personavelvetroomdr | [Open Intro] a pirate's life for me

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[Open Intro] a pirate's life for me

I. In the Velvet Room

The sight of an Akira in a long black coat and a high-necked gray vest is no rarity around these parts, but the one currently studying the conspiracy board is different. He has gold earrings, for one thing, and his clothes have a different style: hand-sewn wool and linen, not the slick, modern leather of Metaverse garb. His casual, hands-in-pockets slouch as he studies the conspiracy board, however, should look familiar to almost anyone.

Well. Anyone who knows an Akiren, anyway.

At the sound of anyone approaching him, Captain Akira turns sharply, his right hand flying to the hilt of the cutlass hanging from his belt. Depending on who he sees, he’ll say one of the following things:

If the character approaching him is an Akiren, his eyes widen briefly in surprise. Then he puts his hands on his hips, studying his double with interest. “You look oddly familiar, somehow,” he quips. “I’m afraid I can’t place you, though.”

If the character approaching him is an Akechi, the choked syllable “Go–” escapes him before he can stop it. Then he cuts himself off, smiling in apology. “Excuse me. I mistook you for someone else.”

If the character approaching him is anyone else, he nods a polite greeting and points at the conspiracy board. “Did you write this?” he asks cheerfully. “ ‘For mine own part, it is Greek to me.’ ”

Whether the character he addresses recognizes the quote or not, Akira’s puzzled expression translates its meaning clearly: Hey. What the hell is this?

II. In Tokyo

Tokyo is the last place Akira ought to set foot in--so of course, it’s the first place he does. To his disappointment, the city beyond the door is all but unrecognizable, full of bright lights and strange buildings and marvels Akira can’t begin to puzzle out. Even so, a vague familiarity remains, an instinct leading him deeper and deeper into the urban sprawl.

Any character passing through Shibuya can find Akira just off of Center Street, standing outside the door to Untouchable with a bemused expression on his face. He runs a hand through his messy hair and sighs, turning to smile at whoever is watching him.

“This place has changed a great deal since I saw it last,” he jokes. “Then again, I was a bit preoccupied the last time I was here.”

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Feeling a bit smug, Ren tucks his Evoker back into his jeans. As he turns to look at Kurusu, so does Caradoc. For a second, those red eyes consider him, neither friendly nor hostile; then the Persona disappears.

"That's a Persona," says Ren. "You don't always have to use the fucking Evoker, though. Are you okay, dude?"

I'm fine, he wants to say, but the usual lie tastes like ash on his tongue. Ren expected him to have that power. He should have had it, he can tell. Yet for all the times a gun has been held to his head--metaphorical or otherwise--he has nothing to show for it but scars and rage.

Where the fuck was that when Shido first found me, or when I was dying by inches at eighteen? Where was that when they fucking hanged me? My God, what was the fucking point?

Ren's eyes are watching him. By sheer force of will and habit, Joker pastes his smile back into place.

"Perfectly fine," he says cheerfully. "The other versions of us all have that, you say? Truly remarkable."

Edited 2025-01-20 07:58 (UTC)

So that's a no, then.

Ren would laugh at the idea that a Persona can protect someone from Shido, if he heard it. But he hasn't, so he just studies Kurusu for a second, head tilted. "No," he says finally. "Most of us, but Lotus has his weird fae shit. And a while ago I met one of us who was a prince? That was weird. I figured he must have something going on, but now I'm not so sure."

He pauses for a moment, choosing his words carefully. "I dunno what you're imagining, but it's not like that. You can't usually summon them wherever you want, for starters. In the real world, you're as vulnerable as anyone else. And being a Persona user tends to land you in way worse trouble than it could ever save you from. In some ways, it's kind of a curse."

Akira bristles at the strange note of--apology? pity? sympathy?--in Ren's voice, but this time, he doesn't let his feelings show. It's not Ren's fault Akira feels bitter, and Akira knows it. If anything, Ren's comments just confirm Akira's sense that the boy has been through horrors of his own.

"A curse I wouldn't mind having, nonetheless. I land myself in enough trouble without one; I doubt I'd notice a bit more." He gives Ren a sidelong look, appraising. "But I'm speaking in ignorance, I know. I'm sorry to hear it's been a burden for you."

Yeah, that's for sure spoken like someone from a world without Personas. But Ren doesn't argue with him about it. "It's whatever. I don't wish I never got it, or anything." Maybe that makes him a bad person, since a whole lot of people would be alive and even more would have their lives still intact. But he already kind of knew that.

"If you want one, you can maybe get one from Izaya? He's actually a god or something, I don't know the details. But think about it first, maybe talk to people about it. Seriously."

