personavelvetroomdr | (no subject)

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[It's a perfectly ordinary day in Tokyo, if you ignore the fact that Akechi just got done enduring a horrific, white palace with crumbling architecture, creepy tentacles everywhere, and scraps of memory locked away and scattered like puzzle pieces, culminating in battling a tentacled abomination to free Wakaba Isshiki's Shadow from the prison of her mind, and... well. A mother-daughter reunion is always nice, he supposes.

He's on the phone when he stumbles in, deep in the midst of a conversation.]

Isshiki-san's condition is stable, but we'll have to relocate her before he notices anything amiss. ...Yes, Dad, I'm all right. Not that I don't appreciate the concern, but-

[The signal cuts out, and... ah. The Velvet Room. And not the Velvet Room of his childhood, but... this one.

At first he bristles, eyes narrowed into a razor-sharp glare. He has half a mind to complain to Igor about locking him out, but all signs point to Ren's "Igor" being impostor, and... no. Wait.

Recollection flashes before him. With that recollection, he grimaces.]

...Of course I'd end up back here.

[He shuts his eyes, brings a hand to his face, and breathes in deeply. He was such a stupid tween, and if people connect him to said tween... Who even knows how much time has passed here?]

[ooc: Older version of

fogboundcrow for the funny. Some info on his profile. Yes, he's wearing a Shujin uniform.]

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I wonder if I'm the only Akechi here that's any good in the kitchen. Took a lot of growing pains to get to that point, but Yu always had the patience of a saint. Still does, if I'm being honest.

[There's that air of wistfulness to his words again. There are so many people he wishes were here. Even before all this, so many of his friends and family were simply unavailable, save for long distance contact.

Now the distance has only grown.]

[ Head slightly tilted, he listens to the sad little note in Akechi's voice. ]

Homesick?

I have been even before this place.

[He looks away, his expression distant. Not quite hollow, but not all there.]

Five years in Inaba, five years finding happiness and a sense of belonging, and then that's all torn out from under me. I chose to go to Tokyo to pursue the case, and it's not as though I haven't seen my loved ones or kept in touch. But now I'm not only the lead detective on a high stakes, undercover case, but I also have to ensure this new generation of Persona users doesn't get themselves killed.

[ It's always weird when Akechi confides in him about his feelings back home, like Ren needs to turn around and spot the person behind him who Akechi's really talking to. It feels like that now, too, but Ren's kind of learned how to respond, or at least he thinks he bas. No unsolicited advice, nothing pitying. Though this Akechi might be different. ]

Sounds like you have a lot of responsibilities. Your baby self would be happy. [ He smiles a little. ] All that talk about proving himself.

Haha... He has no idea what's waiting for him, the good and the bad.

[His smile's slightly strained. There's a lot that goes unsaid. Loki. Call of Chaos. The trauma from the events of November and December... all of it immediately leaps to mind.]

I think a part of it is that he's so young. He doesn't completely grasp how playing the part of a "hero" can leave you with lingering scars.

[ Ren scribbles on the How to Talk to the Akechi From Shujin Who's Still the Wrong Akechi page in his little mental notebook. ]

But it was worth it, right? Even though it sucked. [ It's not a feeling Ren will share, if so. But his own Akechi would think it was, and this one seems cut from the same cloth in a lot of ways. ]

I would say so. I wouldn't be who I am today without those experiences, even if not all of them were pleasant and some have left me...

[He trails off, shaking his head.]

Ah, apologies. I'm making this all about me.

[ Ren blinks, nonplussed. ] Well, it's your storytime.

[He smacks a hand against his forehead. Right... the embarrassing prepubescent antics of his past self.]

Of course. My prepubescent stupidity...

[Well, he touched on his Shadow already, but hm...]

I actually tried to kill someone once. That someone being Tohru Adachi.

[...That's not the most pleasant icebreaker, but it seems... relevant? Maybe.]

[ It only really becomes clear how much Ren's previous look of confusion was a mask when it slips off his face. For a second, his expression is utterly, eerily blank as he struggles to... take that in. An Akechi who tried to murder someone. He'd kind of expect it of the creepy guy, but not this one. ]

Huh.

[ Yep, that's what he has to say. Any further processing will take a whole lot more time than he has right now. But then his facial expressions come back online, and he softens his gaze. ] Was that stupidity, though, or just desperation or emotional stress or something?

Edited 2023-08-28 04:24 (UTC)

...A lot of things happened with barely any time to breathe.

[But he might as well talk about it. He already dropped the large bombshell, after all.]

I mentioned how my dad was shoved into the TV. Adachi had Taro Namatame do it to keep us off his own trail, but while we went to rescue Dojima-san, he was left in charge of my sister's well-being... and he placed her into the TV while she was sleeping. Then that bastard called Namatame over, evidently, and pushed him in as well to set up a convenient red herring.

When we rescued Nanako, she was in critical condition from the TV world's fog. Very briefly, it seemed like she... died.

[He'll let that sink in first. The next part is... intense.]

