dropkicks him right into the velvet room

[pyrrhicjustice]

[The Velvet Room is now host and occupant to a Goro Akechi who is lying flat on his back. It certainly seems he arrived that way, and he shows no sign of moving yet. His school blazer seems to have been rained on, although in the blue lighting of the Velvet Room it only seems darker than usual.

Maybe once he's been encouraged to move into better lighting, it'll be noticeable that the rain was of a distinctly red nature, but that's for then, and this is now.

Oh, and there's also a blue butterfly flittering nervously at Igor, who seems sad at its presence.

Poke the (not exactly) sleeping Akechi?]

Comments

[pancakeboy]

[He relates. Oh, how he relates. Plus, this one screams as well as the Shadow he met in Mementos; imagine being that free. Or that broken, which is pretty much the same.]

They do get around. [He resists the urge to slide a knife alongside the words.] Let me guess, she had her hands full? [With Joker.]

[pyrrhicjustice]

[It's what happens when the last thing you remember is people just walking past as you lie there dying.]

She says Igor would have had us as his "guests," but there was a coup. Lavenza here didn't make it out unscathed.

We were cheated, and even when I go back I won't have access to the same privileges. No matter that they're currently compromised.

[Bitter? Him? Absolutely. Who cares that Akira's right in the lion's den - he's put himself in that same position for years by choice.]

[pancakeboy]

... the two little girls. [The ones walking around with Ren, in his counterpart's world.] Who allegedly work for a fake Igor.

That's how you remember it? [He sounds calm enough, but he's breathing a little quicker. Shit, would he even have accepted help if it was offered? Or would he have insisted on doing it all alone?

He knows the answer. It just—if someone would just have offered, perhaps things might have been different.]

[pyrrhicjustice]

Two little-? [He looks totally stumped for a moment.] Ah. Caroline and Justine. That would be her.

I have to admit, I never paid them much mind before. I'd try and think about who they could be, or what they could possibly do for him, but I'd never be able to focus on them for too long when they weren't right there.

I suppose I know why, now.

[pancakeboy]

[Interesting. You just forgot about them?, he's about to say.] You just...?

[But ah, now he thinks on it. He had them down as two elementary schoolgirls, cosplaying, not so different from many of the other reprobates Amamiya spent his time with. Yet weren't they obviously...?]

I suppose I see what you mean. They were obviously supernatural, in retrospect. I had them down as some sort of community service.

[pyrrhicjustice]

Precisely. And no one else seemed to see anything odd about them, either.

[He rolls his eyes, hardly as annoyed about missing that one clue as he had been about having been cheated out of services that were owed to him.]

"The Velvet Room is hidden from the cognition of those without a contract" - I have to assume the same goes for retaining an understanding of its attendants.

[pancakeboy]

"Contracts? That sounds like Joker." Bargaining with almost everyone he knows, trading back and forth and yet getting drawn into their lives. Akechi can't even say he's any better, at this point.

They're still walking; he draws to a halt. "Are we heading anywhere in particular, by the way? Or do you need me to clear out before you go to your front door?" He's a bit surprised it wasn't the same building.

[pyrrhicjustice]

I'm not surprised. Whatever that false god did to the place, I doubt he could change it entirely without throwing out any need for pretence.

[He chooses not to bring up the implied contract he currently has with Lavenza - even though that's hardly with the Velvet Room, as far as he's concerned.

And then when they stop-]

I would have thought you'd recognise the building. We are only across the road from it, after all. [And they are. It's right there. And as far as he knew, doesn't have a magical don't-notice-me field around it.] I don't care if you come in after me. Just don't expect much.

[And he starts moving again.]

cw pheasant

[pancakeboy]

If you don't mind. [Curiosity, thy name is Goro Akechi. He follows behind.] What I find surprising is that we don't live in the same building, or even close by. At least one of us walked into my apartment as if he owned it.

[He had the key, Akechi.]

A startling number of differences are non-obvious. For instance, I'd have predicted your Joker was a Ren, not an Akira.

[pyrrhicjustice]

We don't? Hm. Fascinating. [He says, as he goes up to the building's main door.] Just the one, or have any others tried the same trick?

[And once they're inside, he'll be heading for the lifts, thanks very much. He may have been able to get here, but he doesn't have the energy for stairs.]

I take it the general life experiences are close enough despite the different names that the name itself as a difference is negligible.

[pancakeboy]

He was the first. After that, I changed the lock. [He follows other-Akechi into the lift, alert for danger.]

As far as your question goes, I thought the opposite. It seemed as, despite the worlds often being different, the duplicates of us here all came from what we might call "Ren worlds"—[he sounds a little disdainful; Amamiya doesn't run the damn world]—while the Jokers here were all Akiras. Except for one. [Just a bit of a growl in his voice, before he overcompensates, sounding too bright.]

But so much for that hypothesis. Here you are. We seem quite similar. And yet.

[pyrrhicjustice]

And with the lock changed, you keep your privacy and yet you lose the opportunity to test the theory.

[Not that he objects. He'd likely do the same thing if someone came up to his door and acted as though they owned the place... even if said someone had his name and face.]

And yet, indeed.

[The lift doesn't take long, and then they're out at his floor, and his apartment is only a few doors down the hall. With how he'd collapsed in Shibuya and then everything since then, he thinks himself lucky he still has his key.]

