Chapter Text
Akechi had been trailing the Phantom Thieves for hours. He would never admit it aloud, but he was impressed by the speed and tenacity they showed as they tore through Shido’s palace. A palace that he himself had only entered twice, and both times the vicious shadows had forced him to retreat almost immediately.
Granted, Shido knew about Akechi’s abilities and therefore had measures in place that served the sole purpose of keeping the Black Mask at bay, whereas the Phantom Thieves were a more abstract variable, from what Shido knew about them.
So yes, the fact that the Thieves managed to do in a mere day what he had failed to do in three years was both humiliating and awe-inspiring to him.
But he could use that.
The Thieves were getting tired, he could see it. Joker, ever the inspirational leader, had been fighting upfront the whole time, but the rest of the fighters had been swapped with the backup group after the second letter, and then been swapped back again after a particularly taxing part of the maze just hadn’t gone well for them.
They were all exhausted, some injured, and SP and supplies were running low enough that smaller injuries had to wait for a safe room to be treated. And yet Joker didn’t call it quits.
There was something about him today that irritated Akechi. He was not as cautious as he should be. He brushed the comments and pleas for a break aside. He kept a very careful eye on his teammates, but his concerns when one of them got hit weren’t of the “Are you alright?”-sort Akechi had come to know in his own brief time with the group. It was more of a “Can you keep going?” this time around.
Two hours ago Akechi had labelled this behaviour as ‘reckless’. But looking at the state the group was right at this moment, he saw something that was more ‘desperate’, and that put him on edge. Something was definitely off about Joker.
What was his goal here? Why did they have to finish this thing in one day? Were they afraid of Shido? If so, for what reason? The election was looming on the horizon, sure, but they should also know that barging in here without restraint wouldn’t help them. They were in here for the first time, so what was the rush?
Not that he really cared about the wellbeing of the Thieves. They were his enemies, after all. Just, he could use them in his plan to defeat Shido. By following the path they cleared through the palace, he had come closer to his goal today than he had ever before.
He didn’t even have to fight himself. His suit blended into the shadows perfectly, and if there were no hiding places to keep the Thieves in sight, he could safely hang back further and follow them by the sounds of the fighting for a while.
So whilst the Thieves battled, he himself stayed well rested, to the point he was almost bored. He would follow them until they had all the keys to that stupid door, then ambush them, take the letters for himself and give Shido what he deserved.
He would also give Joker a piece of his mind. All the Thieves, really. To think that he would fall for that stupid plan in the interrogation room. He had been exploring the Metaverse for the better part of three years now. Did they really think he wouldn’t notice the shift when he entered it? Idiots!
If Akechi hadn’t come up with the great idea of using the Thieves as his personal battering ram to get through this godforsaken ship, their leader would have died. Exiting the Metaverse in the interrogation room would have given him even more of an advantage. No trail, no proof, nothing to go on that would even suggest any foul play. He could go on about the stupid naivety of their plan for days!
But Akira could still be useful. So he had settled for shooting the cognition instead and calling it a day.
Yes, he was looking forward to that fight. His plan was very simple, but sometimes simplicity was all that was needed. He was so close he could almost taste it!
It was about then his anticipation turned into annoyance. He watched as the Thieves climbed down the side of the ship after getting a letter out of somebody or other in the suites. He kept himself a few levels above them, using the height as a vantage point to keep them in sight without being in their way as they backtracked downwards to the walkway that lead around the ship.
He was annoyed because as soon as they stepped back onto said walkway, they got ambushed by a large group of Shadows like bloody amateurs, and the fight wasn’t going in their favour.
When Joker swapped Skull and Fox for Mona and Queen to keep the healing going whilst he himself summoned one of his ridiculously powerful personas to keep up the damage, Akechi already knew that they would have to retreat after that battle, which in turn meant he would have to camp the diet building (again!) to know when they went back into the palace.
So yes, that was annoying. And sort of disappointing. He had been itching for a fight, and it seemed he wouldn’t get it. Plus, they would be rested and prepared the next time, and there was only one letter to go, so the fight would be him against eight (or more accurately seven and a half, as Oracle never directly engaged in combat). If they weren’t sufficiently tired out by the Shadows, that could go either way.