Now he sounds like Makoto. "If I didn't trust your judgment, I would have intervened when you fired your gun. You're the expert. I won't rush into a decision you were kind enough to warn me against."

It would just end badly, anyway. For me, there's always a catch.

"I would be curious to know more about them, though. Are they all the same? Can anyone in your world acquire one, or just the talented few?"

Around them, cognitions are starting to forget anything happened, returning to their pre-programmed routes, stepping over rubble without looking at it. Ren doesn't spare them a glance. He's seen it all before.

"Only a few people can have one. I thought I was the only one in the world for years." Stupid, in retrospect. "Everyone awakens to a unique Persona, but a couple people can collect others besides the one we awaken to. And I guess we can share those? Like, if Goro went out and got one from Mementos, I could get the same one, if I could get it to listen to me... I don't know, I'm kinda new to the wild card thing. Shit's weird."

"Shit's weird" wouldn't be Capkira's phrasing, but he can't argue with the assessment. He studies the nearby cognitions, mulling everything over. "Mementos?"

"Oh. Yeah, it's, uh..." He thinks for a second. "It's one of the cognitive worlds. People can summon Personas there without a fucking." He gestures behind him, where he put his Evoker. "Death simulator.

"It's basically, like. A false god made it to control the masses and take over the world at the end of a weird, masturbatory game it was playing with... a couple people." Him and Goro. His expression darkens for a moment. "It looks like—I guess you don't know what a subway is. It's a mostly underground train system. Tunnels and shit. Trains are like long, high-tech carriages, kind of? Mementos looks like if a false god tried to copy the Tokyo subway system but he didn't get how the layout worked, and he also wanted to fill it with giant bones. I could take you to the entrance, if you wanna see it. The rest of it has Shadows, but the entrance is safe. Just kinda creepy if you're not used to it."

Edited 2025-01-22 00:08 (UTC)

This description does nothing to help Akira picture Mementos. Rather than ask Ren--yet again--to elaborate, he masks his bemusement with a smirk.

"If I want to see it? Why, Drake, what a question. You can't tell me a tunnel was built for 'masturbatory games' and expect me to decline."

Ren blinks. He thinks, Masturbatory as in, that puffed-up ratfucker jacks off every day to his power and how he's rigged his stupid fucking game he made up so he always wins. All by himself, and no one else gets anything out of it. That's how he ruined my goddamn life. And for a second, as he teeters on a knife's edge, something of that grim train of thought shows on his face.

Then, with an amused snort, he comes down on the other side. "Yep. That's Mementos. The masturbation tunnel." He heads back toward the Velvet Room door on the side of the road. "Through here."

It shows, but Akira pretends not to see it. He trots obligingly after Ren, doubling down on the joke. "You raise an interesting question, though: if multiple people are involved, is it still masturbation? Perhaps you've undersold it. It sounds more like an orgy tunnel to me."

As they reenter the Velvet Room, Ren wrinkles his nose at Kurusu. "Yeah, maybe, except the false god looks like that." He points at Igor. "Fake Igor. You wanna fuck a fake Igor?"

Despite what he's saying, one corner of his mouth pulls upward in an amused little half-smile. As Igor chuckles, unoffended, Ren thinks of Shibuya station and opens the Tokyo door again to Buchiko Square, bustling with cognitions.

Edited 2025-01-22 07:58 (UTC)

Definitely not, no. Akira glances at Igor, pretending to consider it. "Could be worse, if the nose is proportionate," he says. "But I can't say I'd be eager. My standards may be a tripping hazard in Hell, but I do have them."

Igor chuckles again, but he doesn't comment. Pushing that disturbing mental image out of his mind, Akira follows Ren out to the square.

"Fuck. Imagine if it was. He'd have to fold it in half to keep it from dangling out of his pants."

Usually, back home, he entered Mementos from somewhere secluded in the overworld. But for Kurusu's sake, he enters the real version of the station first, skipping the slow-as-shit escalator in favor of the stairs down. It's bright, plastered with ads and scrolling signs, not unlike the rest of the city.

Akira lets out a startled bark of laughter. "Cock origami," he suggests. "Now there's a concept."

Mercifully, the sensory barrage of the subway station distracts him from elaborating further. Impressed, he gapes at everything, swiveling his head like an owl's to take in all the mystifying, colorful ads.

"Hey, I've known people who'd be into that. One guy liked it when you... here we are."

He's guided Kurusu to an out-of-the-way little part of the station's topmost underground level, a corner where people don't often wander. The Phantom Thieves of his world enter Mementos from here. He asked once about security cameras, and most of them said something like, Oh, shit! Which says a lot about the way they operate, in his opinion. But Goro, at least, could confirm that it was a blind spot.

