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On the first day of autumn, the last droplets of summer humidity had just been wrung out of the air. A chiming breeze wove through the dense crowd at the Shibuya crossing, rustling Goro Akechi’s bangs.
After school, he had run back to his apartment; shucked his uniform for gray high-rise sweatpants, a black graphic t-shirt, and white sneakers. With a ponytail and a pair of fake glasses, no one who wasn’t looking too closely would recognize him.
Haru Okumura, who he had been following for the last twenty minutes, was looking over her shoulder, but not for him. She was the last Phantom Thief on his list to surveil, the newest member of the party. As it looked, approaching Mementos for a day of training.
Only, she was alone. Leaning against the handrail, Okumura took out her phone and vanished into thin air.
What was she thinking, going in by herself? She was no Amamiya, that much he knew already. It was suicidal and suspicious. He had seen her a few times before, when meeting with her father. Haru never had people around; Kunikazu himself forbade him from even making small talk with her.
A question started itching around Akechi’s skull: What could she be hiding, that was worth going behind the backs of her only friends?
Hurrying past the crowd, Akechi followed his prey into Mementos.
Watching Okumura’s axe totter between her thighs in the rest area seat, Akechi was hastily drafting contingencies.
Cloaked in shadow, perched on a light fixture above the train tracks, Akechi heard her faintly humming. It was the tune of an old nursery rhyme, almost like one of the ones his mother used to sing for him.
Getting down to Chemdah while flying blind without a navigator was one thing. He was willing to chalk that up to luck.
But she took the form of a purple tornado, forcing her way down floor after floor. Any master would scoff at her lack of formal training. Okumura spun her axe around like a wiffleball bat. An axe, pike to pommel, as tall as her collarbone. Dirty fighting, with the single-minded determination to end the life of whatever crossed her path. He would never admit— not even to himself— that watching her garrote a Lilim had made him painfully hard.
Okumura bandaged her forearm and marched down the next escalator. Akechi finished her tune with his own, and set off after her.
When Okumura finally picked a fight she couldn’t handle, Akechi breathed a sigh of relief.
Even as she was getting bodied, Okumura put up a good fight. A nasty left hook, one mis-timed counter,
And suddenly, Okumura was on the floor and about to learn her lesson about why the Phantom Thieves never went in solo.
Shit.
Akechi pulled out his pistol and trained his crosshairs on the shadow’s bulbous eye, feeling time dilate around him.
Revealing his presence, even his existence, to save Okumura? Bad idea. Letting her know someone was watching, she could tattle to the Thieves, even without divulging her extracurricular expedition. From there would follow nasty questions and Phantom Thief precautions he wasn’t prepared to deal with. Least of all, casting suspicion on him when he revealed his Persona to the group in Niijima’s palace. Besides, letting Okumura die now would save him the trouble of having to fend off an axe-wielding maniac if things went south later.
Closing one eye, Akechi held his breath.
But letting her die unceremoniously, at the ripe old age of seventeen, torn to shreds by a vacuous cognitive monster? Still bad idea. If his daughter weren’t around for them to save, there was no guarantee the Thieves would continue pursuing Okumura; it wouldn’t be the first time they mistook not being presented a problem for no problem existing. And if the Thieves didn’t try to change Kunikazu, Akechi couldn’t corner them into Niijima’s palace in the first place. He cursed Haru under his breath.
A bolt of crimson light, and the shadow’s head exploded into phlegmy black paste.
How Goro adored to play the hero.
Breathing a sigh of relief, Akechi dashed across the lights to get a closer look at Okumura.
Face-up, eyes closed, not moving. Too far away to check if she was breathing. Shit.
He leapt down and checked her pulse. Stable, at least.
Digging through his pockets, Akechi cursed himself out loud. His briefcase— in which he kept his first aid supplies— was sitting on his kitchen counter.
Grumbling and groaning, Akechi hauled Okumura into his arms, and trudged off towards the stairs.
Hellfire in his biceps told Goro he wasn’t spending enough time in the gym. But it wasn’t so bad. He had to set the feathered hat in her lap, otherwise it would fall off. Okumura was cute, he allowed himself to feel.