He knew that he was stronger and more experienced, and he would have the element of surprise with Loki, but he wasn’t so stupid as to underestimate them. Individually? He could take them all. In a group? He couldn’t possibly guard against all their attacks if they simply surrounded him.
He was so preoccupied coming up with a new strategy that he almost missed Queen going down. Which in itself wasn’t that bad. But the panicked shouts that followed together with the fact that there was no immediate healing sort of got his attention.
Noir immediately raced to her side, a healing item in hand, whilst Fox jumped back in to fill the empty space in the frontline.
Akechi quietly crept forward until he perched on the very edge of the balcony he was hiding on. It was two stories above and a little ways behind the Thieves, and with their whole focus on the fight he wasn’t too worried about being spotted. Even if, they wouldn’t recognize him in his black outfit.
As he got closer, he could distinguish more of their frantic shouting.
Joker was trying to get their fighting formation back in order to better protect the rest of the team. With the rapid switching, the backup group that normally kept a safe distance was almost right up in the fray with them.
“Fox, Mabufudyne, try and freeze them! Mona, don’t attack with Zorro, focus on healing! Panther, back him up if you can! Come, Melchizedek!”
Akechi had never seen that Persona before, but Joker switched through them with the speed Takamaki went through different outfits, so he wasn’t too surprised.
The team reformed and attacked, but it seemed their strategy didn’t work out as well as it should have. The Mabufudyne went off, but none of the enemies actually froze. The Cerberus even repelled the ice, and Panther and Joker fought almost exclusively with their weapons at this point, saving their spells for healing.
In the back, Queen slowly got back on her feet, but she had to lean heavily onto Noir. “Joker, we need to get out of here!”
“I know! Oracle, look for a way out!”
“On it! Gimme a few seconds!”
She didn’t get a few seconds. Panther attacked a Cerberus with her whip and a reflective barrier threw the attack right back at her.
He wondered if she had forgotten about the High Counter or if she was simply out of SP and desperate. Either way, she ended up on her back, slamming into the railing of the ship's walkway. She was out of the battle for sure.
Fox, who had been about to strike a second Cerberus with his sword, hesitated at that and abandoned the attack to throw up a shield around Joker instead, who was frantically looking back at his teammates.
“Mona, heal her! Oracle, hurry up!”
“I can’t!”
Everyone turned to the cat-like creature.
“What do you mean, you can’t?” Noir screamed, but everybody could figure that it meant Mona was out of SP. And by the looks of it, he was not the only one.
They were still facing two Cerberus and one Parvati, the latter of which used the brief pause in combat to cast Diarama on its allies.
“There is something else coming towards us, and behind us is a dead end! We need to end this NOW!” Oracle supplied, fueling their panic.
Noir, who was currently pulling out something from their supplies to help Panther, shot a glance towards Queen, who was barely able to stand on her own. “This is our penultimate bead!” she announced, voice pitched slightly higher than usual. She was clearly trying to stay composed, but they all could feel that they were losing this battle.
Akechi could feel it as well. He quietly dropped down onto the first floor in preparation. Between the two options of returning later and trailing the Thieves again, possibly having to battle them all at near maximum strength, or getting rid of them right now and just going for the last letter himself, he decided that killing them now would be his best chance.
One clawed hand was already gripping the pistol at his side, and his mind raced, trying to chart a path, figuring out the best order in which to attack them. Mona, Panther and Queen were almost no threat, Fox was most likely out of SP, but he, Skull and Noir were still quick enough on their feet (and unfortunately also the best melee fighters). And then there was Joker. Annoying, cocky, idiotic Joker, who would certainly not hesitate to throw himself in harm’s way to protect his team.
Just as he thought that, Joker summoned Melchizedek again. “Mahamaon!”
A swirl of brightly glowing paper strips surrounded the three enemies. Akechi was familiar with this type of attack. It was highly taxing on the caster and had a mediocre chance of success at best.
Joker was desperate.
But it worked. With a flash and an explosion of black mist, the enemies were no more.
There was a brief silence as the group below tried to catch their breaths.
“Is everyone alright?” Joker asked, giving them each a probing look. They were all injured, but nodded nevertheless.
