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

[pyrrhicjustice]

And with what time? [He can't do much more than simply let himself be grabbed; he doesn't have the energy to break free and doesn't even care to.] When are you even from, anyway? A month ago? Two months?

And what was the entire mask of the righteous Detective Prince for anyway, if we didn't need the validation of a public that'll just throw us away the moment they don't need us anymore?

And if you fail, you just end up where I am - if Lavenza survives long enough to find you, that is. Or if she cares to trust you enough to try.

[pancakeboy]

I never needed—! [But he breaks off. He can't lie to himself—not to his own face, at least. He knows he needed them—to call his name, to admire him; he'd liked it far too much. Like he knows, now, that he needed Shido to pat him on the head, to be torn down, defeated, overthrown.

That moment he's dreamed of, in the prime minister's offfice, when he would finally have been free. From all of it. Forever.]

It was the second when I left. November. I spoke to Shido the evening before. I was going to do it! [Just a bit of what he's feeling, bursting through his control.]

[pyrrhicjustice]

[He smiles, when this other self stops rejecting him, defending himself. He's been there, he's lived it, who better to tell himself to cut the bullshit?

And then-]

I'll give you a single word of advice, then: don't.

[pancakeboy]

[—and he draws back, silenced. Is that really it? Is that all there is to it?]

... I'd already figured out I don't need to kill him. [Though he's never failed a job. Never refused one, though he can talk his way out of a lot of Shido's excesses.]

It might be too late for you, but it's not too late for me.

[But what he really wants, what he's dreamed of, what he's needed, is that moment with Shido, face to face. That moment Akechi can no longer be denied, when Shido will understand he owes everything to the son he abandoned. When Akechi will finally step out of his shadow.

Threatening Shido from hiding, controlling him from hiding... what even is the point?]

[pyrrhicjustice]

That's the thing with being offered a second chance. It isn't too late. Do you think I'd just lie there and let myself die like a dog if there was a way to still get even a scrap of what I wanted?

And I will. I'll do whatever it takes. I'll take on Shido, I'll take on God, and if I have to, I'll use the Phantom Thieves to do it.

[There's not an ounce of "power of friendship" or "my bonds give me strength" in his words or tone. If anything, he sounds a little close to unhinged - but then, he was only erased just before arriving here, with all the baggage that goes with it.]

[pancakeboy]

[And it's something he immediately, instinctively relates to. Other-Akechi might have been reincarnated from nonexistence as a butterfly's carousel, or whatever the shit, but at least he has his priorities straight.]

Well. Believe me, you're in the right place for that. [The park is heading by them on the right. Before long, they'll be out of the apartment buildings area, and heading south into Inokashira district proper.]

Everyone here is so helpful. So invested in undoing their past mistakes, or changing their future. Play nice and ask around, and people will fix our oh-so-glaring mistakes for us.

[pyrrhicjustice]

[In spite of the place not exactly having much to it or any sentimental value, he's interested in getting 'home' even just for... well, the science of seeing how accurate it is, as well as knowing there's somewhere he can crash that has a bed.]

According to Lavenza, that's "precisely what the Velvet Room is for," although usually it's usually just the room, not several cities tied together with the power of belief.

[He rolls his eyes at the last part - he still thinks the whole thing is bullshit, but not as much as, maybe, a day or two ago.]

Far be it from me to look a gift horse in the mouth, though.

[pancakeboy]

Is that right? I heard it was meant to aid us on our journeys. [As if he got so much as a sniff of a "Velvet Room" before he arrived here.]

You'd think if she was going to aid yours, she could have started a little sooner. Or was there some reason she was unavailable?

[Like being missing, for instance. The supposedly-missing Velvet Room attendant.]

[pyrrhicjustice]

[It's a moment before he answers.]

...It is. According to her, at least. Hm. That's a good questio-

[If he sounds as though he's just been cut off, that's because he was. He stops dead still, face contorting in rage.]

FUCKING FAKE GODS CAN SHOVE IT UP THEIR-

[Let's hope there weren't any kids around for that one.]

[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.]