Propping her up in a rest area seat, Goro dug around in her pockets for supplies— coming up with one IV kit— filled with the good stuff. She was underprepared, too.
Difficult with his clawed fingers, Akechi worked the needle into her marble arm and let the IV flow. Shortly, Okumura would be fine. Time for Akechi to vanish.
But watching her, passed out in the chair like a discarded doll, Akechi felt a strange burning in his throat. Something protesting. For her, for his actions? His plan to kill her father? Goro didn’t know, and he refused to find out.
Still, Akechi leaned in and swiped away a rivulet of blood from her cheek. From the protection of his helmet he smiled, and walked out to the edge of the platform.
“Not so fast,” crooned a soprano voice behind him. Akechi turned around to see the heiress watching him, eyes wide open. Had she… been feigning being asleep? Shifting upright, she crossed one knee over the other, grinning. “It’s very uncouth to save a lady and disappear before she has a chance to thank you,” Okumura said. She motioned to the chair across her, then at the red-eyed black blur standing outside. “Come. Sit. It’s quite rare to see another person down here, isn’t it?”
Keeping taciturn, Akechi played along. Nodded. Sat down across from her, legs splayed. When she reached out her hand, he delicately shook it.
“So, masked stranger,” Okumura started. “What’s your name?”
Silent and still, happy to have a helmet, letting the cognitive distortion muddle his voice, “Nobody worth knowing.”
Okumura smirked. “No need to lie,” she lilted. “Nobody that can come here is insignificant. You can call me beauty thief, if code names make it better.”
“Code names can be more revealing than given names.”
She rolled her eyes. “Mysterious. Well, regardless, thank you for the assist. I would have been mincemeat if you hadn’t helped.”
Akechi crossed his arms. “You’re welcome. You seemed fine until you ran headfirst into a shadow twice as strong as you are.”
“Silly me, then… I couldn’t tell its strength. How do you?”
“I can feel it through my Persona. If you can’t, you shouldn’t be here alone.”
“Yet here I am, alone.”
“Mhm.”
“And so are you.”
“Astute. And why are you here, alone?”
Still, Okumura was grinning. If it was insincere, Akechi would be in his element.
He didn’t think it was, and he was nervous.
“Training,” she said. “Although, I think I’m the one who should be asking that to you.”
“Same as you,” Akechi replied curtly.
“If you’re strong enough to come here alone, I can’t imagine you would be training so close to the top.”
“Progress is progress, beauty thief.”
“Right, I suppose so. But it almost sounds like you were following me.”
“Maybe, for that last floor. I’m sure you would too, in my position.”
“Guilty,” Okumura said giddily. “I can hardly fault you.”
Moments of silence, and then Akechi said the obvious. “You ought to leave, and not come back. This is no place for someone with so little experience.”
Okumura fluttered her eyelashes under her domino mask, leaning over her axe like a cane. “Show me the way out, then? With this injury, who knows what could happen if I get myself into trouble without a guardian angel to keep me safe?”
Palming his mask, against his better judgement, Akechi obliged.
It turned out, fighting with a partner? Much more fun than fighting alone. Combos, coordination, focus-fire and crowd control, he and Okumura tore a bloody path up to the subway entrance. A strange sort of coordination arose, with the both of them fighting without regard for friendly-fire; so antisocial, it wrapped back around into strong teamwork.
All the while, his curiosity about the girl was growing. None of her teammates fought with half of her fervor. Her persona was much weaker than either of his, but with body alone she was keeping pace. The grenade launcher was a bonus. Watching Okumura wield her axe up-close was visceral and beautiful.
He had to keep his own throaty vocalizations to a minimum, which somewhat dulled his own pleasure; but it enhanced the spectacle of watching her twofold.
When the blood of their final kill was splattered across her face, Haru’s first instinct was to lick it up.
Akechi felt his heart skip a beat, as she came to her senses and wiped the rest off on the back of her glove.
More grimly, his mind was working overtime. So strangely out of character, for the prim and proper heiress. Then again, so out of character for the boyish, charming detective prince. His advantage was substantial; anything he could pull out of her in this state was potential blackmail material.
Luckily, Okumura seemed just as keen as him to talk.
