Chapter Text
Goro considers three things as he wakes up to someone jabbing him in the side with a pencil.
One: he’s alive.
Two: he’s in a school uniform, and it’s the wrong color.
Three: he doesn’t actually know where he is.
“Would you cut it out, please,” Goro hisses at whoever’s sitting next to him.
“Sorry, Goro,” Morgana responds.
Goro fights not to react too obviously as he looks over at the boy sitting next to him. He has Morgana’s voice, without a doubt, but if anything, he looks more like Kurusu. Black hair spikes up in an uncontrolled mess, eyes dark enough it’s jarring paired with the way Goro is almost expecting them to be the same bright, unsettling blue they’d been during Maruki’s January. He’s wearing a Shujin Academy uniform.
Goro is wearing a Shujin Academy uniform, too, he realizes as he actually looks down. They’re sitting at a table in the courtyard and, now that Goro has a little bit of mental space to place himself, he does recognize it. The vending machines hum next to them. His phone goes off next to him.
“It’s been doing that for ten minutes,” Morgana says, “And you know I love to let you get your sleep, but it seemed urgent.”
There’s a level of familiarity there that Goro’s not entirely sure what to do with but, for the moment, he pushes it off and turns his phone over to check it. He winces slightly at the sheer number of unread messages.
Most of them are from, weirdly, Yoshizawa. She’s listed as Sumire in his phone, which begs its own host of questions, but those he can address in a moment once he has his bearings a little more firmly. The ones not from Yoshizawa are from a number Goro doesn’t recognize and simply has labeled as Ghost Boy, which, same as Yoshizawa’s contact, presents a mystery.
The date at the top reads April 9 2016.
What the fuck.
Last Goro had checked, it was supposed to be February of 2017. It was supposed to be February, and Goro himself was supposed to be dead, and clearly neither of those things are true but Goro isn’t fully sure how.
He decides to address Yoshizawa’s messages first, because the latest one he can see reads I’m coming to find you, Akechi-senpai, and he should probably get on top of that before it has the chance to get out of hand.
Her text messages are frantic, more than a little bit worried, and suggest that she’s just as confused as Goro is with the current state of things. Which is good, because it means Goro may have an ally in whatever they’re wrapped up in now, and bad, because it means that he has evidence that something is actually happening. She mentions someone named Mishima who Goro sort-of recognizes—he’s moderately sure Yuuki Mishima was the boy who was responsible for the Phantom Aficionado Website, and Goro had really only paid attention to him over how easy it would be to mess with the forum—but Goro himself should have no reason to know him. Her texts span the last ten or so minutes and Goro can feel a headache start to build.
Goro: No need to find me, I’m here.
Sumire: Oh, thank goodness!
Sumire: I was getting worried. Where are you?
Goro: Shujin Academy. I’m not sure why. I take it from your panicked messages that you don’t, either?
Sumire: I don’t. I had asked Mishima-senpai where Akira-senpai would be, and he seemed confused. Mishima-senpai said he should be with you, though.
He frowns. Unless Goro is remembering wrong, Kurusu shouldn’t even get into Tokyo until later today. There’s no reason Mishima would recognize the name, much less direct Yoshizawa to him.
That being said: Goro also remembers Morgana being a cat, and neither of them were Shujin students. Morgana himself is unsubtly leaning over Goro’s shoulder, and Goro angles his phone screen away from him.
“Aw, come on,” Morgana pouts.
“It’s rude to read other people’s texts,” Goro tells him, before returning to his conversation.
Goro: Well, he’s not. I’m not entirely sure how much help I can be currently, Yoshizawa-san. I would suggest asking Kurusu-kun himself about his whereabouts.
Sumire: That’s the thing. I don’t have his number. I was sort of hoping you would, since you and Akira-senpai were… you know.
Goro: I’m afraid I have no idea what you could be insinuating with that.
And then, well, because he does know exactly what Yoshizawa means, he checks his contacts.
He never had many of them before, either, but even by those standards, his current list is abysmal. Expectedly, he sees Sae Niijima’s name listed, as well as Sumire Yoshizawa. More surprisingly, he also currently has Makoto Niijima, even though he’s fairly sure he wouldn’t have a reason to talk to her at this point, as well as Morgana Kurusu, which may explain Yoshizawa’s confusion when talking to Mishima.
There’s also Ghost Boy, whoever that may be. He ignores them for now.
Goro: I don’t have Kurusu-kun’s number, either. I’m afraid that you’ll have to solve that particular mystery on your own.
Sumire: That’s… weird. Alright. If you hear anything else, could you let me know, senpai?
Sumire: I don’t know what’s happening, and if it’s anything like the new year, I’d rather not get tripped up in it again.
Understandable, given the degree to which her involvement in Maruki’s god-complex posturing ruined her life. Admirable, too, for someone who had only seemed to grow a backbone in the last chunk of the month Goro had known her for.
Goro: I’ll be sure to keep you posted, Yoshizawa.
