needed to go. He needed to go right now. This whole situation was now classified as a catastrophic failure and he needed to leave immediately.
Except when he reached for the door, it opened instead.
Akechi blinked at his empty outstretched hand, then slowly, with a feeling of dread pooling in the pit of his stomach, lifted his gaze to the open doorway.
Amamiya blinked back at him, eyes wide and guileless and utterly irritable.
“Oh, hey guys,” Amamiya said, his gaze slipping past Akechi’s own and meeting the eyes of all the other Thieves behind him. “I take it that you’re done with your ‘Welcome to the Team' thing?”
“Yuuuuup,” drawled Sakura in the most annoying tone possible. Akechi clenched his teeth and stood very, very still. “It didn’t really go well, but I think we got through to him in the end.”
“That’s great!” said Amamiya, clapping his hands together and offering him a beaming smile while still blocking the doorway. “Because I have an announcement to make!”
“Oh?” said Niijima, her voice lightly curious.
“So we’re not actually going to be infiltrating Sae’s Palace,” he said, tone matter of fact while making direct eye contact with Akechi even as the others made various exclamations of surprise behind him. “We’ll be infiltrating the palace of one Masayoshi Shido instead.”
And that was the point when Akechi decided Fuck It and lunged across the room to punch him in the face.