“Those sawteeth are an inspired modification,” she happily asked. “How does it compare to a standard sabre?”
Akechi held it up. “More ripping than cutting,” he replied. “The handle is a bit heavier to compensate, but the difference is small. Similar effectiveness, too. For the most part, it’s a matter of taste. More chunks, more tears”
“And I quite like it,” Okumura said. “Gets them begging faster, I imagine?”
“Significantly.” Akechi ran his finger along the spine. “Not as fast as lopping off a limb, though. Good form on your swings. Are you a lumberjack, in the other world?”
She laughed. “Nope, I just cut wood whenever I’m stressed. It takes the edge off. I might have found a new outlet, though,” she said, looking around and smiling.
“Nothing in the world like it,” Akechi agreed. “I like bouldering and cycling, for when it isn’t an option.”
“Really?” She looked sincerely interested.
“Mhm. Very fun. Reserved for sick days, though.”
“You’d much rather be here?”
“Most of the time.”
Suddenly melancholic, Okumura’s gaze dipped to the floor. “I feel the same. Nobody to judge you, nobody to tell you to hold back, nobody to police how you act… and apparently, like-minded individuals sorely missing from the real world.”
Akechi raised a brow. “You read my mind.” She perked up, and smiled again. “So… what kind of stress did you come down here to burn?”
Okumura looked around, as if she were scared of another party, as if the danger wasn’t standing right in front of her. “There’s a man,” she admitted, piquing Goro’s interest instantly. “All you need to know is that he doesn’t treat me very well. I came down here hoping to find his shadow, and… you know. End it.”
In a few moments, Akechi put together that Okumura was talking about her fiancé.
“You’ve seen the news about the mental shutdowns, right? You know what killing a shadow does to a person?”
And holding his gaze, Okumura nodded.
Immediately, alarm bells. Screaming in Goro’s head. Two of them.
First, Akechi needed her out of Mementos, and not coming back. If an influential politician’s son had a random mental shutdown— without a calling card to point the blame at the Phantom Thieves— a volcano of shit would erupt from the earth to precision-blast his plans.
Second, this was the mother of all blackmail material. The newest member of the Phantom Thieves, freely admitting to him her intention to kill a man in cold blood? Akechi didn’t need to leave the Thieves guessing as to who betrayed them; if he played his cards right, he could pin it all on her.
But then, the more he thought, the more he heard a third bell, its rattling mostly drowned out by the others: honestly, he felt bad. How much older than Haru was his mother, when Shido ruined her life with his sperm? If it didn’t conflict with his own plan, he might have considered offering to help her. He couldn’t, not for another few months, but something in him asked him to find an alternative.
“Risky. Not all shadows are from humans, down here. Real people are much harder to fight. Odds are, you would die. And if you didn’t… the weight of taking a life is heavy. Consider other options before you set out to kill.”
“I’ve tried speaking his language, but the only way to make him go away is showing him mine. I have considered other options, and I want to hack him to bits and spit in his ashes, understand?”
“And… you don’t voice that in the real world?”
“Don’t be stupid,” Okumura hissed. “If I did what I want with him in the real world, he would spend the rest of his life drinking out of a tube, laughing while I spent mine in a straitjacket. Violence has no place in the civilized mind.”
Akechi put his hands up in mock surrender. “Point taken. My mother was in a similar position once, and it ended in her suicide. Obviously,you'll hear no judgement from me for wanting your bloody revenge.”
And quickly, Okumura’s smile came back. “Good. I’m glad. Sorry about your mother, though.”
Shit. He shouldn’t have said that. Could he really not stop himself from sharing such sensitive details when his guard was down…?
Dragging her axe, she paced to the elevator door. Akechi followed her.
She tilted her head. “It’s probably best for me to make my exit, now. It was nice meeting you, Mr…?”
Akechi chuckled. “Nice try.”
“Alright… Mister Black Mask,” Okumura giggled. “This was fun. We should do this again, sometime.”
Disappointed by the end of this new connection, Akechi nodded. Acceptable loss, to keep his advantageous position in this grand game. “If ever the fates align,” he said. “Though I doubt they will.”
