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]

[Yeah, okay, now he drops into that easy crouch of his. His hands fold between his knees, as he considers the other one.]

Strange, that. You're as bad as I am, for making cryptic statements. ["world ending" is pretty non-cryptic as it goes, tbh, Akechi.]

Can you get off the floor unaided, or am I going to need a forklift truck?

[pyrrhicjustice]

No, you're the one seeing riddles where there aren't any. I meant what I said.

[He briefly closes his eyes. Considers it. Sighs.]

Currently, no. And I'd like to see you just jump back up after being unwritten from reality.

[pancakeboy]

[... and there's another bell ringing, alongside that uniform, and that mention of the end of the world. The one his Inaba counterpart had hung up in Jazz Jin, the night he learned it all. He erased the Thieves from the public's cognition....

Another version of him, should he be looking, would easily see the recognition on his face, in the moment before he covers it.]

True. It might take a bit more than a forklift to get me off the ground. [It would be nice to say he's sympathetic, but more than anything else, he wants to know what this version of him has seen, and how similar they are. And he wants to know now.

He calculates for another moment, then offers his hand.]

[pyrrhicjustice]

[Part of him - a rather large part - doesn't want to take that hand. Mostly because he feels like he's going to be sick if he stands up.

But a rather much large part is saying that he's faced worse than this on his own before he had anyone to offer a hand, and he's not going to suffer the indignity any longer than he has to.

The latter part wins out, although it's clear from the wincing and physical shaking the other can likely feel that standing really is a struggle.

All through this, the butterfly... flutters somehow up onto his shoulder. And he seems to either not notice, or not care.]

[pancakeboy]

[The butterfly lands, light as a feather, glowing like a little star, or something equally saccharine. Just as obvious is that it's allowed to be where it is.

He glances past other-Akechi to Igor, who's watching them with that mocking grin he has, and then glances back.]

Is there anywhere you want to be? In the city, I mean—almost everything is duplicated here. Anything you need? [It's clinical—and other-Akechi will know he's incurring a debt, small or not.]

[pyrrhicjustice]

[Anywhere you want to be? - He's just opening his mouth to say that there was no point, and nowhere he wanted to be, that everyone had forgotten him, and...]

Duplicated. So, none of this is real. I suppose that figures. In which case... [He sighs.] I don't care. As long as I'm as far away from Shibuya as it's possible to be.

[pancakeboy]

[His lips purse further, as he looks this possible vision of his future over. There's a sense of despair here, of loss—and, understandable as it is, he does not like it.]

How does Kichijoji sound? [Though the chances strike him as pretty high he's about to have to deal with someone else staking a claim to his apartment, Kichijoji really is quite a way from Shibuya.]

[pyrrhicjustice]

As long as I don't have to talk to anyone, perfect.

[A moment passes.]

What, talking to myself not being sociable enough for you? Don't forget, you're the one who signed up for this.

[pancakeboy]

[And he just regards this new alternate, who is, to all appearances, talking to himself. Except—he remembers that weird singing sensation.]

Talking to your butterfly? [He turns for the Tokyo door, at nothing too different from his usual pace.]

[pyrrhicjustice]

[He refuses to let this slow him down or make him look as weak as he... actually is. He simply looks like he's taken a beating as he walks stiffly over.]

Lavenza. Apparently. I'd hardly call her 'mine' - we're simply working together for a common goal.

[pancakeboy]

[He's heard that name before. Lavenza-chan, he hears Inaba-him saying. Lavenza, one of the Velvet Room attendants in that world, who was... missing?

Without turning his back on his alternate, he gets the Tokyo door, holding it ajar. Usually, if he wants to be in Kichijoji, it puts him in Kichijoji. And right now, he's betting this other-him very much wants to be in Kichijoji.]

Was she always a butterfly? Seems an ineffective form.

[pyrrhicjustice]

I've known her for less than half an hour, so I only know barely more than you do. And what she tells me.

[There's another of those pauses.]

That would be a 'no.'

[He doesn't expect much from just going through a door, but... there Kichijoji is, just as he remembered it. No bones or blood rain at all. Although in the better lighting, the stains on his blazer are more visible now. It's - strange and disorienting. His allows his expression to flatten, since... it's not as though there's any reason to bother pretending he's fine, even if he doesn't want all of it to be on display.]

[pancakeboy]

[Yeah, he knows bloodstains when he sees them, and there's no way these came from that weird aisle at the convenience store. They'd be hard to mistake even if he hadn't "solved" all those psychotic breakdown cases. His eye rests on them for a long moment.

They've come out by the station, next to the promenade.] Which way?

[pyrrhicjustice]

[He barely looks down at himself to notice, and when this other self of his asks where to go, he takes the lead without even thinking, toward home.