[ Ren is quiet, partly because Akechi's confession is still echoing in his head, and partly because he remembers baby Akechi insisting that Nanako was one of the only people he needed. His eyes narrow with sympathy.

(But was Akechi lying? Why the hell would he lie about that? Ren's as sure as he can be that he hasn't given himself away. And even if he has, why would Akechi's response be to lie about a murder attempt of his own?) ]

...We nearly tried to shove Namatame into the TV, believing he was the true culprit. Then we remembered what he had said in the TV world. That it was a misunderstanding. That the detective pushed him in. That all he wanted was to "save" people...

[He takes a breath. This part is... good and bad. Funny how that happens.]

Soon after we spared Namatame, Nanako returned to life. She was weak... only cognizant for a moment, but it didn't matter to me.

She still could have died. I knew exactly who put her through that. We all confronted Adachi, but when he ran, I followed, determined to end him.

...That does sound like something your kid self would do.

[ Ren doesn't mean that as a compliment, either. Adachi was a known murderer, and Akechi was a baby. Sure, Baby Akechi thinks he's tough, and he maybe has more grit than your average preteen, but Ren still doesn't like the idea of him chasing after a killer. ]

In his defense, he had a powerful arsenal of Personas by then... but yes. It was stupid. And I nearly got a bullet through my skull for my efforts, had I not awakened Loki in that moment.

[Ah... Loki. The way he says that name, there's an air of... discomfort. Conflict. Loki is a lot of things. Not all of them pleasant.]

[ Ren is a little more on guard now, and doesn't let his expression slip. But he's silent for a brief moment as Akechi's words sink in. Had I not awakened Loki in that moment. A second, murderous awakening? Is Akechi fucking with him? Is he trying to make some kind of point, without saying it aloud...?

But he couldn't know that happened to Ren. Ren hasn't told anyone. He only told that one Akira that he awakened twice, not the circumstances. And there are weird parallels between people from different worlds... Ren is probably just being paranoid. Yeah. ]

A second awakening? Is that part of your wildcard thing?

[ It obviously isn't, since it happened to Ren. But it seems like a conclusion someone might come to without that knowledge. ]

Hmm... well, that depends. Our teammates all awakened to second and even third stages of their Personas, but Loki is separate from Robin Hood.

[He brings a hand over his heart, his posture stooped rather than perfectly straight.]

I think... perhaps Loki had been with me all along, but it wasn't until Adachi nearly killed me that he burst forth. His power was unlike anything I had felt. It was as if the chains holding my anger in place had abruptly shattered into pieces...

[It was equal parts liberating and terrifying. Maddening and intoxicating. Horrific and exhilarating...

And he wasn't proud of it in the aftermath.]

[ Sounds like Adachi did Akechi a favor, then. But Ren has a strong feeling that sentiment won't be welcome, and studying Akechi's hunched posture only reinforces it. ]

You don't like it? That that happened, I mean.

Ah, now that's the real question, isn't it?

[Hmm... How does he truly feel? It's a twisted, tangled up mess, to be sure.]

I admit. Loki's power was rather helpful when we confronted Adachi and the demigod that used his body as a vessel. So I used him. But I had come a long way since I started my journey. Where before I accepted my pent up rage as a comfortable cloak, by the time I stood against that wall, staring down the barrel of a gun, it was an afterthought...

Until it wasn't.

[ He tilts his head, considering this. ]

So you'd, like... reversed? From the little Akechi here who's chained up his better nature?

[ His own second awakening wasn't really like that. But maybe Akechi's was. ]

I suppose so. What used to be both sword and shield became secondary to finding strength in those around me and my desire to fight on their behalf.

[Heh... Funny how that turns out.]

It wasn't as though I stopped being angry, but my anger became more righteous and less self-serving. As I became happier, my negative feelings slipped into the background until they exploded back to the forefront when I'd thought Nanako had died.

[She didn't. That's what matters, but to a young boy for whom she was one of his first true signs of hope... It was devastating.]

That must've been scary. I don't just mean the Nanako and Adachi stuff. The awakening too, if it was an... eruption of bad feelings.

[ He nudges the last of his sushi in Akechi's direction. He doesn't really think even more sushi will cheer Akechi up, but he's a little short of options. ]

Oh, thank you.

[He'll accept the extra sushi. It's a kind gesture, after all.]

But yes. Especially as a thirteen year old... everything felt so extreme. In the moment, my surroundings were a haze. All I could think about was tearing him to pieces and surviving.

There's nothing wrong with survival. But you know that already. [ Akechi basically said it earlier. There are times when it's necessary to take drastic measures for one's safety. Ren knows that too, as well as anyone and better than most people.

He fiddles with his chopsticks. ] I think it's just like that sometimes. You have to fuck yourself up. [ He doesn't think he's revealing much by saying this, because he thinks it is just like that sometimes, inescapably. Just a fact of life. ]

Heh. Like when you stabbed the orphanage director?

[That's the closest comparison he can think of, and it even brings a wry smirk to his face.]