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“It’s done, Shido.” His voice was flat and slightly sardonic. “The way to the top is clear.”
“Don’t say my name,” he snapped. Goro would roll his eyes if he were in a more cavalier mood. “The coroner should take it from here. Just continue on as normal, and I’ll bring you with me. You’ve been quite the asset, Akechi.”
He felt a burn of emotion. It tasted like bile.
“I take pride in my work, sir.”
“And the products are always reflective of that. Take the week off. Catch up in school, if you need to.”
“Thank you, sir. I certainly will.” He managed to keep the surprise out of his voice. The call ended then, and he was left in silence.
He stared blankly. The vision in the back of his eyes, black and red.
The spoiled taste of coffee bit into his tongue as he plastered on a pleasant smile for the secretary, as he exited the building.
He went through the motions of going home, feeling irritatingly distracted. Red. Black. Coffee.
Irritating.
Someone bumped into him, and he barely managed not to take their head off.
Detective Prince, act like him. You’re in public, Akechi.
He boarded the train, feeling watched.
The watched feeling turned to a following feeling on the trek back to his apartment.
He didn’t try to hide his route. He’d enjoy killing whoever tried to fuck with him.
Like you enjoyed that last kill?
He faltered in his pace.
You like bringing justice. That’s how his ended, wasn’t it?
Wasn’t it?
Justified, murdered in cold blood, collateral damage.
Shido must die—
—murdered in cold blood.
How many is that now?
The tang of coffee.
He looked so surprised—
“The fight in your eyes surprises me.” You admitted it.
Underestimated him.
Doesn’t matter.
Murdered in cold blood.
The buzzing in his mind didn’t calm down until he got home and into his bathroom, face buried in his toilet as his guts upended themselves.
Tasted of the curry he had thoughtlessly eaten that morning. Akira had sent him home with leftovers a couple days ago.
That’s kinda fucked up, isn’t it?
He continued to vomit, as if his body was purging Akira from his system. Food Akira touched. Prepared, for him.
He didn’t look surprised to see me betray him.
He gagged, violently.
He knew. He knew. He knew and still—
The last of the curry floated up in the toilet water.
Red. Black. Coffee.
Goro brushed his gums until they bled, hair tightly bound in an unattractive ponytail.
He disrobed, dropping his pressed clothing to the floor carelessly. Would have to burn them later anyway. Probably some blood spray linking him to the scene.
He kicked the clothes under his bed and managed to put on a hoodie and sweats before his mind truly blanked out.
Sometime later he became aware that he was in the kitchen. His eyes burned and his face felt puffy.
“Oh. I thought I outgrew those.” He murmured quietly, wiping his face with his hoodie sleeve. A panic attack. Weird.
His dish cabinets were placed behind glass doors. He could see the snacks he placed there last night. He probably needed something to settle his stomach.
He retrieved the granola bar, and in the process of closing the door he saw his reflection in the glass pane.
And a figure, standing behind him.
Heart racing, he turned, finding nothing. Of course. He was just paranoid. He never felt right after a kill. This one was just weird, because he spent more time with the target.
It wasn’t some Shadow he never met. Looked in the eyes and shot down. Saw the soul vacate the body. The shine that left his eyes.
Gray eyes that cut so sharp in defiance, but had also been so—
So—
He realized he was panicking again. It didn’t stop the tide.
He couldn’t stand anymore, so he sat. Right in the middle of his kitchen.
Was that a puddle of blood? He jerked up— no. A shadow. A reddish shadow cast from the window in his living room.
He never brought Akira here. The teen had asked, once, how he decided to decorate. Apparently he thought it would be sterile and impersonal.
What would he have said about the one Featherman poster he had half hidden in his pantry? Or the LED light strip he had lining his living room wall that he got because he thought they were cool?
He would’ve definitely judged the instant coffee he kept with his mugs.
Probably would’ve judged him too that the only beverage receptacle he felt necessary were mugs.
His throat twisted and contracted to a point of pain, until he finally let out a choked gasp.