’Now!’ Akechi thought. His left hand gripped the hilt of his sword, the claws on the gauntlet of his right scraped quietly against metal as he gripped his mask, preparing to unleash his persona. This was his chance. They were easy pickings. He could take them, he knew it!
So why the fuck was he hesitating? He was this close to getting revenge on Shido. And then…
”And then what?”, a voice whispered in his head.
‘You’ll go back to your own empty apartment and wait until Shidos hitman finds you?’
He hated that voice. He tried to ignore it, but he found that he had involuntarily taken a step backwards, crouching low behind the balconies railing.
’No, it’s now or never!’
He hopped back up onto the railing, sword drawn, ready to ambush his prey. But it turned out someone had beaten him to it.
A man with black hair, tattoos and yellow-tinted sunglasses had approached them below, cutting off their escape route. He was slowly clapping in mock applause, and another group of cognitions followed him in formation, fanning out to the sides as the two parties faced each other.
It looked almost civil, the way they talked, but the tension in their body languages betrayed them all. Akechi was a little too far away to listen in on their quiet conversation. Not that it mattered, terribly.
He could guess that this person was the mysterious “Cleaner” who held the fifth letter, and contrary to the Thieves, he was quite familiar with the kind of work this man did. This was the man Shido called whenever the Black Mask failed to locate someone in Mementos.
He’d always been careful around that one. Sometimes, when he had disappointed Shido for some reason or other, he had been paranoid about that man paying him a visit.
But this was good. Wasn’t it? That cognition held the last letter, and the fight (that was inevitably going to happen any second) would leave the Phantom Thieves dead and the Cleaner hopefully somewhat injured, so Akechi would be able to collect his loot and take Shido out today. In an hour, that bastard could be dead.
’Why am I worrying then?’ he wondered, hands twitching nervously against his weapons.
And then an awful lot happened in a very short amount of time.
Shadows burst out of the Cognitions, and he could tell at a glance that they were exceptionally strong ones. The Thieves didn’t stand a chance.
The Ongyo-Ki went straight for the leader, his black glaive missing Joker by mere inches as he dodged backwards. The small fry fanned out around them and cut the rest of the team off, separating them for the tactical advantage.
’Oh, they’re so done for’. He felt himself reminded of the arena in Sae-sans Palace, where he had watched the fights from above in a similar fashion. Somehow, he couldn’t find it in himself to enjoy it this time around.
One of the goons jumped Panther, who was still reeling from the earlier blow, and only Skull saved her from being skewered. In that moment, Akechi suddenly remembered that she mentioned a girlfriend once or twice. Why ever that mattered. She staggered back onto her feet, still alive with a ‘mere’ nasty gash across her side.
’Oh no…’ He winced internally at the sight. He knew from experience how much stomach injuries hurt, and Takamaki probably hadn’t as high of a pain tolerance as he did after years of fighting alone. Hell, he had seen her nearly incapacitated by a hot Crêpe that burned her tongue once, when she had shown him her favourite stand for his food blog.
’She won’t be re-joining the fight’, he knew for sure. Neither was Queen, and Skull and Noir had their hands full guarding the two.
Fox and Mona tried to gang up on one of the Shadows to cut a path to Joker, who at this point had been scraped by the blades of the Ongyo-Ki multiple times, bleeding heavily from cuts in his forearms that were up in a defensive position.
He noticed that none of the Phantom Thieves were using spells anymore.
’No.’ Joker was his to take down. He’d been so close in the interrogation room. The image of the dead cognition flashed in his mind, as vivid as when he’d first seen it two weeks ago and from then on every night in his nightmares.
He watched as the Thieves struggled. This was not a fight. This was a slaughter. It was inconceivable.
The group that had been his rivals, his brief ‘teammates’, that nearly outsmarted him with their ridiculous plan, were getting taken down by a bunch of middle-class Shadows.
The people that had known he was out to kill them and had still been nothing but nice to him. He still had those stupid little trinkets they had thrown at him on occasion. He remembered his discussions about his favourite TV-show with Sakura, and about his cases with Nijima.