Sumire: You don’t have to be so formal with me! Feel free to call me Sumire, Akechi-senpai. If we’re going to be working together to solve this, we may as well be friends, too!
Goro: Kurusu rubbed off on you, I see. I’ll keep that in mind.
Yoshizawa ends the conversation with a smiling emoji, and Goro decides that conversation is almost certainly over. He turns his attention over to Ghost Boy, who sent another message while he was talking to Yoshizawa reading, Are you excited for school to start for real on Monday?
When he opens the chat, instead of something normal, immediately above that message he gets hit with, don’t you dare die on me again, which could really only mean so many things.
He has a pretty good idea who Ghost Boy might be.
He’ll have to let Yoshizawa know he was wrong, then. That’s going to be a great conversation to have, he’s sure.
For now, though:
Goro: Is this Kurusu-kun?
Goro has to wait for a long minute before he gets a response. While he’s waiting, he backreads; it is, mostly, casual conversation, which partway through devolves into a mostly-incomprehensible and somewhat worrying ramble about the date and cards and Mementos, weirdly enough, that Goro doesn’t get time to sort through before his phone pings with a new message.
Ghost Boy: Not quite. It’s Sakura, currently, actually. You can just call me Akira if that makes it easier.
Ghost Boy: But you… remember me?
What a weird question. Unless, of course, that hadn’t been the case before, which might explain… some of the everything else happening. Unless Goro’s the newcomer, which makes him uneasy for reasons he doesn’t have the time to grapple with.
Goro: I’m not sure why I wouldn’t.
Ghost Boy: You didn’t for a long time. No one else did, either, but I’d sort of hoped you would have anyway.
Goro: I take it you don’t know what’s happening, then, any more than Yoshizawa-san and I do.
There’s a notable pause before Kurusu—Sakura—fuck it, Akira, he’s deep enough in already—responds, which Goro uses to change his contact name and let Yoshizawa know about the development.
Akira: I’m not sure. How much do you know?
Goro: Nothing. I have pieced together that I seem to be attending Shujin Academy, and that your cat is a teenage boy again who thinks we’re friends, and that’s it.
Akira: ...Ah. In that case, I can probably help you get your bearings, at least. You mentioned Sumire?
Goro: She seems to “remember,” as you put it, as well. I can add her to a group chat if you’d like to talk to her as well.
Akira: Please.
He briefly catches Akira’s parting I missed you before he leaves the conversation. Morgana leans over his shoulder, and Goro jolts slightly in his seat.
“Who was that?” Morgana asks. Goro scowls, pushing him away from both himself and the phone screen.
“Do you not know what rude means?” Goro asks.
“Come on, it’s not like you know anyone I don’t,” Morgana says.
“I have no idea why you’d think that.”
Morgana pouts. Goro ignores him, thinking.
Akira seems to be aware of things, and he doesn’t seem particularly worried about them which is a promising sign, if only because, for all the worries Goro had about him getting too attached to Goro in January, he wasn’t one to stand by and let reality be toyed with. On the other hand, Goro knows he’s supposed to be dead, because he’s pretty sure if he weren’t he’d remember whatever existed in-between now that he’s out of Maruki’s little funhouse experiment.
Unless this is a continuation of it.
For some reason, Goro finds that unlikely. Reality doesn’t have the same artificial, sugar-sweet static taste that it’d had in January. He’s fairly sure this is real, which means that he’s just… somehow gone back in time.
Some sort of time loop potentially, then, he thinks as he sets up the group chat, briefly skimming Yoshizawa’s thank-yous without actually responding to them. That begs the question of what the conditions for the loop are, or whether Goro’s even its target. Yoshizawa got hit by it too, seemingly, which means… something. It means something. Goro’s not sure what it is yet, though.
It helps, some, for Akira to lay out what their respective stories are; Goro’s a second-year at Shujin with Morgana and Yoshizawa, apparently, and lives with the Niijimas, which is going to be an interesting adjustment once he gets around to dealing with it. Yoshizawa is an honors student and part of student council. She still does gymnastics, it seems, and already Goro has to wonder how this version of Yoshizawa was keeping up with it all, particularly if she was grieving.
Which she would have been, sounds like.
Yoshizawa: I feel like… we should probably meet up in person to cover our bases.
Akira: I’d love to! Unfortunately, I can’t make it.
Goro frowns at the screen.
Goro: Why would that be?
Akira: Oh, that’s right, you wouldn’t have known this, would you?
Akira: I can’t leave my house, because I have a Palace.
Akira: I need you to take care of it for me.
Goro almost drops his phone.
Well. That was a development. That was a startling and complicating development.
Shit.
Even if Akira can’t join them, Yoshizawa talks Goro into going to Leblanc to sit and talk anyway. Goro is pretty sure Leblanc isn’t the Metaverse-mayhem safe zone it was when Yoshizawa finally got around to coming here, but she insists it’s just for the coffee with an unconvincing smile.
