Chapter Text
Waking feels like popping a bubble. From the dreamy haze of spun sugar and soft caresses transitioning to the harsh groundedness of reality, Minato wakes from his slumber at the Great Seal each time, greeted by the howling of Erebus or the silence of the door.
Except that’s not necessarily true right now, considering he’s woken up on a particularly familiar floor. He surveys his surroundings from his position on his back, turning his head this way and that to find the familiar scenery of his high school rooftop.
Something still feels off, so Minato gathers himself up to push himself off the ground, and huh, was moving around always so… meaty?
He pats his hands against his cheeks, expecting it to feel cold like he always had back in the seal, considering he was very dead. Instead, warm skin greets his fingertips, and Minato is suddenly very, very aware of the conscious squeezing of lungs, the pumping of blood under thin skin, and the pulsating of his heart tap-dancing a rhythm he hasn’t heard in however long he’s been dead for.
Reasoning stands to show Minato is very much alive, and Minato’s first instinct is to reach out toward where he feels his bond, call out, “Ryoji,” because if Minato’s alive, if he’s here and not at the great seal—
Ryoji appears to him between blinks, yellow scarf and worried face, and Minato really needs to figure out this living thing again because manually breathing is an odd sensation when you’ve been dead long enough to acclimate to it. The expansion of lungs doesn’t feel the same as before the Great Seal, but then again, it wasn’t as if he was paying particular attention to it.
“What happened?” He asks, watching Ryoji tilt his head and walk around his still laid back body. He’s still adjusting to having flesh and blood for a badly rather than whatever incorporeal spirit he’d been the last time he was awake. Even blinking was loud and fleshy, covering squishy eyes. “I’m… not in the seal.”
“I’m not sure,” his other half admits, troubled. He rocks back and forth on his heels, and Minato is getting used to having proper sensation from the cold, hard floor. It takes a bit, but he manages to sit himself up enough to watch Ryoji in the cold winter snow. No wonder he’s cold. It’s not spring yet. “It almost feels like the dark hour again, where the plane of shadows overlap with reality.”
Almost. Almost feels like the dark hour again. Minato very carefully turns his head and ignores how the muscles twinge and pull in my neck. Nobody’s on the rooftop. Nobody, aside from them. They’ll probably have to check if everyone’s in coffins again if the dark hour is truly back, but the sky is dusted by ivory clouds and dancing snowflakes so he truly doubts it.
It wouldn’t make sense, not when Minato had created the great seal, but he’s not at the seal right now. He’s so fragile, so human right now.
But what about Ryoji? What about Erebus and Nyx?
“Come,” he demands, hands stretching out. Ryoji obliges, bending enough so Minato, sitting down, can reach him.
His hair is soft and his breath spells wisps of fog in the chilled air. Bitter cold bites at Minato’s exposed skin, a stark contrast to just how warm Ryoji is, even in his thin collared shirt and suspenders. Minato can’t remember if he felt like this when he was alive, when he was ignorant about the dark hour, Nyx, and the Fall.
But he appeared when Minato called, and Minato can still feel the tether he has to Ryoji, to Thanatos, to Death, and so Minato hesitates to say if he he’s just Mochizuki Ryoji and not Thanatos, not the Appraiser of Nyx.
He asks, “How do you feel?” And Ryoji cocks his head into Minato’s hand like a dog asking for more pets.
“I don’t know,” he finally says, backing up. He looks to the side, watching a building, a bird, the sea, the sun — watching the life he’d missed while he was no longer human. “I don’t feel like Thanatos, not like this, but I don’t feel completely like the Harbinger either. But I—” His gaze drops to his hands —“But I don’t feel fully human either.”
Minato scrutinizes him. Then, he grits his teeth and puts strength into his legs, trying to stand. They strain and moan like he’s been sitting for far too long, static running up his nerves and joints creaking with every movement. Still, he perseveres. He stands, legs under him, wobbly but straight, and holds onto Ryoji’s lonely frame.
This close, he sees bewilderment in his eyes. There was grief of no longer being human, juxtaposed by the love of humanity itself. Everything that made him Mochizuki Ryoji, the human, and everything that made him Thanatos, personification of gentle death, reflected in azure irises. Minato looks at him, and speaks to him as his distorted reflection: “You are Mochizuki Ryoji, human, and you are Thanatos, Death embodied. That will not change.”
