all your mother's weaves and your father's threads

[flightpen]

Ren hasn't seen the Velvet Room in a while.

There was at time when he was in here every week, fusing Personas to Caroline's acerbic commentary or listening to Yaldabaoth mutter ominous words of praise. It was different in January, like a lot of things, but the point is that it's gone now. He's not even sure Lavenza and Igor survived what happened.

And yet here he is, in what's recognizably the Velvet Room. But it's changed. It's not a prison anymore, even though this would be the best time for it; Ren's heart is in chains. What was it Akechi said to him? Your heart is free. Maybe back then.

Never mind that. Igor, if it is Igor, is unforthcoming. Make bonds—as if Ren can make bonds when people can't even have a meaningful conversation. He'll be returned to the moment he left—as if he wants to go there. His friends are happy, Akechi is alive, and Ren, like Maruki himself, stands outside the world. When he tries to press, Igor gets cryptic and nonsensical, and that's so fucking familiar lately that Ren doesn't bother to keep trying.

You might find him in the following situations:


1: the rockrose and the thistle will whistle as you moan

Maruki has left him alone, mostly. God's favorite. As far as Ren can figure, it's because he knows perfectly damn well that Ren finds his reality repulsive, and he wants Ren to accept it on his own. The implication there is that Maruki also knows deep down that people aren't themselves once he changes their cognition, but that's not a surprise. Maruki talks a big game, but on some level he must know what he's doing. Surely.

Anyway, like we were saying, he's left Ren mostly alone. But he loses time, comes back to himself with the coffee cold or the sun at a different angle or an awful TV show at the end of its saccharine episode. And although he never remembers feeling what preceded it, he knows. Too much despair, too much bleak hopelessness, and Maruki turns him off like a lightbulb until it's gone again. Can't accept the new world if he's too depressed. The stupid self-defeating hypocrisy of it is annoying as hell—is he meant to accept the new reality of his own accord or isn't he? But there was a time when it would've pissed him off a lot more.

He stands in front of Igor's desk, in a place he doesn't recognize, unsure where he is or what's going to happen to him, or where his friends are, or whether this is a new stage of Maruki's reality or something entirely different, and despair swallows him whole. He waits to be shut down.

And waits. And waits, saturated in misery like he hasn't in weeks. For a split second he almost finds himself grateful to Maruki for taking it away, but he flinches back from going down that road. Like this, frozen, waiting to blink and find that his legs hurt from standing too long, he's barely aware of his surroundings.


2: all the pins inside your fretted head and your muttered whens and hows

Having pulled himself together (and not lost any time, as far as he can tell?), Ren decides that the obvious first stop is the conspicuous board that stands in the strange Velvet Room. It doesn't look... Velvet Room-y. It looks like it was brought in from outside, and as he scans its bizarre contents, he realizes he's right.

The business about Akechis and Rens being fated to be together makes him feel a little sick, so he skims it quickly and moves on. Demons, vampires, okay, that's... he'll deal with that when he has to. But as he reads the list of Akechi codenames, his eyes land on one in particular. In the middle of the corvids and the predators, there's Sparrow.

The description leaves him without any doubt. His stomach sinks. Is Akechi okay? Can he even survive in a place like this? How is Ren going to find him?


3: you gently gift it to me 'cause you've no clue how to sew

In a first, helpless attempt to locate his Akechi (different enough from other Akechis, apparently, to be identified on sight... well, that's true enough), Ren decides to head into Tokyo and go looking for places Akechi still enjoys. Kichijoji is an obvious one, with the jazz bar and Inokashira Park and his apartment, the location of which he kept behind his lips the entire time Ren knew him, only to immediately invite him over in February. But instead of taking the train, Ren walks. Travel is strangely quick, and it gives him time to look at the cognitions, which the board claimed were eerie.

The board wasn't wrong. They don't even seem like the brainwashed people Ren is used to—cognitions is definitely the better term. At least the people back home have some variability in how they act, and at least they have some kind of mild reaction if you inconvenience them. Ren steps in front of them once or twice, sticks out his leg to trip one of them even, and they don't even frown at him.