Goro goes with her. He’s not totally sure why. She’s happy about it, though.
They sit in the back booth to talk with their coffees and Yoshizawa’s curry that she’s currently ravenously scarfing down. The TV is on and, even though Yoshizawa says if they’re quiet it’ll be louder than them, Goro is pretty sure that’s not true. He also sort of doesn’t care.
He recognizes the story they’re covering. It’s one of his old psychotic breakdown cases, and Goro frowns. That’s… something he’ll have to look into on his own time. He’s not sure he likes the idea of someone else running around causing problems in the Metaverse while he’s trying to solve this possible-time loop situation.
“Are you familiar with the idea of a body swap?” Goro says, hushed. Yoshizawa nods, pausing as she was about to take another bite of curry.
“But we didn’t swap bodies with anyone,” Yoshizawa says. Goro sighs.
“No, we didn’t,” he says, slowly enough it comes off as condescending. Yoshizawa frowns at him. “We just switched… positions, let’s call it.”
Yoshizawa presses her lips together and thinks.
“That makes sense,” she says. “About as much as time travel, at least. Wait, is it actually time travel if we’re not starting in the same places?”
“I don’t think it matters.” Goro leans back. “I really, truly could not care less what flavor of time loop or parallel reality or what have you we’re in now. I want to know how we got here, and how we leave.”
That’s not entirely true. He’s interested in why, exactly, Akira has a Palace, and he’s interested in resolving it, but what Yoshizawa doesn’t know about his motives won’t hurt her. At least, not in this case.
“You’re not just trying to die again, right?” Yoshizawa narrows her eyes. “Because I know what happened last time. Akira-senpai told me.”
“Of course he did,” Goro says, flippant. “I’m sure he told his whole little gang—”
“No, I mean,” she says, “I’m pretty sure he only told me.”
Goro doesn’t get a chance to respond to that.
In that moment, something loud and heavy crashes upstairs, followed by a barely-audible yelp. Sakura looks up toward the ceiling, briefly alarmed.
“Everything okay up there, kid?” Sakura asks.
“Uh. Yeah!” The familiar voice of Futaba Sakura replies, which is only a little jarring in that Futaba Sakura didn’t live in Leblanc, just spent an ungodly amount of time there.
Not that Goro was one to speak.
“Just, uh, dropped something,” she continues. Sakura sighs.
“Well, be careful,” he says. “We have customers right now.”
“Sorry!”
“Is something going on?” Yoshizawa asks.
Sakura looks over at them. “Nothing for you to worry about.”
“Aright,” Yoshizawa says. “If you’re sure.”
A moment passes, and then Sakura sighs, turning back to them.
“Actually,” he says, “You two go to Shujin Academy, don’t you?”
“We do,” Yoshizawa says. “I’m on the student council there, actually. Sumire Yoshizawa, it’s nice to meet you!”
“How about that,” Sakura says. “In that case, would you mind if I asked you for a favor?”
“Go ahead!” Yoshizawa smiles.
“You wouldn’t mind showing a new student around tomorrow, would you?” Sakura asks. “The kid has to pick up her documents from the school, and I have to open.”
Goro is about to say no, absolutely not, but Yoshizawa beats him to the punch.
“Of course!” She says, grinning. “I’d be more than happy to introduce a new student.”
Sakura breathes out.
“Thanks, kids,” Sakura says. “The help means a lot. She’s just upstairs, if you want to go introduce yourselves.”
Yoshizawa stands and bows slightly.
“Come on,” she says, looking at Goro. “Let’s go introduce ourselves.”
Goro wonders when this became a we thing. He stands and follows Yoshizawa anyway.
The stairs creak just the same as Goro remembers.
They pause partway up as Yoshizawa knocks on the wall.
“Hello?” Yoshizawa calls. “Is it alright if we come up? Your guardian asked us to help you with school admission tomorrow, and we wanted to meet you first!”
“Oh!” Futaba says, “Uh, yeah, that’s fine! You can come up.”
The attic is messier than Goro remembers it ever being but, in his defense, Goro doesn’t think he’d been up here until long after Akira had already cleaned. Books cover almost every surface, cardboard boxes broken down in one corner and a clear tarp covering the desk in the other. There are still familiar elements, though: the mattress resting on milk crates, the plant Goro can barely make out around the cardboard boxes surrounding it, the lone lamp on the table next to the stairs... Even still, it resembles a storage space much more than a place to live, and it feels almost wrong to be here without all of Akira’s additions.
It’s not Akira’s attic right now, though.
In the middle of the mess stands Futaba Sakura, hair pulled back in a ponytail as she considers the toppled shelf next to the bed, books scattered all across the floor. She pulls her headphones down from her ears to hang around her neck as she turns to them.
“Hey,” she tugs at her sleeves. “Sorry about the… the mess. I’m Futaba Isshiki, it’s nice to meet you.”
Not Sakura, then. Although, all things considered, Goro probably should have seen that coming. It’s still weird to hear it coming from her mouth.