He whimpered, head in his hands. The one person, the only person who made him feel wanted. He just has to get into the way. Had to… had to be so virtuous. Stealing hearts, instead of killing them. If he would have agreed to kill Shido—
It wouldn’t have made a difference. Only he could kill Shido.
But you’ll never know what he would have done.
He’ll never know a lot of things about Akira. Did he sense Goro’s true nature? Or, did he think the Detective Prince act was real?
The disappointment at the idea was palpable. A crawling hollow in his chest that he filled in with nothing. It was then as he stood slowly collapsing that he realized he had built himself up on sand foundations and had expected to weather hurricanes.
He looked at the clock.
Two hours ago Akira Kurusu was alive. It’s been two hours since Goro removed him from the world.
Two hours since he started unraveling.
“Fuck!” He yelled, hopping to his feet.
Pain. He needed pain and he would be watched now, and couldn't go to the Metaverse. Couldn’t get lost in Loki’s rage. He ripped a knife out his knife block and set it on the counter. He paced to his bathroom, snatched a towel.
He didn’t harm himself often like this, not since he was in foster care. Desperate times, and all that. The physical pain would prevent him from getting lost in his head, would ground him. This was just a fluke, a weird misfire in emotion. Pain would tell him what was true and what was false.
He came back, and the knife was gone.
All the knives.
There wasn’t a single knife in the knife block, not even a butter knife in the drawer.
Like a cat harassed by a dog, he wiped his head around, heart fluttering along a dangerous tempo.
There’s no way there’s someone in the apartment.
Has Shido sent someone to take me out?
If they did why take the knives--
--too quiet, I would’ve heard, too quick for them to all be gone--
What if there’s someone in the house?
He couldn’t leave until he knew for sure.
Goro carefully crept to his room, head on a swivel, thinking he was alert of everything
He missed the passing shadow in the hallway as he dug his gun out of his dresser.
A cold breeze sent a shiver down his spine, raising the hairs on his bare neck.
Turning--
Red. Black. Hazy gray eyes.
He flinched so hard he slammed into a wall, mind barely catching up with what he was seeing. Gun raised, and then faltered, because, because--
Black hair hanging over vacant, tired eyes, set like islands in a splattered scarlet sea. Shoulders slumped, feet hanging in relaxed flection from where they hung several inches above the ground.
He stared at Goro and Goro didn’t understand the gaze. The vision of the figure. A specter.
A phantom.
He told himself to raise his gun. This was a trick, right? He had to have somehow slipped into the Metaverse, like the first time.
He told himself to call for Loki, Robin Hood, whoever, but he was too scared. To find that this was reality, and that Akira Kurusu was staring at him through cataract shiny eyes.
He did neither. His body acted for him, breathed for him though his heart must’ve burst, his ears must’ve been filled in with cement. He was scared. He hadn’t been truly scared… for so long. The fear, the terror--
Did he feel this?
Speak, damnit!
He unclamped his mouth, sputtering.
“A--” he barely croaked the word before a rain of knives fell from Akira’s feet, out of nowhere. The clatter of sharpened metal on metal sounded like an iron thunderstorm in his ears, turning cement to dust and his terror to a muted awe.
The knives were a prickly puddle under Akira’s feet. His blind eyes stared at them for a moment, as if surprised or contemplative of it himself. He looked back at Goro, a terrible despair painted under the second skin of his maroon mortality.
He turned to the closet mirror, his reflection reflected in full. Goro found it faintly surprising, another molecule of fear turning to a transfixed state of fascination.
Akira studied himself and didn’t seem surprised by what he saw. His hand lifted up-- still wrapped in a handcuff, the chain between the two broken-- finger dipping into the blood on his face.
He wrote on the mirror with clear and gory characters; Goro had to fight not to vomit all over the knives on the floor.
Apparently satisfied with the message, he delivered unto Goro one final, unblinking stare.
Then he was gone.
Invisible doesn’t equate to gone.