The cognitions they pass set his teeth on edge, and instantly feel off to him. None of them react like people should... in fact, they remind him far more of the way everyone had been for the last several days. It's enough to have him glancing up at the still thankfully blue sky.]

[pancakeboy]

[And as they get closer to Inokashira Park, which is on top of the station at the best of times, Akechi starts to prickle. He'd quite like the good—well, he'd like some kind of favour from this weird alternate of his, but the last thing he wants is a houseguest. Come to that, even the top floor of his building is feeling crowded.

At this point, he barely notices the cognitions, unless they get in his way. Which they try to do, sometimes.]

You know—[not-quite-polite conversation in an undertone]—I shot one of them, last week. To see what they'd do.

[pyrrhicjustice]

[He- actually starts slowing down the closer they get to the park, because it's like what he asked for - fewer people. At least... himself? Is half decent conversation.

There's a quirk of his mouth that's almost a smile at those words, too.]

Hm. And did they do anything? Or any of the others around them? Or did they just bleed out there?

[Like he might as well have been. And no one had noticed.]

[pancakeboy]

[Yeah, he gives those bloodstains on other-him's uniform a bit more of a once-over. Then he goes back to watching that butterfly.]

Nothing at all. [He sounds absolutely brisk about it.] He smiled at me as if I'd tried to shake his hand. So I shot him again, of course, in the face. Still nothing.

[And has he wondered what Ren will look like, when he's dead in that cell?—does he continue to wonder? The answer is yes. But they're coming up on the park itself. Akechi's building is to the right, if you turn here, but he's letting the new alternate lead.]

There wasn't even an entrance wound. Like a Shadow. [He is fishing.]

[pyrrhicjustice]

[None of it seems to bother him - if anything, he rolls his eyes at first. Lavenza stays sat on his shoulder, wings flapping mostly for balance.

Then- he hears in the face, and it isn't as though he simply trips up. It's more that he'd tensed in a way that would usually have been slight, and he'd already been feeling like shit, only keeping pace by not stopping. And then that pace was interrupted.] Fuck.

It's not the entrance wound you have to worry about.

[pancakeboy]

True enough. [Hook baited, line reeled—though, again, that reminds him of Ren, and that godawful fishing pond in Ichigaya.

He doesn't lend a hand for support, but waits to see if other-him can get up this time.]

But then, I'm not expecting much of an exit wound. [Before he changed his mind, that is.] Or I wasn't.

[pyrrhicjustice]

[Thankfully, he knows how to fall. He'd damn well better, by now. So although pushing himself back up is painful, he's able to do it under his own steam. Besides, it was bad enough needing the help from... himself? The first time around.

Talking of-]

Cognitions and Shadows are one thing. They're affected by how much society or the owner of the Shadow is even aware of how gunshot injuries work. Reality is another. You can't simply wish or will away the effects, and if I know myself, I'd say that we aren't the kind to shy away from the consequences of our own actions.

[Back on his feet, properly. He takes a deep breath. This close to the park, and things smell greener, cleaner.]

It stinks, you know.

[pancakeboy]

[Shit. That's... definitely something to hear. He watches other-Akechi for a long moment, then turns away.]

You did it, then. [That is—he was stupid enough to do it. But then, who is he to call anyone stupid? If he hadn't arrived here, he'd be on the same exact path.]

[pyrrhicjustice]

And you haven't. Or haven't yet. I'm starting to question which of us is here for who.

[He gives his other self that moment; he's sure he'd need it. And besides, the excuse saves him the face of admitting he needed the break from walking.]

Not to mention the purpose of this place.

[pancakeboy]

So you did miss the speech. [Unconscious on the floor as he was. Picking up the pace again, Akechi recites it all from memory, with flawless disdain, decent comic timing, and more than a little of Igor's inflection.]

"This place exists between dream and reality, mind and matter. If you have any concerns about the world from which you've come, you can rest assured that you're not truly absent while you stay here. Still, you should use your time wisely, and form bonds with the others you find in a similar situation to yourself, as you never know where they might lead you. So please, feel free to explore."

[Absolutely sickening; his opinion hasn't shifted.]

Try not to splash me if you need to vomit.

[pyrrhicjustice]

So it seems. But that sounds more than familiar enough given I heard something similar before I... arrived. Minus the references to an actual Velvet Room.

[The butterfly sits conspicuously self-satisfied on his shoulder.]

Complete waste of my time.

[He's more angry than disgusted.]

[pancakeboy]

[Yeah, he glances between other-him and the butterfly. The missing Velvet Room attendant.]

It may not be a waste. Play your cards right, and you can learn a fair amount. All of it from other people's timelines, of course—there's one of us walking about who claims to be dead.

Another who told me that, at some point, the Phantom Thieves—[he doesn't mention Ren]—were erased from cognition. But then somehow made their way back. Whether that was with a butterfly's help, they didn't say.