“It’s nice to meet you too!” Yoshizawa says, beaming. “I’m Sumire Yoshizawa. This is my friend, Goro Akechi. You’re our late admission student, right?”
“Yeah,” Futaba says. “Sojiro sent you?”
“It sounds like he might be a little busy tomorrow,” Yoshizawa says, “So he asked us if we could accompany you to the school tomorrow to pick up your documents and get a tour of the school before classes start on Monday.”
“I wouldn’t want to take up your time like that,” Futaba says. “But thank you for helping.”
“You’re not taking up my time!” Yoshizawa clasps her hands together. “I want to, really. Do you want some help with the shelf over there, while I’m here?”
“That would… yes, please,” Futaba says. Goro can see the nervousness written into her, but she seems to be slowly relaxing, getting less tense as Yoshizawa continues to talk to her. Akira must have been rubbing off on her.
“So, you know the café owner?” Yoshizawa asks as she helps Futaba right the shelf. Futaba nods.
“He’s one of mom’s grad school friends,” Futaba says. “Mom’s super busy right now, so they decided I should stay in Tokyo with him for the year.”
“The year,” Goro prompts, and Futaba jumps a little.
“Yeah,” she says, eyeing the shelf a little warily as she begins to pick up the fallen books. “School year, anyway.”
If Futaba was on probation, the way Akira had been, he imagines the choice could have also been made to avoid rumors. Futaba doesn’t seem like the sort of person who would handle them well. Goro won’t push for now, though.
“It’s nice that he offered to take care of you, then,” Yoshizawa says, helping Futaba put the books back on the shelves. “He must be good friends with your mom.”
“He is,” Futaba says, and doesn’t elaborate.
She’s shy, and Goro had always sort of known Futaba wasn’t great with new people, but it’s still a little jarring after his most recent memories of her were more brash, more needling. Futaba, as Oracle, had never held back with a scathing comment or a bold declaration, radiating confidence as she helped Joker lead them through the Metaverse.
If Futaba is, for all intents and purposes, taking Joker’s position for the year, Goro wonders whether she’ll be able to pull off leading. He’ll have to wait and see.
“We should trade contact information,” Yoshizawa says, pulling Goro out of his thoughts. “So that we can keep in touch, or so you can ask me any questions you might have.”
“That’s not a bad idea,” Futaba says, pulling out her phone. “You know, you’re a lot nicer than I thought you’d be.”
“Oh?” Yoshizawa says. “Why’s that?”
“Well, I mean, Shujin’s a prep school,” Futaba says. “I’d sort of expected its students to be… preppy about it.”
“Some are,” Goro says.
“Like him,” Yoshizawa adds, and Goro scowls at her. Futaba smiles, a little nervously.
“A bit like him,” Futaba agrees, and Yoshizawa laughs.
“We’ll meet at the station here tomorrow morning, if that works for you?” Yoshizawa says. Futaba nods.
“That sounds good,” she says. “I got a little lost on the subway getting here, so maybe it’ll be easier with people who know where they’re going.”
“The subway can be confusing if you’re not familiar with it,” Yoshizawa agrees. She puts her phone away as she finishes trading contacts with Futaba. “We’ll see you then?”
Futaba nods. “Sounds good.”
“It was nice to meet you, Isshiki-san!” Yoshizawa says, waving as she pulls Goro along after her.
It’s only once they’re outside that Goro realizes the problem.
“We’re going to have to figure out a different way to get back here,” he says. Yoshizawa frowns.
“Why’s that? The subway has always been fine before.”
“Because I think the shutdowns are still happening,” Goro says, “And I would rather not play stupid games regarding the train crash that I remember orchestrating.”
Yoshizawa pauses.
“Oh,” she says simply. “I hadn’t thought about that.”
“Clearly.”
“I didn’t really remember it, either,” she says, “Not after everything else that happened that year.”
That was… more fair.
“We’ll figure it out when we get there,” Goro says. “We may be able to simply stall long enough that it’s already happened.”
“You don’t want to try to stop it? You know it’s going to happen.” Yoshizawa frowns, pouts. Goro sighs.
“I don’t have the Nav, Yoshizawa. I can’t do a whole lot in the Metaverse if I can’t get into the Metaverse.”
Which is a question, actually. Why doesn’t he have the Nav?
How did he get the Nav before?
He remembers it just showing up on his phone, over and over and over even if he deleted it. He remembers that, eventually, he’d just started plugging words into it, and had ended up in a Palace; a sprawling garden of some sort, Goro barely remembers it. He’s still not sure exactly where it came from, just that Akira had seemed surprised in January when it was on his phone and said something vague about Mementos and a god of control that Goro hadn’t really kept track of.
“Really, Akechi, you can just call me Sumire,” Yoshizawa—Sumire, then—interrupts his thought process.
“Our first step is getting our hands on the Nav,” Goro thinks aloud, not bothering to give Sumire’s comment a response. “I wonder if Akira knows.”