Goro didn’t know what he wrote in the mirror. He didn’t check, because he had checked out. Dissociated to a place far from that moment, far from how much it reminded him of when he found his mother in a copper scented bathroom.
The sky had turned black by the time he really came to, body cold and stiff from sitting on the floor.
The message on the mirror had cracked and flaked so bad he couldn’t read it.
Goro stared at the mirror for a long, long time.
He decided to take a shower.
He started to wonder if something was wrong with him when he couldn’t differentiate the cold water from the hot water. It all just felt like noise on his skin, so he got in after a few moments regardless of temperature.
A shadow imprinted itself on his shower curtain. He dutifully ignored it, washing his hair with shaking limbs. Trick of the eye, trick of the eye. The stress was getting to him.
He shut the water off and sat in the corner of the shower. Didn't want to face the shadow. He sat until he hair dried, blinking his eyes clear to find the shadow gone.
He summoned the courage to leave the shower.
The mirror was inked, end to end, in bloody, flaked characters. He could only manage one word out of them.
Justice.
“What do you want?” He breathed shakily, flesh cold and tacky. Through the crust in the mirror, Akira. Goro looked at him directly.
Akira didn’t look at him, eyes staring at his feet. The only sounds were Goro’s unsteady breaths and the plink of the shower head. And, of course, the thud of blood droplets hitting the ground.
“Do...do you understand me?” Goro prompted again.
Akira dragged his eyes from the floor to his face, reminding Goro that he was actually naked. He didn’t cover himself, but shifted his hips away either way.
He may have imagined it, but Akira’s lips quirked ever so lightly. It fell before he could be sure.
“You do, don’t you…” he studied Akira’s pale face. The ghost (?) just stared at him. “I didn’t take you for the haunting type.” Fall into the banter. He couldn’t be sure what ghost Akira wanted, or even if he was real. Better to be friendly, right? Or would that just enrage him because Goro murdered him and nothing he could say or do will ever, ever make up for that.
He shrugged. Goro stilled, searching his face.
“What do you want?” He dared ask.
Red. Black.
Akira was several feet away, and then suddenly, he wasn't. He hovered right above Goro’s face, forcing the stench of copper into his nose.
He dared not move.
It was a blood scented chill, being this close to him. Underneath it all he smelled of stale coffee and cat. Goro didn’t understand how a ghost could have such intricate scents.
Akira reached over him, a hand on the mirror.
A loud crack told him the mirror shattered.
Akira disappeared, and Goro caught up on breath, slumping against the counter.
He cut his arm on the glass shards.
The mirror was shattered into a message, the characters bleeding from the wall behind them.
Is this how your justice starts?
His sleep was shallow but constant. He awoke around five in the morning, tired eyes staring at the clock until the hour turned over.
He’d have to go to school soon.
The news about the murder-suicide streamed idly on his phone, the banner red and annoyingly bright even though his screen was on the lowest brightness.
Akira was seated at the end of his bed, one leg crossed under him and the other propping up his arm. His gaze never faltered. He must’ve been there for a while. A puddle of red circled him.
Goro stared back at him, blinking the sleep away and smoothing his bed head. Unsuccessfully.
“What do you want from me?” Goro deadpanned.
Nothing.
“You obviously understand me. Why won’t you speak?” It was perhaps not the right emotion, irritation. Akira seemed to think so.
The air around him blackened with shadow, his stone eyes swarming with anger. He reached a hand up, the shine of the handcuff the only light from his nest of shadow.
He pulled back the fringe of his hair, displaying the bullet wound. It spurted a mist of blood. Goro flinched as it landed on his face.
He said nothing, his heart twisted under his numb shell.
“You never really did talk all that much.” he finally said, eyes wide as his pulse quickened. “I didn’t want to kill you.” he finally said, staring at his hands. The darkness around Akira seemed to fade, a bit. “You just… got in the way. It’s--” it’s not personal. Of course it’s personal. Akira is haunting him. “It’s complicated.” he finished, cringing at how lame that sounded. He never had to apologize to someone he’s killed before. He never spilled his secrets.