Ryoji isn’t just one of them. He is all of them, and that is what Minato loves about him. That is what Minato has accepted from him. He wants him by his side whole, as Ryoji, as Thanatos, or even as Pharos, or not at all.
“Now,” Minato says, still clinging onto Ryoji’s shoulders, “Do you think we can find a coat back at the dorm, or will I have to freeze?” He’s only in his spring uniform, blazer and dress shirt and thin slacks, and he really doesn’t feel like losing parts of his newly returned body.
Ryoji laughs at him. Neither of them comment on how choked up he sounded.
(A yellow scarf dancing on nonexistent wind in the Sea of Souls. A black mark just under an eye like a stain on a blank canvas. A pained smile. “Think about it this way: No matter how bright the moon is, in the end, it is only the reflection of the sun’s light.”
“Are you saying what you are is not truly human? Not truly living?”
“No.” There’s hands holding his. A weight pressed into him like they’re trying to meld back into one. “In the end, I am just a reflection, just a shadow.”
“… Liar.”
He’s always been more than that.)
They find a coat for him in his dorm room. The building itself feels untouched, and yet Minato sees the signs of aging and lack of use, signs of preservation and past lives.
The dorm itself was locked, of course, but Minato is the Universe and his other half is Death, so willing the door to open for them is no big deal. Especially in this reality where the plane of shadows and regular reality have started melding together, Minato finds himself holding more power, more influence than he’s comfortable with.
He probably would’ve been able to make himself more layers, in retrospect, but it’s too late for that.
When he presses against the world, though, it feels like he’s trapped in a box with no way to get out to the Sea of Souls or the Great Seal. Like taping a box shut, this displaced plane of existence has become a playground for personas and shadows and gods. It probably wouldn’t really stop Minato, of course, if he really was desperate to break through. It feels unnatural for the two planes to meld together, like trying to mix oil and water and expecting it to emulsify. Here, personas wield far more influence over the average person. Here, Minato and Ryoji are trapped in a glass bauble.
Nobody on the streets were in coffins and the landscape of Iwatodai was just as he remembered, but everyone just seemed… off. Like they were too placid, too domestic, held away from him in plexiglass cages and blissful thoughts. It was a sort of artificial paradise created by malice-less creatures and low protective instincts. It was a sort of artificial paradise where nobody knew of suffering, and only knew of joy.
It was completely the opposite of Minato’s own experience.
None of his other personas can be summoned aside from Ryoji right now, but Ryoji was the only one to have a human body in reality to begin with. So they weren’t in the dark hour proper, but it certainly felt like the dark hour when it was influencing reality. Like the weeks leading up to the fight atop Tartarus, supernatural influence leaking through the cracks.
So when Ryoji’s preoccupied from where he’s trying on Minato’s other winter coat, dyed a charcoal black, Minato figures he should consider his options on what he should do to about this distortion.
Everyone was happy here, in this garden of Eden. Their happiness was paper-thin, tempered only by the emptiness and hollowness brought on by people who knew not of trauma or hurt. Like a mask with nothing behind it, shallow saccharine sweetness with no undertones or other flavors.
It wasn’t true happiness. It was emptiness. Softness, chosen because you know not of what else you could choose to be. Tenderness, because you don’t know how to anger and rage and protect yourself from any hurt. Meaningless, because there was no true joy of living or bonding or suffering or supporting others through struggle.
Thus, Minato watches his other half, his reflection, and says, “I want to track down—“
“—the distortion.”In the mirror, Ryoji meets Minato’s eyes, vivid cerulean to steel blues. “You won’t be able to interfere,” he says, mild, smoothing down the lapels and adjusting the fit of the coat. He was taller than Minato, though their shoulders were about the same, meaning the coat sat shorter on him. “I saw what was going on while you were sleeping; another Journey is taking place right now.”
And Fool’s journeys are not to be interfered with. That’s fine.
“I want to track down the distortion,” Minato repeats, because he’s not trying to interfere, he’s trying to understand. The Velvet Room isn’t an option since none of the doors are here, not any that he can sense, but they tend to be closer to the distortion and the Fool. They’d need to track down the distortion to get answers on what’s going on. Ryoji understands his words; he finishes his sentences and can predict his thought process. A wry smile is shot his way as Ryoji turns around, yellow scarf around his neck and clad in Minato’s coat.