[pancakeboy]

That's a theory I'm happy to leave for others to test. Or perhaps tearing from the shower to confront a home invader would have brightened your morning.

[But he doesn't sound grumpy about it, either. Or not more than his natural outrage suggests.]

This will be interesting. I admit I'm curious to see if you stay home more than I do. [Because he really doesn't rate being home alone. It's one of the things testing him right now.]

[pyrrhicjustice]

I never said I thought you were wrong. [Said while opening the door, with only one or two fumbles, which is still one or two more than he'd like.

When the door opens, it's to... what on the surface seems to be a fairly normal, standard apartment.

There are signs of it having been lived in, but mostly in as far as that there are papers lying around on odd surfaces, and sometimes even on the floor. Some are covered in his handwriting, while others are newspaper clippings or printouts. Most of them refer to the election, and the general mood of the past few days - that is, far too complacent.]

Excuse the mess.

[All of it feels rather pointless now that he knows what the answers were, but he doesn't move to pick any of it up yet. That can wait for when he can be bothered.]

[pancakeboy]

[Huh, that is interesting. He steps out of his shoes, coming in to glance about. But he's lived in worse than this.] It takes more than a few papers to bother me.

You have been busy. [Or maybe other-him just works from here, rather than coming back only when he can no longer avoid it. But Akechi's instinct is that the mess is the result of everything going to shit, at the end.

His eye falls on the big butterfly, sitting on his counterpart.] You said Lavenza was able to revive you, is that correct? Or was it something more concrete? Like time travel?

[pyrrhicjustice]

[He shrugs, rather non-committal.] It was a safe enough place to keep everything. I could hardly pin it all on a board in the police station.

[Because- yeah, no.]

Hm. Time travel was implied. Mere revival would simply set me apart as the only sane man under a god's control- if I weren't simply 'dealt with' for daring defiance at the last. Or erased again. Either would be equally plausible and undesired outcomes. The best possible result would be to ensure he never reaches such a height, but I'm aware how unrealistic that is. So the goal is the next best thing.

[The living room, such as it is, is... if anything, more affected. There are stacks that have clearly been toppled, and there's a phone-shaped dent in one wall. The sofa, at least, is untouched, which he's never been so relieved about as right now. He's exhausted.]

[pancakeboy]

[Yeah, he gives that dent a barely-there smirk; he's lost more than one phone that way himself. Time travel, though.]

Do you mind if I ask you something more personal? [Again, his eye lands on the butterfly.]

[pyrrhicjustice]

[He's almost pointedly not looking at it himself; the memory of why he'd thrown his phone that time is still fresh in his mind, since it only happened the other day.]

Go on. [He sees you looking at her.] Although I reserve the right not to answer, even to myself.

[pancakeboy]

Don't act like you have to tell me anything. I'm not you. We just look the same, and share certain experiences. That's not to say we can't help each other, of course.

[He leans back against the wall, though, like he owns the place.]

Why did you ask me in? You look ready to die yourself. A second time, even. [Like, did he want something? Does he want company besides a butterfly? Is he just fascinated by the redundancy of the two of them?]

[pyrrhicjustice]

[As odd as it is to see himself from an outsider's point of view, they do at least agree on this much.]

I wasn't expecting your help, if that's what you're asking. I'm already better than I was.

[His physical reality no longer matching the cognition of not existing helped. He simply had to take the time to recover from the side effects, it seemed.]

It's really quite simple - I was curious. After everything you'd told me, do you really think I wouldn't be? And now we can both see that even if someone else owned the same apartment, that this is mine. [Although, there's a thought. He goes into a thinking pose, hand on chin, without realising.] I wonder if the place would reflect the state it's in now, or the state it would be in then, if I came back here after returning to the past?

[pancakeboy]

[Yeah, his mouth tugs at the corner, with a little hiss of a laugh. So they think along such similar lines, do they?] That is what I was wondering, yes. Is this as you left your apartment in November, or whenever you're supposed to return to? Or is it as you last saw it? Come to that, if you vanished, did it vanish with you?

[But it is reassuring, to see the different surroundings. Sometimes it seems like being "Goro Akechi" is a far more common curse than he thought. A constant battle where he's not coming out on top.]

Anyway, that conversation can wait. Shall we exchange numbers? [In case they want to talk again—which he's sure they will.]

[pyrrhicjustice]

It was December 24th. I'm sure the Christian theologists would have a field day with it. [If, as always, they knew and believed it... or cared enough.] And as far as I know, I was the only one vanishing. It wasn't simply the world - just me.

[Although something this other, younger self had said earlier nags at him, thinking on that - about how in another world, the same had happened to the Phantom Thieves. Had they all experienced the same, wherever they'd been?

But that's academic now. The past is as dead to him as he is to it.]

Of course. [He brings out his phone, which still has the dent in its case to match the wall over there.] Assuming this works, that is.

[pancakeboy]

[... but his eyes have widened at the mention of Christmas Eve. Of course. He should have known. His provisional deadline.

He comes over, absently tapping his phone to his counterpart's.] Looks to work. Thank you. [And he steps back, clearly perturbed.]

You know, in that story I mentioned to you, about how the Phantom Thieves vanished and came back. That was on Christmas Eve. As I heard it, they went on to defeat a certain false god.

Not relevant to your situation, I know. But interesting as a data point.