“Let’s ask,” Sumire says, pulling out her phone and typing something. A moment later, Goro’s phone buzzes in his pocket.
One of the two of them has changed the group chat name to “Maruki Hate Club,” which gets an unexpected, undignified snort out of Goro.
Sumire: So, Akira-senpai, we had a question.
Akira: Go ahead.
The situation gets explained, and the question, how do you get the Nav, is asked, and Akira doesn’t respond for a long, long time.
Concerningly long. Long enough Goro is starting to worry.
Akira: find the fool before school.
They don’t get anything else from him all night.
Goro doesn’t know his own address.
It’s a problem that could be solved by asking someone, but that would lead to a conversation about him being out of place, and he’d rather avoid that at the moment. It’s complicated, and he doesn’t know how it works, and he’d rather not risk dragging more people into a mess that he can solve if given enough time.
He remembers, vaguely, where Sae lived, from a handful of visits he’d made to just the outside of the building when she had to pick something up. He has to hope that she lives in the same place, because otherwise, he’s not sure he’s making it home, since, according to Akira, he lives with her.
Which means he also lives with Makoto.
That’s not going to be a weird adjustment to make at all.
He must get lucky, because he manages to remember the right address and he manages to guess which of his keys is for the front door to the apartment.
“You’re home late,” Sae says from the kitchen, off to the side of the front door. She sounds amused, which is odd, if only because Goro can’t remember her sounding particularly amused much of ever with him. It was always all business. Goro guesses that might have something to do with the Palace he’d encouraged, but—
“Sorry,” Goro says, and then wonders how this version of himself actually addresses her. Better to just avoid it until and unless it’s necessary, he guesses. “I was getting lunch with a friend of mine.”
“Did you two have fun?”
Goro shuts the door and slides off his shoes, stepping up into the living room. He doesn’t think he’s ever been inside the Niijima’s house before, but it’s sleek and modern and a little bit depressingly empty. There’s art on the walls, though, a handful of very juvenile-looking things, some photos. There’s a man in one of them that Goro doesn’t recognize.
Goro is in some of them, looking vaguely annoyed at being there, but not enough for him to think he actually meant it.
Strange.
“We did,” Goro says, peeking into the kitchen.
Sae still dresses professionally at home, it seems, as she sits at the counter with a mug and her laptop, a sleek little thing that matches the décor of the house well enough it has to be by design. She looks up at him as he enters, a tired look on her face. She doesn’t look unhappy, though.
“That’s good to hear,” she says. “Makoto wanted to talk to you.”
About what, Goro almost says on impulse, and then wonders what impulse would make him ask after Makoto.
“I’ll go see what she wants, then,” Goro says instead with a smile. Sae sighs and shakes her head.
“Dinner’s in two hours,” she tells him, and then goes back to whatever she’s working on.
Goro doesn’t know where his room is. He doesn’t know where Makoto’s room is, or Sae’s, or how big the place really is. He doesn’t know where he’s going.
He wanders aimlessly down the hallway, though, wondering which of the unmarked doors is, presumably, his bedroom.
The first door he opens is actually a bathroom, sleek and modern and stupidly clean as the rest of the apartment. Goro scrunches up his nose. He wonders, mostly, how much work it takes to keep it all clean. His apartment had been empty, sure, but he’d been so busy that the handful of things he did have piled up with the stacks of takeout containers.
He gets lucky the second time, because he opens the door to a room with the lights off and clothes he recognizes as his piled up in a hamper and Makoto sitting on the bed, arms crossed, apparently waiting for him.
“You’ve been acting weird,” she says, no preamble, as soon as he opens the door. “Why?”
“Waiting to ambush me, I see.” Goro flips on the light. Makoto squints for a moment but doesn’t stop watching him as he shuts the door.
“You’re dodging the question,” she says.
“I don’t see how it’s your business,” Goro says.
“You never blow off Morgana,” Makoto says. “And I watched you wander around outside for ten minutes before you actually came inside.”
Why was she watching him?
“You really don’t have anything better to do than stalk people?” Goro asks, and Makoto glares.
“Fine,” she says, standing up. “Keep whatever secret this is. You know, when dad gets back from America, he’s gonna kick you out for being rude and a liar.”
Goro freezes. Wasn’t Makoto and Sae’s father dead? Had something like that changed, too? Futaba had implied that her mother was still alive, which shouldn’t be the case, so maybe it was true here, too.
He’d have to find out.
With that, though, Makoto marches out of the room, leaving Goro to deal with the possible implications of her statement, as though it were fine.
It doesn’t take long to find an obituary, once he gets around to looking for one that night, and Goro’s heart sinks. He has a bad feeling he knows what might have happened to her. The only way to know for sure, though, would be to ask.
He doesn’t really feel like doing that. He lets it lie, and endeavors not to bring up her father.