“Alright,” he says, and they head to Tokyo together.
Subways and trains don’t particularly hold the fondest memories for Minato, what with that one Full Moon shadow taking control of one back when he first started working with SEES. They do, however, feel like liminal spaces; passages and hallways leading to one place or another.
It’s why he feels especially off-kilter when he and Ryoji walk off the train and gets hit with just how more intense the distortion is in Tokyo. The heart of it is here, that’s for certain. It feels wrong. The way you’ve missed a step when going down stairs, the way you’ve reached for your keys only for them to not be there. The feeling of restraint lingers in the air like grief after death; puppet strings waiting to be pulled taut, the hand yanking on them not far behind.
“How is it?” Ryoji asks, pulling him along to scan their pass, bought by the money he’d had in his room, and walk out of the subway station. Tokyo and their stupidly confusing subway lines. He may have been used to them, what with having lived here and there once, but that didn’t mean Minato couldn’t complain about them.
“Irritating,” he said, and let Ryoji lead the way to the heart of the distortion. Or the Fool. Or wherever he was leading Minato. He never asked, and Ryoji didn’t tell.
It didn’t matter all that much; Ryoji loved Minato. He wouldn’t — couldn’t — cause him harm. Not unless he had no choice, like that moonlit December night. Not unless he was forced to, like the fight for the fate of the world.
Minato trusted him. That was enough.
Which is why he suddenly perked up and accosted a duo of students, looking around their own perceived age, he doesn’t stop him.
“Hello!” Ryoji chirps, hand still in his. He pulls at their intertwined hands so Minato stands shoulder to shoulder with him. It could be because he’s worried his legs will give out on him again or because he wants the close contact. “Do you mind if we ask you some questions?”
“Not at all,” the dark haired one said, civilized, even as he gripped the wrist of the murderous looking boy next to him. “Ask away, but we are in a bit of a hurry.”
An elbow touches Minato’s own, so he speaks. “Have you seen any dead people come back to life recently?” He pauses, before tacking on, “Do you know of any good cafes nearby?”
Murder-boy sharpens his gaze, wine-red eyes turning from his friend(?) to Minato and Ryoji, assessing. “You—“
“Leblanc in Yongen-Jaya is pretty good; coffee and curry might sound weird, but don’t knock it ‘til you try it.” The grip on murder-boy tightens, and behind the glare of glasses, silver irises narrow. Despite that, he smiles, treading the tightrope of threatening and taunting. “As for your other question, you’ll have to get your answers later; we have something planned.” He lifts his lips, exposing far too many teeth to be fully friendly. “It’s nice to me-heet you, ho!”
Minato nods at him. “I am in your care.” He squeezes Ryoji’s hand, and starts walking away so their fellow teenagers can get into supernatural persona fights like they did.
Hopefully they could find the Velvet Room somewhere nearby.
They find Leblanc before any of the Velvet Room doors and so settle into a plush booth, ordering the recommended curry and coffee from the shop’s boss.
Once he was certain the boss was too busy brewing and plating their orders to pay attention, he turned to Ryoji and succinctly summarizes every single thought in his head with a confused look shot in his direction.
“I was summoned by him, once,” Ryoji offers. As Thanatos, he does not say, but Minato understands enough.
That dark haired kid was a Fool, a Wildcard. He knew that based off their brief conversation before. Minato himself distinctly remembers the fusions and other services offered by Elizabeth in his Velvet Room, in his elevator.
He wonders what it looks like now. Now that he’s arrived at his answer, now that the elevator has arrived at its apex, what’s outside the elevator? Or, maybe, what has changed inside the elevator?
He pushes that thought aside and focuses. The new Wildcard. “You think he’ll explain—“
“—What’s going on?” Ryoji finishes. “I think there’s a high chance he knows what’s happening,” Ryoji tells him, cheery as ever. Minato really can’t understand it. He’s done maybe three major things today and exhaustion has crept into his skin to wrap around his bones along with his flesh. “If he’ll tell us.”