But he had told Akira about his mother, about his life in foster care, even if only to earn a little more trust. There had been something about the boy that had made it easy. It disturbed him that even in this ghoulish skin the effect still held true. He just couldn’t force himself to lie.
It’s not like ghost Akira had a way of ruining his plans now, anyway.
“I… Do you know who Masayoshi Shido is?”
Akira just stared at him, the darkness dissipating just a tad. Goro explained himself and his situation in the most concise words possible. Better not to mince things up right now.
“He killed my mother. I have to avenge her, I have to kill him in the most humiliating, soul crushing way possible. I have to.” he finished, hands gripping the blankets. “He deserves it.”
Akira's eyes shone sharper then ever before, freshly dead but not quite living. A low buzzing filled the air, like a discordant stereo. It grew in volume until Goro jolted in pain, cupping his ears, from the full body vibrating.
Akira tilted his head just past the point a living neck would allow, and perhaps it was then that he realized he was in danger.
His eyes stuttered from gray to yellow, piercing and frightfully aggressive. Anger. He was angry.
Ants boiled under his skin, his scalp prickling. Akira never scared him-- Akira had made him uneasy, had made him angry and questioned things. Joker had made him apprehensive and irrationally jealous (how could he become so strong in such a short amount of time when Goro had to claw for every ounce of strength he had and not even measure up?!). Akira confused him, made his cheeks warm and his heart sputtered with a shared grin. Joker challenged him, excited him.
The phantom terrified him.
The phantom grabbed his left handcuff, pulling it off his wrist with a sharp crack and twist of the thumb joint. His yellow eyes brightened.
Then disappeared.
He was gone.
Goro managed to stay out of his apartment for nearly twenty hours before he had to go back. He felt gross and hungry and tired and Shido was watching him.
He was scared of the phantom. But he was more worried about Shido, so he went home.
At first glance, everything in the house was normal. All the knives were where he left them, all the mirrors broken and flecked with bloody messages, but nothing new. He took a shower and no shadow loomed on the other side of the curtain.
He even managed a long nap and found no guest at the foot of his bed. Perhaps he was free of the phantom?
Unlikely. He’s probably watching. For what… for what my justice is? For what I said about Shido?
He decided to go for a bike ride, slipping on his FitBit.
A cold breeze prickled his neck just as he placed a hand on the door to exit. Goro didn’t need to look to know who it was.
Suddenly, his FitBit didn’t feel like a soft latex band. It felt like cold, hard metal.
He looked down at his wrist in a nauseating horror, Akira’s figure lurking in the periphery of his vision, only the bright glow of yellow eyes informing him of any features.
When he finally turned to face the phantom, only a puddle of blood and broken chain links sat on the floor.
He started losing time. Waking up at dawn and moving only once the sun was below the horizon. Taking the train to school, waking up in the middle of an exam. All the questions had been answered-- not even incorrectly, but not in the way he would’ve answered them.
The handcuff had been taped to his upper forearm to prevent it from dangling under his sleeve. The tape had been torn and now it hung at the edge of his wrist, loose and just a tad too tight to slip off. No matter how much he tried, it wouldn’t come off.
He was in class one evening, scribbling in his notebook to pretend like he was paying attention. He thought he was sketching-- it looked like sketches to him. Then he blinked, and the words arose from messy lines.
Justice is blind and indiscriminate.
It does not bleed from the heart, but it strikes the heart.
I did not deserve to die.
Goro, why did you kill me?
I thought we were friends?
I would’ve helped you. We would’ve helped you.
If only we had met earlier.
I don’t hate you. You didn’t deserve this.
He slipped through time again and came to in his living room, hair messed up and eyes salted with tears. His throat was too tight to breathe properly. There were fingers in his hair, carding through the locks gently.