“Is this where your Justice leads you?” That fucking voice was back, and he distantly realized that it sounded like it came from his left (and in conclusion from outside his own brain). He briefly glanced that way, but there was only the wall.
It was unfair, he pondered. None of them had really done anything to deserve dying like this. They also had people who cared about them in the real world, family and friends and partners. But that was none of his business, was it now? They decided to come here of their own free will. Shit happened. Tough luck. Not his problem. And what did he care about Justice?
‘What’s the point of winning if it’s not me who beats them?’ he thought.
He leaned forward a little further, the shift almost tipping him off the edge. Every fibre of his being was taught in anticipation of something.
”This game is truly unjust. You have been used against your will and without your knowledge. But you do not have to play by their rules, Justice! You may yet turn the tide!” Something blue glittered in his periphery, yet he didn’t dare look away from the battle below as he frantically followed the movements of his rival.
The boss struck against Joker, who dodged the curved blades on the end of the staff in the last possible moment, and used the opening to advance. But the Shadow wrenched his weapon back and sideways, catching Joker in the leg. He went down hard, bleeding from a deep cut in his calves, and there was no way in hell he would be getting up fast enough.
’No!’, he thought. And then ’Please don’t!’
He wouldn’t die there, would he? He was better than this.
The weapon crashed down into the floor next to Joker, who rolled out of the way with millimetres to spare.
’You can’t!’ Kurusu had promised him a rematch, and Akechi would hold him to that if it was the last fucking thing he did.
Mona was flung over the railing; his cat claws the only thing saving him from falling into the water.
Akechi couldn’t go down there. Best-case scenario, he would reveal himself to the Phantom Thieves and his years of planning would be for nothing. Worst-case, they would finish him off whilst they had the chance. It would be the smart thing to do.
He drew his blade.
’They won’t.’ He knew that for certain.
Joker’s coat caught on the weapon, keeping him pinned down. The Ongyo-Ki gave a sign to one of his underlings, who abandoned his fight with Fox and went straight for Kurusu.
He leapt forward without his conscious input. The myriad of unfinished thoughts, insecurities and what-ifs inside his head made way for the strongest feeling of ’I refuse!’ he ever had. No matter their interpersonal grievances, this could simply not be the end for the Phantom Thieves.
God-FUCKING-dammit! was the last coherent thought he had, overriding everything else. He didn’t know who or what he was cursing, maybe the Shadows, maybe the Thieves, probably himself, but it didn’t matter, he landed and rolled, and the Shadow advancing on Joker was impaled by a red, serrated blade the same moment Akechi turned to the Ongyo-Ki and finally released his fury.
“Come to me! LOKI!”
The black-and-white Persona manifested in an instant, awaiting its commands. He knew he had to finish this battle in record speed; he’d already screwed himself over even coming down here. The Shadows in this Palace had targeted him in the past. Shido’s cognitions would try to end him the moment they laid eyes on him.
He could already feel their attention turning towards him. The Phantom Thieves were another, albeit smaller concern. They were next to useless right now, but they could get actively in his way if they decided to treat him as an enemy instead of the temporary ally he had become once more. He had also no idea how they would react to him after the battle, but he was convinced that he would not be allowed to simply walk away and pretend it never happened.
The battlefield was another issue. The Shadows and the Thieves were split up into multiple smaller fights, and he realized that he could not use any AoE attacks without running the risk of killing them.
Which admittedly had been his goal like thirty seconds ago, so it was incredibly irritating that he had changed his mind about that. He was used to fighting alone against multiple foes, so of course his fighting style aimed to do as much damage to as many things as possible. Fighting with the others had been irritating at best, always needing to keep their positions in mind to avoid accidentally hitting them. The support had been quite welcome, almost cancelling out the inconvenience.
He had however zero experience when it came to actively protecting someone else in battle.
He realized for the first time that he had precisely three attacks he could reliably aim at a single foe in these close quarters, and he liked none of them in this situation.
He calculated all this in a split second, experience of three years instinctively telling him what could and what wouldn’t work.
“Laevateinn!” Loki surged forwards and attacked its designated target, trying to end this encounter in a single blow. Simultaneously, Akechi wrenched his own blade free from the Shadow next to him. It was readying an attack, the stabwound not enough to destroy it, and he quickly tried to sidestep.