They stop talking as the boss comes around and places two sets of curry and coffee on the table. Minato thanks him quietly, punctuated with a sip at the coffee and the sound of Ryoji’s praise at the curry. It proves to be worthy of the Wildcard’s recommendation, smooth without overwhelming bitterness, and he silently files away Leblanc as a place to go if he ever gets resurrected and gets to be in Tokyo. Again.
The curry was nice too; the spice is present enough without being overwhelming, hints of sweetness in the undertone. The pieces of meat and root vegetables are cooked soft enough to be eaten without trouble but not overcooked. As far as first meals after resurrections went, Minato would confidently say he’d be willing to eat it again. Even if he had to figure out how to use utensils and find out how chewing and swallowing worked. Again.
They nurse their cups in the booth, waiting until the sky turned dark and the people they were looking for walked in. The boss greets them with a, “Welcome back,” and the two teenagers at the bar perk up, along with the woman sat next to them.
Minato waits until the Wildcard is finished greeting the others inside the bar, observing. He seems hesitant on how to interact with the other adult, though he’s close with both the boss and teens. Murder-boy from earlier parked himself at the door, glaring murderously at everyone and everything.
It’s only when he’s finished placating the ginger-haired girl and finished taunting the darker haired boy does the Wildcard turn to him and Ryoji.
“How did you find Leblanc?” He questions, all debonair grin and friendly tone. “Coffee? Curry? Atmosphere? Is it as delightful as you imagined?”
“Amazing,” Ryoji gushes, with Minato nodding in agreement. “I never imagined coffee and curry could go so well together!”
The Wildcard winks at them. “You’ll have to save that excitement for later.” Then, turning to the rest of the people in the cafe, he announces, dragging both Ryoji and Minato out, “I’ll be out late tonight.”
“Be back before curfew,” the boss says, Shinjiro-fond. The Wildcard shoots a grin at him, Minato drops too many bills on the table to pay for the curry and coffee, and they’re made to walk; murder-boy ushering them along with the big, mean look in his eyes and violent aura.
Once deemed far enough away, the charming, charismatic young man drops away, leaving a deadly serious Wildcard. Minato doesn’t miss his companion situating himself between his Wildcard and him and Ryoji, close enough to meet their potential threat first and cover the Wildcard if needed.
“Here should be fine.” The Wildcard draws in on himself, before squaring his shoulders and standing straight. “What you said earlier,” he begins, measured inhales as he paces himself, “About the dead coming back to life.”
Ryoji tilts his head, pillowing it on Minato’s shoulder, though he doesn’t actually put his weight on him. “What about it?”
“How did you notice?”
“It’s a bit hard to not notice,” Minato comments, bland, “When you’re the one that’s supposed to be dead.”
Both murder-boy and Wildcard stare.
“What the fuck do you mean you’re supposed to be dead?” Murder-boy demands.
“It means I’m supposed to not be alive. And I shouldn’t be alive unless the collective whole of humanity decided they wanted to live.” Or something. If Erebus didn’t exist, the Great Seal would no longer be needed, so Minato should be ejected from the seal. And either be completely dead or somewhat alive. Probably. “So? How did you notice reality being distorted?”
Murder-boy stays quiet, but the Wildcard answers him.
“My cat,” the Wildcard said, half-mournfully. “He turned human.”
Odd, but Ryoji was literally the personification of death in a human form, and he turned into a door, so who is he to judge. Ryoji nudges his head against his, so Minato lets him speak next. “Do you know what’s causing the distortion?”
“Someone,” the Wildcard says, even as murder-boy protests with a whip-quick turn of his face and grit of his teeth, “Took control of humanity to answer wishes and erase suffering.”
Minato waits a minute to digest that. “Okay,” he says, and feels like he should be owed a drink or three, drinking laws be damned, because who the hell was controlling humanity for their own martyrdom complex. So the dead coming back to life is because of someone’s wish. Cool.
And suddenly Minato is very, very aware of his bonds, his Social Links. He is very beloved, he knows, and loves much in turn. That was how he became the Great Seal. That was how he created the Universe. He clenches Ryoji’s hand a little tighter, and does not think about the people he lost on his journey.
Someone who can grant wishes, at the cost of free choice, free will. What a terrible power. What a terrible tragedy.
You cannot save someone who does not want to be saved unless you fundamentally alter them. To save someone, they must want to be saved. They must want to change.