“I spoke with your mother.” his voice was void, the absence of sound but not devoid of meaning. “She’s a spirit of regret.” he mused. His body was cold and stiff but Goro still found automatic comfort. “Many things in her life. In life, she thought she regretted you. She doesn’t. She regrets being too weak to love you right.”
He clung to the phantom because he couldn’t do anything else.
“W-wha--what’s happening to me.” he coughed, a chill leeching warmth from his bones. A hand rubbed along his back, calling the chill from his rib cage through his muscles.
“Consequences.” Akira answered, yellow glowing under his fringe before returning to a muted gray.
“Hahahaha… makes sense. Of course, it makes sense. I feel like I’m going insane.”
“I would like to go insane.” Goro couldn’t feel his mouth moving, his chest moving. “Everything is static. Unchanging. I cannot...I cannot move on.” A constant, unrelenting tension.
“Is that what this is?” Goro held up his wrist. “A way to help you move on?”
“Justice… you were my justice.” He murmured, hand knotted in Goro’s hair, tilting his head up to look into his blind eyes. “Where is my justice?”
“I--”
“Fall apart, Goro.”
“Wh--” he snapped his mouth shut, yellow peeling back maroon. A citrus scalpel slicing away the safeguards, a weak denial and the subsequent abyss. His mind split open and became the treading place of the raven phantom.
The mother, laid in a bathtub with scarlet poppy flowers bleeding from her arms.
The father, a yellowed skeleton sitting amongst a pyre of golden bones.
The son, a bleeding doll searching for a heart.
“Fall apart.” his voice was an echo so encompassing Goro mistook it for his own thoughts. “Remake yourself. Become Justice.
“Blind. Arrow straight. Strike the heart, Goro.”
“You can change, take advantage of it.” A voice, too alive and it’s timber too rooted in his chest. He could feel his raven start to open its wings, and start to lift itself away from him. To leave him, in ruin and with the bitter challenge of change.
Why do you care?
Don’t leave me! I can fix this!
You can’t leave me in this.
I’m alone.
All I am is alone.
He cried out, pulling enough of himself together to trap the raven by its tail feather, his chest undulating like a ribcage mouth, slurping the raven into the spot where his heart should go.
LET ME LEAVE.
YOU’RE NOT DONE HERE.
THIS IS WHAT YOU HAVE EARNED.
YOU DON’T GET TO BREAK ME AND LEAVE.
YOU DON’T GET TO KILL ME AND SURVIVE IT.
YOU’RE NOT DONE HERE.
I’M DONE WITH YOU.
YOU AREN’T.
I AM.
Please, Akira.
Goro…
Can you see it?
I can’t be your Fool. I cannot give you any new beginnings. Not anymore
Akira… please. Let me help you.
Silence, oppressive. Goro slowly fell back into bodily function and sensation. Everything felt off kilter, a tad too much to the right. But it didn’t feel wrong. Like when a chiropractor corrects an alignment, sets it right-- the change is so sudden you never even noticed it was needed.
His heart beat steadily, the cold brush of feather and the liquid feeling of something dripping down his face. He found nothing when he reached up.
He grabbed his phone and his coat and left, marching straight over to the Diet building, the clatter of handcuffs on each wrist accompanying him.
The Phantom Thieves calling card was on every screen in Tokyo. He felt a melancholy that wasn't his, a faint sadness for friends he didn’t make. He didn’t really acknowledge what they said, just tried to sort out what his response was and what Akira's was. He couldn’t, so he stopped.
He found the Phantom Thieves path of violence carved through the cruiser, body buzzing with the need to fight protect reconcile apologize defeat the evil.
They were fighting the fake Akechi, the one who would disgust him to no end and make him seriously consider killing Shido in his sleep. He didn’t see that now. Only saw that the Thieves were fighting him and his swathes of shadows, and that they were losing. In sore need of curse skills.
He wasn't even surprised to find Arsene bloom in a hail of fire and feathers behind him, the mask he pulled off ivory white. Arsene decimated a line of shadows, and before confused cries of jubilation could distract them from the very real threat that cognitive Akechi still posed, Goro called upon Robin Hood and rained down a curtain of arrows, crippling every shadow in the vicinity. The Thieves, despite the chaos and heart ache he was sure to be ripping through them, took advantage until only the cognitive double was left.