Maruki's reality is still new. Maybe this is where everyone is going to end up; automatons, puppets, walking around like video game NPCs. His skin crawls. He stands to the side of a busy road in Shibuya and watches, stomach churning.


[[ooc: This is the Ren from pheasantboy's universe.]]

Comments

[cybermask]

She shoved him when he reached for her hands. "Who gave you the right to make decisions for someone else? He's fucking suffering every god damn day. He wants nothing more than to be free." She's so pissed. "You aren't god, and if your choices are any proof, I hope you never are."

[flightpen]

"What do you mean, he's suffering every day." Akechi had been a lot of things at home, but suffering wasn't one of them. What the fuck is going on here? He glares down at her; his hands tighten on hers as he tries to pry her fingers of his collar. "Tell me where he is."

At least he's not mopey anymore.

[cybermask]

She laughed, removing her hands from him. "Why don't I show you? I can show you what you did to him." She wasn't sure how her new friend would react but Ren-Akira, what ever he was deserved to see it firsthand.

[flightpen]

Unfortunately for Futaba, Ren has already been informed of certain developments. "I'm not following you into Mementos to get killed by his Shadow. Do you know where my actual Akechi is? The guy who's walking around in the real world?"

[cybermask]

"Who cares? He's happy as can be, he can't even remember anything that upsets him a little. He's just a broken shell of a man." She continued laughing. "You might meet his shadow if you see him anyways."

[flightpen]

She has no idea where he is, or she isn't going to tell him. Fine. He takes a step back.

"Don't talk about him like that. He's still a human being. Just because he forgets being upset, that doesn't mean he doesn't fucking feel it."

[cybermask]

"He's the furthest thing from a human being. He's just a.... a shadow. He's barely real. Whatever you did to him. He hates you. He truly fucking hates you." She ran her hand down her face. "I couldn't ever imagine doing that to my brother, no matter the consequences."

[flightpen]

"Shut up!"

His shout echoes down the concrete corridor of the side street. He glares at her, brimming with outrage, trying to catch his breath.

"For fuck's sake, Futaba, whatever you think of me, it has nothing to do with him! He's damaged, fine, you're right, but he's a person. He has hobbies, and memories, and friends, and—and a life. Being damaged didn't take away his humanity! And if you actually gave a shit about him, you would know that and you'd never say what you just said. You fucking hypocrite. You're just using Akechi as an excuse to yell at me while you say awful shit about him in the same breath."

[cybermask]

There was a moment of shock hearing his voice echo. It didn't change anything about her demeanor, just a recognized emotion.

"Real funny being pissed at me when you made that choice. He's not a person, he's the idea of a person someone else has. Who knows how much of that is real and how much of it was just hope that he was like that." She wasn't one to back down after she started something.

"I never wished for my brother to be like that. I'd follow his wishes and let him die."

[flightpen]

"Whose idea? Whose hope? I didn't want him to be like this. I miss who he used to be every goddamn day. Don't tell me it's my fault, I know it's my fault, that's not the point. The point is he was brought back for me, and I didn't want this. So he's fucking real. It doesn't matter whether you think he's creepy or he shouldn't have happened, he's here now."

His voice cracks on the last words. He sucks in a breath. What's the point in yelling at some other Ren's Futaba in the middle of a fake Shibuya? She's not going to decide Akechi is a person if he shouts loud enough.

"That's easy to say. About letting your brother die. But it's just words. I'd have said the same thing. I hope you never have to find out if you're right. What does your brother have to do with anything, anyway?"

He's not aware that his own Futaba has a brother. And he would be aware, surely, in Maruki's reality. One big happy family, or something.

[cybermask]

Fine whatever, he can believe what he wants about that thing. It isn't real to her. Certainly is the bane of her shadow friend's existence. That's really all that matters here. That her goro hated him. So she has to. "Just because you didn't wish it, doesn't mean someone else does. That Maruki guy." She hissed.

Her eyes widened for a moment as her hostility went back, she got to talk about her brother. How could she talk about him so viscously.

"Oh, fuck. Your from one of those worlds." She groaned. Of course he wouldn't understand. How to break the news to him. "I guess, the best way to explain it, is... Goro Akechi." She gestured elsewhere. "Futaba Akechi." Pointing to herself. "That's what my brother has to do with it."