Their trip to Shujin the next day is uneventful, even if Goro finds himself trailing after Sumire and Futaba and worrying over the subway accident he knows should be coming today. They manage to hang around until after it’s already happened and people are getting rerouted, though, stalling for time by giving Futaba a detailed tour of the school that Sumire primarily leads, since Goro barely knows his own way around.
He won’t admit how useful it is for him, too.
They all go their own ways afterwards, though, while Sumire and Goro try to puzzle through what Akira could have possibly meant by the fool. The whole while, Akira won’t actually answer their texts on the matter. It’s starting to get worrying, and a little frustrating, but there’s not exactly much Goro could do about it short of going to the Sakuras’ house himself and breaking down the door to check on Akira, and he’s not about to start doing crimes this early when he seems to have a clean record. He should save it for when it’ll actually mean something.
Monday comes around, and with it comes the first day of school and walking there in the rain beside Morgana, who’s just as Morgana as ever. Goro doesn’t have the first clue how this version of him became friends with him. It’s baffling.
He’s getting some information, at least, in that he knows he’s been friends with Morgana since they both got to Shujin, and that Sumire didn’t enter the picture until nearly the end of their last year. He knows that Morgana hates Shujin’s P.E. teacher, Suguru Kamoshida, and Goro recognizes the name but he’d never actually gotten particularly close to the Phantom Thieves’ first case. He, at the time, had no need to.
He remembers, vaguely, that Akira had been texting him for a couple of years, and he spent a significant part of last night reading back through their entire text history and making notes. There was, apparently, a clear reason Goro had titled his contact Ghost Boy; Akira talked about them constantly, was a little obsessed with the idea. Goro’s not sure if he should be unsettled or not. He’s keeping an eye on it, at least, for the time he gets his hands on the Nav and can start trying to get into his Palace.
That morning, before Goro left, he’d finally gotten a text from Akira in the group chat, reading simply good luck, which seemed ominous, but at least was proof that Akira was still there.
It’s raining, and Goro is glad he brought an umbrella and significantly less glad that Morgana seems to have forgotten his because now they’re sharing, which puts Morgana further into Goro’s personal space than he would have liked.
Futaba seems to have forgotten her umbrella, too, as she’s talking to someone in a car, getting soaked.
“Want a ride? I’m heading the same direction you are,” Goro hears the driver say, and Morgana immediately bristles next to him.
“Hey!” Morgana shouts, and Futaba looks up and over at them in surprise. Goro runs after Morgana. May as well keep up the appearance of them being friends, even if Goro’s not sure how that happened yet.
There’s a long sigh from inside the car.
“You two,” the man says, and once Goro gets in view, he does recognize the driver. He hadn’t gotten very close to the case, but he had looked through the case files.
“Kamoshida, leave her alone,” Morgana snaps, and Goro glares. Kamoshida shakes his head.
“I was just offering a ride,” he says. “The rain’s pretty bad.”
“We’ve got an umbrella,” Goro says. Kamoshida shrugs.
“Oh, well. Your loss,” he says.
The window rolls up, and Goro watches the car go.
“He makes me sick,” Morgana says. “I can’t believe we gotta deal with him still, why won’t they fire him already?”
“Reputation,” Goro says. It’s a guess, but it’s one he’s pretty confident in. Morgana sighs.
“I know,” he groans, then turns to Futaba. “Hey, are you okay?”
“Yeah,” Futaba says. “Thanks. You and Akechi-senpai helped me out there.”
“Don’t call me that,” Goro mutters, and Morgana snickers.
“He’s not big on formality,” Morgana explains, which means Goro really must not be keeping up a pleasant appearance in this timeline. “My name’s Morgana Kurusu, but feel free to just call me Morgana.”
“It’s nice to meet you, Morgana,” Futaba says, smiling. “I’m Futaba Isshiki.”
“You knew Goro already?” Morgana says, and Goro’s about to snap to not call him that, either, before remembering we’re supposed to be friends and biting his tongue.
“He came to the school with Yoshizawa-senpai and I yesterday to show me around and pick up my paperwork,” she explains as they walk, before looking back at the street. “Who was that, anyway?”
“Suguru Kamoshida,” Morgana all but growls, and Goro hears a very familiar ping.
Oh. Interesting.
Is this what Akira meant? It didn’t explain the fool part of the message, though.
“He’s the P.E. teacher at Shujin Academy,” Goro explains, and is rewarded with another ping.
Bingo.
He realizes, maybe, that he should have tried to rope Sumire into this, but maybe he’ll get out of the Metaverse with the Nav and it’ll be a moot point anyway.
“He thinks he’s, like, the king of the place or something,” Morgana says, and it’s so close, isn’t it, but Goro never actually learned the keywords for this Palace, “Walking around and ordering everyone else around!”
“Like the school’s a castle and he’s in charge,” Futaba mutters, and the Nav on her phone pings one final time, and Goro gets hit with the static-sludge wave of entering the Metaverse.
He’s prepared for it, but Futaba and Morgana don’t seem to be, because they both stumble slightly.