He stood panting from his corner, the strain of balancing multiple personas shocking his system. Haru’s guns had the cognitive Akechi held in place, the other’s warily turning to Goro. Before anyone could speak, Arsene forcibly manifested himself, dragging a ragged cry out of Goro as he somehow stole Loki’s sword and wielded it himself. He clutched at his head and fell to a knee, the pain an icy lance that penetrated the exact center of his forehead. The flames pulsed in time with the excited flapping of an angry raven and a drowned heart.
Arsene never seemed more alive then, animated even more than Loki could ever be. He strode across the room leaving a path of black flames, dragging Loki’s heat bleeding sword across the ground. Deep, melting rivets followed. The Cognitive Akechi stared up at Arsene with a deep sneer and a critical hate, firing off the rest of his pistol until all he had was himself. Goro found a strange catharsis in the way Arsene dispatched the imposter, heaving the sword up onto a shoulder and swinging it down with extreme prejudice. Cognitive Akechi fell apart in an organ shaped shadow. Goro briefly wondered how much bloodier it would be if Arsene decided to do the same to him.
Arsene turned his horned head towards the Thieves, wings ruffling as if to dispel the buzz of battle. Goro felt so alive and dead at the same time, a discordant rope of tension keeping his back straight though his knees had already failed him.
“Akira?” It was Morgana who asked, blue eyes round and hopeful. Takamaki and Sakura were openly crying, Niijima the younger carefully keeping him in her periphery. Okumra’s face was twisted into something that struck him deeply yet couldn’t name. Sakamoto and Kitagawa just watched, transfixed as the persona stuck the sword into the ground, taking a knee.
Perhaps they couldn’t see the soul crushing sadness in Arsene’s posture, but Goro felt it like a chilled beak to the chest. Felt the utter depression of death and it’s meaning and the absolute unfairness of it and the why--
Loki manifested without his consent, and suddenly he was no longer quite in his body.
His senses stayed anchored, he watched the events unfold from his body, yet his mind and thoughts existed in Loki. Loki, his first awakening, his rage and hatred incarnate. Robin Hood had been a secret yearning in his heart for true justice, arisen from existential exhaustion.
Loki, his vessel now, the once mind-numbing anger that kept him warm, just a self-inflicted blizzard of regret. The epitome of his guilt, striped with the black and white he styled his world view after; he wasn't good, but Shido was worse. Anything to remove him was justified.
Arsene, he couldn’t feel. No raven beating the bones of his ribcage. Arsene stared at him, regarding Loki as the persona ripped the sword from the ground, letting go of it to hover over his back.
Goro understood, vaguely, what this was symbolizing. Loki, hooves to the ground, bowing his head in deference to Arsene. Arsene, who bowed dramatically in return. A last show of bombastic style.
The handcuffs on his wrist exploded and suddenly he was thrown to his body, scalp bleeding from two masks imploding on his face. Arsene and Loki disappeared.
“Akira!” One of the girls shouted, but he wasn't quite there anymore. His raven was gone, his heart swelling to try to fill space and finding its circumference lacking. Loki wasn't even there, and Robin was just… not enough.
He barely got the time to rest before he found two knives at his throat and seven guns trained on him. Niiji--Makoto and Yusuke were the closest-- Makoto radiated rage, and Yusuke a blizzard of cold hate. The others, he was sure, showed similar faces.
“Why are you here?” Makoto hissed, the blade inches from nicking skin. “E-even you are not so arrogant as to think we would let you go after what you d-did to him?” distantly, he was impressed that she managed to get through that without choking up. More accurately, he was trying to hold onto his edges, keep himself from spilling over.
“Explain yourself before we lose our patience.” Yusuke added, the katana he had bought him--wait. He blinked. He didn’t buy that.