“Crow?!?” came the familiar voice from behind him. Akechi had expected the surprise, but the unmasked joy in Joker’s tone just didn’t make sense. He could tell from hearing alone that he had that stupid grin on his face. Suddenly, he froze mid-movement.
The voice came from behind him. If he stepped away, the Shadow would have a clear path to Joker.
He abandoned his dodge and attempted to bring his blade up to defend instead, but he just wasn’t fast enough. Pain exploded in his left shoulder. The sword went clattering away, knocked from his grip by the force of the attack.
Akechi tskd at the Shadow. This was an inconvenience. But he was not in trouble, not yet.
Well, he was in deep trouble, actually, now that he had the others watching. He could win this fight no problem… But he was reluctant to go there in front of the others.
He had tried so hard to keep his masks on around them. They had seen a few of them slip, he knew that, and after the Casino he couldn’t really hope to keep up the appearance any longer, but there was no way they could know just how fucked up he was inside, not if he wanted keep any possibly remaining sympathies. He was already partially at their mercy - if they got out of this Palace, they would hold almost all the cards.
With a quick glance over his shoulder, he tried to assess Loki’s position, preparing to send his Persona’s blade against the Shadow instead. But to his surprise, the Ongyo-Ki was not dead, which added the final straw to the rapidly increasing pile of bad decisions that had been spawned from his lack of impulse-control.
Everybody’s attention was now locked on him, a weird mirror of his performances on TV. The audience awaited his next move. He vaguely registered the surprised and excited (excited?) shouting from his former teammates, but it was the Boss Shadow that got his attention.
“Now, now”, it growled, “for that one, we actually do have a commission. How nice of you to finally show up!”
’Ah, fuck it’, he thought, ’if they want a show, a show they will get!’
He reached for the magic of his Persona once more, feeling for the surge of the powerful, all-encompassing strength and determination to just fight that only he could command.
Red and black mist shrouded the Shadows, and their pained howls were soon replaced by low growling and screeching as they turned against each other. The others watched the spectacle unfold with wide eyes, but he didn’t let up; saving a bit of that force for himself, he felt his thoughts being washed away as he surrendered himself to the thrill of an all-out battle to the death.
The pain in his arm became a faint background noise as he picked his sword back up, sending Loki in for another Laevateinn, the toll it took on his body insignificant in this moment.
“Why don’t you just shut it and DIE, like you are supposed to!” he screamed, and then the battle became a blur.
He was distantly aware of the Shadows trying to maul each other, with the Thieves weaving in-between them, although Akechi could not tell if they were fighting, retreating or maybe doing something else entirely.
His entire focus was on the Black Shadow in front of him. The stupid thing took his second attack and was still alive, and he took that as a personal offence. He went after it with everything he had, slashing with his sword and claws and unleashing Loki’s spells in rapid fire.
Finally, after what felt like an eternity that couldn’t have lasted more than a few seconds, the cursed thing dissipated into an explosion of smoke after he drove his sword deep into its neck.
His breath came in shallow, fast gasps. The exertion of the fight caught up rapidly as his self-inflicted status faded again. He’d been hit a few times - nothing major, but in combination with his all-out use of Loki, the battle had been a little draining.
He grinned at the feeling of his sore muscles. He felt elated, like only the combination of a good exercise and the adrenaline of battle could make him feel. It was great. It made him feel almost light-headed.
His arm really hurt. He quickly glanced at it, trying to assess the damage. He wasn’t prepared to see his shoulder sliced open like that. Blood ran down his arm in small rivulets, the drops falling off his gauntlet in a rhythmic drip-drip-dripping motion. It was mesmerizing.
There was also a slightly dizzy feeling accompanying the light-headedness, and he distantly observed that it was maybe more the blood loss than the adrenaline he was feeling right now.
Someone was talking to him.
“Watch out!” It sounded like Sakamoto. He managed to turn around, nearly stumbling as his legs refused to properly cooperate, but it was enough to see one of the crazed Shadows flying towards him.
Right. He had forgotten about them.
His last thoughts were tinged with embarrassment about this amateur mistake as he hoped the Thieves would eventually let him live that one down.