“Eugh,” Morgana mutters, “Headache. On the first day of school, too…”
“Let’s just… not be late,” Futaba says.
“Good plan,” Morgana says. “This way, I know a shortcut.”
They turn down an alleyway, and Goro watches the sky, the way everything is tinged just barely the wrong color.
He… can’t hear Hereward.
Or Loki, for that matter, or Robin, which is the really worrying part. It’s been so long since he couldn’t hear Robin that it’s legitimately jarring.
He doesn’t have time to worry about it, because they leave the alleyway and end up right in front of the Palace.
“What the,” Morgana says, blinking. “This isn’t Shujin.”
“What gave it away,” Futaba muttered. “What happened? It didn’t become a castle overnight, right?”
“Only one way to find out,” Morgana says, marching ahead.
They’re not going to leave the Palace in one piece unless Goro comes along, even if he can’t hear his Personas, are they? Their self-preservation is still abysmal.
Goro follows along after them as they enter the Palace through the front doors like idiots.
Kamoshida’s Palace is gaudy but, compared to some of the Palaces Goro has been in, it’s unimaginative. He doesn’t think he’s really surprised by that, but he’s sure it would grate at the man’s ego to hear it. It doesn’t even really impact the space outside the Palace in any significant way. His influence, it seems, was restricted to the school.
There’s an enormous painting of himself hung up on the wall opposite the entrance. He’s wearing a golden crown alongside a cape and a thong and quite literally nothing else.
“Eugh,” Futaba says, wrinkling her nose. “That’s gross.”
“No kidding,” Morgana says. “We are at the school, right?”
“The plaque outside said so,” Goro says. His mask is still missing, both of them, and he’s mentally clawing for his Personas. The more he presses, though, the more he realizes there just isn’t a link there to claw at.
They’re just gone.
Goro doesn’t think he’s ever felt quite this alone in the Metaverse, even with Futaba and Morgana here, arguing right in front of him.
“And maybe,” Goro suggests in a hiss, “We should keep it down, because something is clearly wrong.”
It wouldn’t do them much good to get caught. Especially not when Goro knows that the Palace ruler doesn’t like two of them. It would probably end poorly for those two, and Goro would like to stay alive long enough to get to use the Nav he hopefully has access to now, at least.
“It’s like some sort of video game,” Futaba says, much quieter, as they walk to the side, through one set of doors. “A really smutty, bad video game.”
“That’s one way to put it,” Morgana says. “’My school turned into a hentai and now I have to turn it back!’ Someone would probably read that.”
Futaba snickers, and Morgana grins.
They push open a door and end up face-to-face with a Shadow, and Goro stiffens.
“Halt, intruders!” The Shadow shouts as it catches sight of them.
“Run,” Goro says, spinning to turn back the way they came.
“Yeah, good idea,” Futaba says as she and Morgana follow his lead.
“What is that thing?” Morgana says, frantic.
“Backup! I need backup!” The Shadow behind them calls, and Goro mentally curses.
He needs a Persona. Any of them. Any feasible way to fight back, because otherwise, Goro thinks this is going to get ugly.
Their exit is cut off by two more Shadows, clad in noisy full suits of armor, and Goro skids to a stop.
“Shit,” Goro says. “Shit, shit, shit.”
“Stop, in the name of King Kamoshida!” One of them says, and Goro rolls his shoulder.
“Fucking fine,” he says, “Let’s—”
Something hits him hard in the back of the skull, and the world blurs.
“Akechi!” Futaba shouts, and Goro hits the ground, eyes sliding shut, and he hopes that Palaces still operate on dumbass movie logic.
When he opens them again, he’s in a different place, and he’s alone.
He has a moment where he panics about that. Where he thinks about how it’s just him, how he doesn’t have a Persona to keep him company. About how easily he’d gone down. Then, he pushes it down as far as it will go and stands.
He can’t hear Futaba or Morgana, either, which probably means he’s not near them, because he can’t imagine they aren’t shouting for someone at this point. Goro groans. This is just perfect. He needs to get out of the Metaverse.
He’s going to be late for school.
Not that he really cares, he’s already done this year, but Futaba will care, and Morgana probably will, too, and Sumire’s surely going to be blowing up his phone as soon as she realizes he’s not there, and it’s going to be a whole mess. Not to mention, Makoto is probably going to come asking after him, which is going to be another hassle to deal with.
Well, that can be a later problem. His task right now: breaking out.
The lock on the door isn’t particularly sophisticated, and Goro has been exploring the Metaverse for years now, he knows how to pick a lock. He doesn’t even need a nice lockpick for this. He gets his hands on some sharp bits of metal from the wall and reaches around to the lock, feeling out the process until he hears a click and repeats the process until the door swings open, rusty and unused.
Now, he just has to find Futaba and Morgana.
He could just leave them. He knows he could just leave them. He’s pretty sure Sumire would be annoyed by that, though, and Akira would be upset, so he’ll go find them.