“They will,” she said confidently, putting her hand on his forearm. His illusory red eye still shifted in confusion.
Okumura started pulling him into a hug.
And against his screaming nerves, he let her.
“Thank you for the aid,” she said into his shrouded metal neck.
Confused, slightly, on what to do, Akechi pat her gently on the back.
Then he felt something square brush up against his ribcage.
And heard a familiar chime.
Felt his peripheries entropy into red static.
Eyes wide in shock,
One girl’s mocking giggle.
Reality came back to focus, and
“If it isn’t Goro Akechi, in the flesh,” Okumura chirped with a vicious grin. “Nice disguise. The glasses are a nice touch— Amamiya-kun must be really rubbing off on you.”
The two wrenched apart in a moment, the sheer embarrassment of PDA in a crowded station with Haru fucking Okumura knocking the wind out of Akechi’s stomach.
He was completely slack-jawed. “You wretched…!”
“Now-now, save the profanities. Very immature.”
Under the neon evening light, her smile was scarier than it was sweet. Okumura took out her phone.
“I’ll call my driver— we need to have a talk.”
Sipping on an electrolyte drink in the back of an climate-controlled Lincoln, Okumura looked ever-so pleased with herself. Akechi was trying, and failing, to beat his scowl into a neutral face. He dropped the ponytail and the glasses. She promised to drop him off at his apartment, but they were driving in the opposite direction. Either they were going to keep pacing around Tokyo until he talked, or they were going to toss him in the bay.
“Interrogators usually ask questions,” Akechi snarled.
“This is an interrogation? News to me,” Okumura replied.
“Fine, then. What’s your game?”
“Well, I reasoned that you found me because you were looking for me, since the only time I’ve ever unintentionally ran into someone else in the Metaverse was under the same conditions. You weren’t the slightest bit interested in who I was, but you were extremely protective of your own identity, which likely meant that I knew you, or could find you. Since you knew about the mental shutdowns first, and knew that world was how one was triggered, it wasn’t a leap to assume you were the black-masked assassin Mona-chan described. The one who killed Futaba-chan’s mother. And since I’ve seen you around the house, talking to father, and some of the mental shutdowns were very fortunate for Okumura Foods indeed… try as he might, Father would have to step down as CEO to truly stop me from peeking into his unsavory business. And now that I know you can access that world as well, I’m quite sure.”
Grinding his teeth to prevent his jaw from dropping open. “Clever.”
Okumura shrugged. “I try. If I wanted, I could open up the group chat and tell the Phantom Thieves that I found the black mask right now.”
“But since you openly admitted your intent to kill to me, and you’re the new member of the group, all I would have to do to turn them against you is tell them about your solo expeditions.”
“And now you understand. I brought you here to negotiate,” she replied, looking at him with a stonewall face.
“For mutually assured destruction?”
Furrowed brow. “I was thinking more of a partnership. A quid pro quo, at least? I don’t want to turn you in.”
“Two minutes ago, you deduced that I carried out a hit on your friend’s mother.”
“And?”
Stumped. Utterly stumped. “Cold.”
“Are you really so surprised that my public-facing persona is as fake as yours?”
"A little, yes. Most people aren’t like me.”
“Your mom committed suicide, mine was murdered while she was holding me. Everyone has their own sad backstories.”
Akechi winced. “Touché.”
“Thank you.”
“And now you’re…”
“Well, father calls it conduct disorder in our sessions, but then he calls me a 'sociopathic freak' when he thinks I can’t hear him.”
Akechi nodded. “Why tell me, and not your actual friends?”
“Besides them thinking I might be the killer they’re looking for? Black mask, and all that?”
“Alright, that’s… a good point. Sorry, I don’t really do casual friendships either.”
“Which is why I told you, more or less. Someone who understands picking a fight just to see to your prey die.”
“Or wearing the person people expect you to be like a skinsuit. It’s…” Infuriating? Thrilling? Arousing? “Nice. To meet someone on the same frequency, that is.”
Her face lit up, and she disguised the glee with a sip. “I’m glad you feel the same.”
They drove along for a little while longer in silence, they still weren’t going home. So Akechi spoke up. “I would say take me home,”
“But we still have one more question to address. What is your plot, that involves stalking me?”