[flightpen]

"...Oh."

That takes him aback enough that some of his anger dissipates. Okay, yeah, he would definitely know if those two were related. And this Futaba is obviously loyal to her brother, which is... not like it was for him at home, before everything.

"Uh. Congrats on connecting, I guess. Don't worry so much. Your brother's safe from me."

His mouth twists.

[cybermask]

Uh, what the fuck does that mean? She just tilted her head, trying to piece it together. "Was that a joke? I thought you had a sense of humor." She half joked. it was really more of a tease.

"I'm not worried about you fucking up my brother. How we 'connected' is it's own story that I doubt you'd be interested in. But, he is by extension a version of my brother. He doesn't deserve that." Her voice started to crack, letting a bit of her emotions come through.

[flightpen]

"...Cool. I agree."

What else is he supposed to say to that? No, actually, Akechi deserved to be lobotomized?

suicide mention

[cybermask]

She moved to her gremlin pose on the ground. Her legs to her chest, it felt safer. She was tired, and still angry. "Why? Why would you choose something against his wishes?"

Yeah, she got that he didn't want him to die, but he didn't want to live as that. There's a difference between suicide and what he was wanting him to do. He just didn't want to be broken.

[flightpen]

There are people he would try to explain it to, maybe, but this—this person who dismisses Akechi in a way even his own Futaba never did isn't one of them.

"Why?" He sounds tired, too. "You won't get it. You won't change your mind."

[cybermask]

Okay, well, the yelling seemed to take a lot out of the both of them. "I can't wrap my head around it. What motivation could you even have had?" She rested her head on her knees.

"He wants to die so much. He..." she trailed off. "He's so angry. Especially at you. I think he hates you."

[flightpen]

"I didn't have a motive. I just—I couldn't stand it anymore. People kept making me make that decision. The exact same damn decision. I only had so much to give."

He looks away, fidgeting with a lock of his hair. "That's all. I wasn't scheming anything. I didn't—I didn't want any of this. I just wasn't strong enough to make that decision again. I'm not surprised his Shadow hates me."

[cybermask]

She gave him a sad look. "I'm sorry for yelling at you." She sighed.

"Why did they put everything on you? It shouldn't be." That was a hypocrite thing to say since she was trying to take everything off of her brother, but that was a choice this didn't seem like that.

[flightpen]

"It's fine." He's not upset that she yelled at him. It's more the stuff she said about Akechi, which she still hasn't apologized for or taken back and likely won't. He sounds restless. "Nothing you said about me was wrong."

It's a bit pointed, but not very, and he moves on fast. "There's a—convoluted answer to that, but it kinda boils down to, a false god chose me? For some reason? I still don't know why. I think he was setting me up to fall into despair and fail to save the world, actually, so. It worked, I guess. Not when he wanted it to, but eventually."

[cybermask]

About him, so he still thought that the thing was a real person and not some broken thing. "Just picked you for striking his fancy? Just wanted to break you? Sounds like the plot of an anime." It was a poor attempt at a joke.

What all did...oh shit was he an Akira or a Ren? What did her friend call him. Ren, was the name he reacted to. What all did Ren allow through? What did he stop?

[flightpen]

"Maybe he knew I'd break. Underestimated me, but not by that much." He taps the heel of one foot restlessly against the ground. "Can't ask him now."

He watches her think about... whatever she's thinking about. Futaba's thought processes were always kind of a mystery to him. But when it was his own Futaba, his little sister, he didn't feel so cornered by it.

[cybermask]

He tapped his foot, she was looking at it. She had tapped her foot like that before. "Well, I do know you can wreak his palace still." Oh the amount of information she held now. She hadn't been in it, but she knew it existed.

"If you need to... let out your frustrations."

[flightpen]

"Really?" He glances up. "His Palace is here? ...Is he here?"

His shoulders curl in at the thought. Can he run into Maruki on the street?

[cybermask]

"He's not here, not to say that he might never be. I... No one expected you. There's always a chance for him to show, but I'm pretty on top of everyone who shows up." She looked over his body language, for as well as she could read Goro, this was a whole other thing. Not even Ren gave her this much trouble.

"Any palace that's ever existed is here."