"Anyway, that's Shibuya Station normally." He steps close to Kurusu, just to make sure he comes along despite having no Personas, then unlocks his phone and taps Mementos in the Nav. The world warps around them.

When it steadies again, they're in the large Mementos antechamber below Shibuya, silent and lifeless, with the red light and the weird clusters of veins. And, of course, he can't forget the giant chains crisscrossing either side of the room, where the walls fall away into darkness. It smells damp, and maybe a little like blood. This is the Shibuya Station Mementos entrance, he doesn't continue; the place speaks for itself.

Ren's outfit has changed, as well. While they were on their way, he considered forcing himself into the less fucked up one, but—when it came down to it, he just didn't want to. So here he is. He pushes his mask up above his face, though, under his hood.

Akira's stomach lurches as the world warps, but his sailing experience serves him well. In no time, his nausea calms, his legs adjust, and he finds himself in an even stranger world than the subway. It feels like the aorta of some great, malignant beast, warm and red and dangerously alive. Fascinated, he crouches down to touch the floor, almost surprised to find it doesn't feel wet.

"I see why this is hard to describe," he says, looking up at Ren. His eyebrows rise at the sight of the new outfit, but he gives it a grin of approval. "Very stylish. I've always been fond of black myself."

When Kurusu fails to recoil, Ren relaxes slightly out of a tension he didn't know he felt. But the comment... He looks down at his outfit. Over at Kurusu, whose clothes are notably intact. Back at his own ragged outfit.

"The past had some weird ideas about style," he concludes. "So do people think you're a fashion disaster?"

Yes, he knows Kurusu was lying. But it was a funny lie.

"Usually? Yes." This is not a lie. Akira plucks at his coat and shrugs. "You're lucky you got me on a day I was fully dressed, let alone in something other than my work clothes."

Fully dressed in what are now the only clothes he possesses. Hm. He'll have to figure that out.

"But perhaps stylish was overselling it. You look dramatic, I should say--like you're about to go on stage as Hamlet's ghost, or as a ninja in some kabuki play. Very theatrical."

Edited 2025-01-24 03:09 (UTC)

Ren wants to know about the work clothes, but before he can ask, he's distracted. "Hamlet turns into a ghost?"

Listen, he dropped out of middle school.

No shame in that. That's a normal time to leave school, in Akira's experience.

"His father, King Hamlet, is murdered by his brother before the start of the play. Because he had no chance to atone for his sins before he died, he's doomed to burn in Purgatory by day and wander the earth every night until he's suffered enough to deserve peace. He chooses to walk the ramparts of his old castle, determined to speak to his son, Prince Hamlet, one last time--and through him, to get his revenge."

Akira gestures at Ren's ragged clothing. "Technically, the play describes him as wearing armor, but the productions I've seen usually try to make him look more spectral and frightening. A ghost in ragged black is far more intimidating than a normal-looking man, armored or not."

"Wait, what the fuck." He squints incredulously at Kurusu. They could still be on the street, instead of in Mementos, for all that he's paying attention to their surroundings. He lived in this room, after all. It feels like home—though maybe he shouldn't go too far down that road, what with the Palace shit.

Anyway. "You're telling me Hamlet's actually good?"

"Shakespeare's best, in my opinion. Have you really never seen it?" Akira has entirely forgotten why he came here, too caught up in his favorite subject. His enthusiasm shines through as he talks, punctuating his explanation with animated gestures as if he were an actor himself.

"Prince Hamlet is out of the country when his father dies, attending school with his closest confidant, Horatio. By the time he gets the news and rushes home, he discovers that not only has his piece of shit uncle stolen his throne, he's now fucking Hamlet's mom to boot. Everyone else at court is celebrating the coronation and the new royal wedding, and he's the only one who cares about the funeral--and even worse, now that he's back, his uncle won't let him leave. Fuck no. The prince is a threat to his power, and he knows it. He can't kill Hamlet without upsetting his new wife, so he traps him at court, in the seat of his power, where all his sycophants and servants can keep an eye on him. And Hamlet can't do anything to stop him. He has to sit there and take it while everyone around him fucks him over, ruins his life, and celebrates, and the only thing he can safely do to protest is continue to wear black, as a reminder of the funeral everyone else wants to forget."

Edited 2025-01-24 05:14 (UTC)

When the hell would Ren have seen a Shakespeare play...? But as Kurusu explains the premise of Hamlet, he forgets that question. The picture Kurusu paints is vivid, and familiar.

"Yeah," he mutters. "Been there."

I. In the Velvet Room

II. In Tokyo

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