“You’re clearly smart enough to know that I can’t say.”
“Well… how about I say it for you? You’re the mental shutdown guy, my father is a frequent user of your services, he’s not the head of any conspiracy himself, but he has made some sizeable donations to a certain candidate in the coming election, which coincidentally line up in sizes and times with anonymous donations to an up-and-coming star independent politician, well on his way to being elected,” Haru thought aloud, playfully resting her finger on her chin. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d say he’s outlived his usefulness to your benefactor, and you’re planning to kill him and blame his death on the Phantom Thieves.”
“You’re… how the hell are you doing that?”
Haru shrugged. “It’s the sensible thing to do, isn’t it? Father knows a lot, is angling for his own rise into politics, getting big for his britches… it’s what I would do, in your benefactor’s position. If the Phantom Thieves changed his heart, his confession could end up sinking the entire operation. What you mean to do afterwards I couldn’t imagine, but it probably involves catching the Phantom Thieves, which would be made much easier if you knew their daily habits and haunts.”
“Alright, dead-on. Impressive. But if your intention is to bargain for the life of your father, you should have brought better chips to the table than mutually assured destruction.”
Haru grinned that grin that struck the fear go God into Goro, shrugging nonchalantly. “Then it’s a good thing I’m not!” She laughed.
Huh? “What?”
“I’m not here to save my father’s life, I’m here to make sure that when you kill him, I walk away from the wreckage safe and sound.”
“!… That’s cold, Okumura.”
“Oh, it’s Okumura now? Please, like you’re any better. I don’t know why you want Masayoshi Shido to become the prime minister so badly, but I’m sure it’s to spite someone.”
Goro was about to blow a fucking gasket. All he could do was get her talking about herself again. “Fine, Haru. I’m no better than you. Still, it doesn’t explain why you would want to murder your own father.”
Haru put her hand on her chest, feigning a scandalized look. “How heartless! I don’t want to kill my only family, Goro, I simply have to.” In the space of that sentence, all joy and whimsy drained from her face.
“’Have to.’ You ‘have to’?” Goro mocked.
Lunging across the leather seats, Haru grabbed his shirt in a fist and got so close her breath fogged his teeth.
“My father has been trying to ‘fix’ me for the last thirteen years. I’ve mostly managed to get by under the table, and figure out how to hide myself and put on the face of who they wanted to see, to get him and his army of psychiatrists off of my back. But if his heart his changed, he’ll fuck both of our lives up in a way we’ll never recover from.”
Breathing hard, she dropped her shoulders, dropped Akechi’s shirt, and slunk back into her own seat. She stared at the floor, downtrodden. She muttered out years of sublimated fury.
“When my reformed, pure-of-heart father sees the danger that his daughter poses, to others, herself, and him? I won’t even have time to garrote my fiancé before Father ships me off to a mental hospital. For everyone else, he would be making the right choice. But what about me?! I want to live! When I awakened my Persona, I promised myself that I would live on my own terms. I want to claim my birthright, and…" Haru knit her hands in her lap, and sheepishly looked sidelong at Goro, "If there really are people who won’t treat me like a caged animal, I’d like to have at least one of them in my life.”
In the setting sunlight, Goro Akechi saw Haru Okumura for the first time. A potential accomplice; peer; friend. Hiding his earnest joy with a snarky smirk, he nodded, and held out his hand. “I’ll bring you your father’s head on a silver platter— and all I ask in return is that when the time is right, you help me assassinate mine.”
A firm handshake, and a pact for the ages.
With a smile that, for the first time in many long years, reached her eyes, Haru snapped at her driver to get them going back to Goro’s apartment.
“Admittedly, I wasn’t planning on making it out of this position alive,” Goro said, watching Haru’s every minute detail, “but in a partnership, we might just be able to get away with it.” Considering, hesitant, he asked, “Would you want to set up a time in the future to let loose in Mementos? We’ll need all the strength we can gather.”
“It’s a date!” Haru blushed; from the look on her face, she wasn’t used to the sensation, or the feeling that accompanied it.
Mutual innocent excitement, soaring on the wings of rebellion.