He can feel how damp it is in this dungeon. There’s running water down here, bizarrely, and it’s warm, and they mingle together terribly with his long-sleeved uniform.
There’s not a whole lot Goro can hear over the rush of water, but he can hear the creak of metal and the occasional footstep echoing down towards him, so he sticks to the walls and hides whenever he can as he picks a direction and tests his luck.
He doesn’t find Futaba, and he doesn’t find Morgana.
Instead, he finds the cat.
Strangely, Goro thinks that it looks more like an animal this time around than a mascot, but it looks up at him and blinks with bright red eyes and an Inari mask.
“Oh,” it says, with Yusuke Kitagawa’s deep, smooth voice. “Hello.”
“...Hello,” Goro says, taking in that this seems to be a dead end. He should have tried the other direction.
Then again, there’s no guarantee that they would have been that way, either.
“You don’t think you could get me out of this cell, could you?” The cat, who is probably Kitagawa, says, and Goro sighs.
“Why should I,” he says, and it comes out mean even as he’s already walking toward the cell. “And what’s your name, so I don’t have to call you a cat-thing forever.”
“My name is Yusuke,” he says. “Although, I admit, ‘cat-thing’ is probably an accurate term for me.”
Kitagawa—Yusuke—is much more relaxed about his feline state than Morgana had been, Goro thinks.
“And I should let you out, why?” Goro asks flatly, crouching down in front of the cell. “You might just slow me down getting the hell out of here.”
“Because I don’t believe you can fight the Shadows in this place,” Yusuke says. “I can.”
He has a point, as annoying as it is. It feels like rubbing salt in the wound, even if Yusuke didn’t know there was a wound in the first place.
“...Alright,” Goro says, “Fair enough.”
It’ll be useful, at least, to have a Persona-user with him, at least for a little while.
“Thank you,” Yusuke says. “The key is on the wall over there.”
Goro nods and stands.
“Mind helping me find a couple of people, once I let you out of here?” Goro says conversationally.
“Are they in the castle?” Yusuke asks.
“I can’t imagine they got out on their own,” Goro says. “I got captured with two other people, but I got separated from them. I’d rather not leave without them.”
“I see.” Yusuke nods thoughtfully as Goro unlocks the cell. “Of course, I will help you find them.”
The door swings open, and Yusuke steps out.
“Lead the way.” Goro gestures for Yusuke to go ahead. “You’re the one who knows where to go, after all.”
Yusuke leads them down the hall, looking up at Goro as they walk.
“You never did introduce yourself,” he says.
“Ah, my mistake,” Goro says. “Goro Akechi. It’s nice to meet you, Yusuke.”
“Likewise,” Yusuke says. Then, he turns and points. “Are those your friends?”
Goro follows where Yusuke is pointing to see Morgana and Futaba, the latter of whom seems to be dressed in brightly-colored armor with a long cape and a visor covering her eyes. He can barely see the glow of it, green eyes to serve as a stand-in for her own, as she skids to a halt.
“Akechi!” She shouts, waving frantically. “What’s that?”
“What are you wearing,” Goro calls back. “You look like Feather Green.”
That was maybe the wrong thing to say, as her LED eyes go wide.
“You know Featherman?” Futaba says, and then turns. “Shoot.”
Goro sees the Shadows on the other side of the bridge.
“Get me over there,” Yusuke says.
“With dignity or with speed,” Goro says, already rushing to the bridge control.
“Whichever is easiest for you to achieve,” Yusuke says.
Goro brings down the bridge as he watches the Shadows across the way burst red-and-black into combat, and then watches as Futaba shouts and brings out a large, red, feathered something.
“Red!” Futaba shouts, “Get ‘em!”
“Doesn’t look like she needs your help,” Goro mutters, watching Futaba blast the poor Jack-O-Lantern into dust.
“It appears not,” Yusuke says. “I would still like to offer her my congratulations.”
“Whatever you say.”
They meet up on Futaba and Morgana’s side of the bridge, at which point Futaba spins around.
“Okay,” she says, panting slightly, “Now. What is that?”
“I am Yusuke.” Yusuke waves, and Morgana blinks.
“It talks,” he says.
“He does talk, yes,” Goro says. “I found him in a cell while I was looking for you two.”
“How’d you get out?” Futaba asks, looking back up at him. “We were locked in ours.”
“They must have forgotten,” Goro says. “Anyhow, Yusuke says he can help us get out of here.”
“That I can,” Yusuke says. “I can also teach you how to harness your Persona.”
He says it looking at Futaba, whose LED eyes blink in confusion.
“My what?” Futaba asks.
Goro tunes out that lesson as they quickly get out of the Metaverse, and wonders why he doesn’t have his anymore.
They all end up being late to school, and Futaba is, predictably, the most torn up about it. When Goro checks his phone when he finally gets to class, he realizes he has the Nav now.
Also, a lot of missed messages from Sumire. He responds to them all with a brief, I’m alright. Meet me at the Yongen station after school today.
It's time to investigate.