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

[flightpen]

Ren flinches at the name Maruki. "What does he have to do with things? I mean. More than usual with Sumi?"

He remembers Sumire liking Maruki, respecting him, but not... revering him, particularly. Certainly not to the point that it caused problems.

[fogbornphantom]

"Before I answer in full detail, do you know anything about tentacles?" He pauses. "Not in a lewd context, but evidently Yoshizawa-san has a secondary Metaverse costume that is made from mechanical tentacles of a sort."

The correlation is strange, yet if Rose's account is to believed, the outfit directly correlated with her power. That alone raised some eyebrows then, and it still does now.

[flightpen]

He pales when Akechi mentions tentacles, and when hears about the fucking—tentacle costume—he can't control his revulsion.

"He made her a tentacle outfit? Why?"

[fogbornphantom]

A scowl swiftly overtakes Crow's face. "All I know is that she is able to use some sort of ability to render Shadows completely passive. When she changed costumes, she unleashed such a power that rendered both Sparrow's Shadow and another intelligent Shadow docile when the two were set to tear each other apart."

[flightpen]

His face falls. He already hates hearing about Akechi's Shadow.

"I, um. I don't know anything about that. But Maruki used a lot of... mechanical tentacles. I guess that's a good description. They were all over Mementos. And in his Palace, they..." His voice trails off as he remembers the people in the Palace. "...I think they came from his Persona. His Persona's weird, I think maybe it's something else. Like, as well as being a Persona."

[fogbornphantom]

"The Maruki in my world works under Shido, though I get the distinct impression he is doing so reluctantly. I've considered since my arrival here if he's perhaps the one the false god chose, given that I had the fortune of finding a family and a home in Inaba."

Though his scowl fades, a sullen look remains, and he blows a hushed sigh. "Instead of mental shutdowns and psychotic breakdowns, it would seem that Maruki's abilities have been used to alter cognition on a rather wide scale. Before my arrival, I wasn't certain that he was the culprit, but Futaba-chan had her suspicions after tracing Yoshizawa-san's medical records. It is also worth noting that Yoshizawa-san was able to understand Morgana quite early on and did a terrible job hiding that fact."

[flightpen]

All the blood drains from Ren's face. He only half-listens to what the rest of Akechi says—even the idea of Maruki altering cognition on a wide scale, on Shido's orders, sets him on the verge of panic. Hunted and cornered, like a prey animal, like they're coming for him and he can't get away, no matter what he does they're always there, someone's always there, ready to—

He sways, and stumbles back against the board. His mind has been wiped clean except for a high endless whine like a warning siren. For some reason his chest and throat are burning.

[fogbornphantom]

Shit! The sudden, visceral reaction is enough to propel Crow forward. He reaches out, grabbing one of Ren's wrists to pull him upright. "Ren! Are you all right?"

[flightpen]

Something encircles his wrist, tentacles with grasping hands, metal chaining him to a chair far under the earth while they beat him, Shido's cops with their grinning faces and their laughter as the cold of the drugs spread from his neck to his shoulders and his chin and—

Ren flails, trying to escape, trying to breathe, trying to— to— please, let him out, someone, just—

[fogbornphantom]

Shit. This is bad.

Okay. He releases Ren's hand. That's an important first step. "Ren, talk to me. What do you need right now?"

Something simple. Hopefully grounding. Restraint is not the answer here.

[flightpen]

His breath rasps in his ears. He can't— he can't—

Dimly, he hears Akechi's voice, except it's not Akechi, but it's kind of Akechi—he hears a voice. And, huddled against the conspiracy board like it can save him, he slowly processes what the voice has said.

...He doesn't get it. His breath catches, and he frowns in confusion, eyes focusing at last on other-Akechi. "Huh?"

[fogbornphantom]

"...You had a panic attack." Crow frowns, but keeps a safe distance. He doesn't want to impose. Not when Ren is coming back from an attack. "Apologies. It was never my intent to hurt you."

[flightpen]

His breaths are still coming too fast. He feels like he's going to fall over, so, instead, he sits unceremoniously on the floor and looks up at Akechi. It's easier down here, now that he doesn't have to worry about remaining upright.

"...You saw me."

[fogbornphantom]

"I did, yes." Crow sits beside him, crossing his legs. "But I understand that this is all a sensitive subject for you."

[flightpen]

"No, I mean. Usually people don't..." Then again, he's not in Maruki's reality anymore. Apparently.

[fogbornphantom]

"...They don't notice your distress?" That's... deeply concerning. So deeply concerning that he almost stares as the realization sinks in.

[flightpen]

"Uh. Pretty much." He shifts uncomfortably under Akechi's stare. "I think it's just that it's not very... perfect reality. To see someone upset."

[fogbornphantom]

"Fucking Maruki." There's a familiar snarl, a more typical growl. "If he truly cared, he would not amplify your suffering by ostracizing your experiences."

[flightpen]

"I mean, when it gets really bad, he kinda. Shuts me off for a while. So he's not.... actively trying to make me suffer. I think?" He tugs nervously at the end of his sleeve. "I think he just wants me to decide it sucks to have, like. Actual emotions. When everyone else gets to be like Sparrow. 'cause if I agree with him for real and not because I was blackmailed, he'll have been right all along."

[fogbornphantom]

"Oh, yes, because obviously true happiness comes from an inability to experience any emotions whatsoever. What a novel idea!" He throws up his hands, his voice carrying an edge it lacked before. "Just because he wants to escape his own pain doesn't mean he has a right to project his idea of what's right onto everyone else. That he put so much responsibility on your shoulders and didn't even leave the people with any lasting agency shows that he never truly had everyone's best interest at heart. He just wanted a pretty little dollhouse."

[flightpen]

Ren just watches him, wide-eyed, not frightened but astonished enough that he can't find words. He tries not to focus too hard on the harshness in Akechi's voice, and the memories it calls up.

[fogbornphantom]

"...Apologies if I overstepped." And there he is, back to that softer tone. Gone is the growl. Gone is the righteous anger. It's as if he's a balloon that was just freshly popped and all the hot air escaped.

[flightpen]

"No, I don't—sorry, I just—um." Fuck, can you say a sentence sometime this year, Amamiya. "I haven't seen anyone get mad in a while, and..." His voice gets a little smaller. "And you don't like me much? So I was surprised. That's all. I don't mind."

[fogbornphantom]

"I never said I dislike you." Quite the assumption there, Ren. "I believe the end result of your decision is obviously not ideal, but I can at least acknowledge that your hand was forced by a manipulative madman."

[flightpen]

Yeah, well, usually people don't just tell you if they dislike you. Ren decides it's pointless to say so, though. "That's pretty diplomatic."