(He doesn’t think about Strenga, about the man with long hair and a crown of thorns. He doesn’t think of Chidori, who sought relief from pain, sought happiness, shot for the sake of love. Shot for the sake of change.)
To take that choice away from them, to twist them into becoming something they are not, all for the sake of — what? Satisfying their own ego? That saviorism, that performative know-it-all behavior, it boiled down to satisfying themself. Not anyone else. They are not qualified to solve everyone’s problems. They are not qualified to place themselves as a savior, as a wish-granter.
You cannot save everyone, and you cannot save someone who does not want to be saved. That is what Minato had understood on his own journey.
Minato was Messiah, but Messiah only stopped the Fall of the world, taking on a burden of sacrifice so life could go on. What they did with that life was their choice, their decision.
And then comes the question: could you truly bring the dead back to life? Defy the natural cycle, pluck certain souls out of the grave and push them into a vessel built from dreams and memories? Minato… isn’t certain. He’s here, hale and whole, soul and body, but he didn’t really die in a traditional manner.
Relying on your bonds to create a seal that prevents Erebus from meeting Nyx isn’t really something anyone could do.
His body might’ve died without his soul in it, but his soul itself was attached to the seal. Without a need for a seal, he theoretically could’ve gotten a new body and stuffed his soul in it, since it was never reaped.
He looks to Ryoji, Death’s expression pensive and thinking, having straightened himself up when Minato was lost in thought. When he meets his gaze in a wordless question, Ryoji shakes his head. “The dead can’t truly come back to life,” he states, and because he is Thanatos, he is Death, Minato believes him. “Cognitions, built off memories, however, can be made to simulate ‘resurrecting’ them.”
“Why do you say that?” Murder-boy questions, barbed and needle sharp. “The two of you are contradicting.”
They don’t really have the time to explain how Ryoji is an amalgamation of Minato’s love for life and the personification of death, or that Minato became a door to seal a god, so Ryoji just shakes his head.
Murder-boy is visibly displeased, but satisfies himself with a bark of, “Joker,” putting a code name? Nickname? To the new Wildcard’s face. They really pushed the wildcard concept, huh.
“Yes, Crow,” Joker says, seemingly distracted with something. He must be juggling five different plans and ten different personas in his head right now. “I heard it.”
“It’s up to you whether to believe us or not.” Ryoji fidgets with the hem of his borrowed coat again before guiding Minato closer, a sunflower seeking sunlight or a moth drawn to a flame. “Either way, we got what we came for.”
Joker looks startled. “Aren’t you persona users? You’re not staying?”
“We can’t,” Minato interjects flatly. “Our journey has long been over. Interfering with another Fool’s journey isn’t possible for us.” Belatedly, he adds, “If you really can’t believe that part, ask your Velvet Room attendant.”
Joker nods, solemn. Crow looks between them with his murder-expression on, and Minato is starting to think that’s just his regular face. It could be the confusion, too.
“At least explain this ‘Velvet Room’ you’re talking about,” Crow complains, but complies relatively easily with not interrogating them further.
“I,” Minato says, blatantly ignoring Crow, “Would be willing to continue talk on this more if you want.” He pauses, thinking. “I don’t have a phone on me, so I’ll be at Leblanc around this time if you take me up on it.” He tucks his hands, along with Ryoji’s, into his pockets. “Or just summon Thanatos. Ryoji can bring me to you.”
Crow notes, dour, “You seem sure of that.”
“Ryoji found you in the first place,” Minato reminds them. “And I’m sure he can find you again.”
They walk off to the sounds of Joker attempting to explain the Velvet Room, Wildcards, and whatever the hell else needed to understand their whole conversation. Minato’s just glad they didn’t ask too many questions, because he’s tired and would quite literally start biting people for a soft bed if the conversation went on for a little longer. He’s blaming his new(?) body.
Ryoji must sense it, seeing as Minato is both slumping on him and laying more and more of his weight onto him as they walk, but he doesn’t say a word. In fact, as Minato’s eyes start slipping closed uncontrollably, he’s pretty sure Ryoji is halfway to carrying him completely, feeling his hand leave his pocket and an arm snaking around his waist to support him.
He doesn’t know when he fully falls asleep, only that when he does, it’s a weightless, floaty thing, and that he will be safe with Ryoji.