Goro shivered under his stare.
“It’s….” he started. His thoughts started to spiral, catching on themselves as he boiled in his own despair and disgust. He was returning to himself and briefly felt a spell of anxiety so strong he wanted to die before it shriveled into place. Everything was distant to him, the warmth of his blood on his face a strange comfort. His eyes flashed, and he didn’t know what they looked like, but he saw Kitagawa--Yusuke’s frigid gaze crack. He felt like he was fighting with himself.
He stabbed his red ridged sword into the ground and hauled himself to his feet. This was pathetic. He was pathetic. He couldn’t just flake out again, leaving them to deal with Shido.
Become justice, he had said. What was justice? Justice in general, justice for Shido? Was he even capable of delivering it, after being just as bad?
Akira died because of him.
“What the fuck is wrong with him?” He faintly heard Sakamoto growl, tapping his pipe against the ground. Had he been quiet for too long? What was the question again?
“Please, give me a reason to destroy you.” Haru growled, her own ax dangerously close to his face.
Become justice, Goro.
Blue flames enveloped him, forcing the Thieves back.
It was supposed to be you.
A deep sadness, a consuming regret. A future, a beautiful, difficult, worthwhile future. Gone with a gunshot.
You’re better then me. Far, far better then me.
He realized this a long time ago, but never wanted to admit it. He couldn’t bring justice to Shido, because he deserved justice just as much as he did. It couldn’t be him. But it could be Akira.
Take it, Akira. Take my body. Do what I’m not worthy of.
That’s not how this works, Goro.
Shut up, like you know.
Goro, despite himself, felt a fading grin. Through the flames, he made eye contact with the Thieves as they shifted from maroon to gray, as his mask morphed from black to white, as his hair curled and blackened.
Goro was outside his body, watching the flames abate and a breathless Akira standing there, wide eyed, staring at his red gloves. He frantically pressed his hands to his forehead, then the back of his head, finding no aching gap. Gray eyes found maroon, and Goro knew he was fading. Could feel the dropping weight as he forgot how gravity felt.
Akira pushed through his friends, his crowding confused loved ones, and grabbed him. Ripped him out of the air and made him tangible, visible. His eyes, so bright and seeing, bored into his mind like a drill.
“This isn’t what I asked of you.” He growled, his grip on his shoulders bordering on painful until Goro forgot that he couldn’t feel pain anymore.
“It’s what’s just, Akira.” he breathed back, the statement just as void of sound as Akira’s was. Akira paled at that, probably understanding like he did that Goro was dying or dead or something else. “What’s just isn’t fair.” He continued, the light behind his eyes brightening. Akira tried to tether him, fingers slipping through him.
“I saw your heart.” He pleaded, “I was there, it can be healed.”
“This will heal it well enough.” Goro responded, the spark in his eye rapidly deteriorating. He held onto one last grounding desire. “Defeat my father. Promise me.”
Akira’s eyes cycled through a myriad of emotions— Goro held the raven in his heart, he could name every emotion on his face— before it settled. Wide eyed, heart sick, but sure.
“We will.”
Of all the ways he thought he’d die (humiliated, in a gutter, body bloated for weeks before he was found, or some staged suicide reminiscent of his mother’s because the cleaner was sick) choosing the way he’d die wasn’t an option he’d thought he had. It occurred to him in the last fading moments of being that this wasn’t a bad way to go.
This was how his justice would end.
---
“Peculiar.” A voice made of everything and nothing, familiar and alien. “Surely that doesn’t count.”
“Let’s try this again, I’m sure you’ll do better this time.”
---
His apartment was dusty. The glass had been cleared away, his private things removed. The bed was clearly there for showings.
He awoke with a vague idea that he thought he’d never do that again. Wearing clothes he didn’t pick, in a bed that was no longer his own.
Goro sat up, dressed in a hoodie and sweats and sneakers, hair longer than he’d ever allow it. His phone alerted him that it was March 3, 20XX.
Four months since he died.
It took him approximately four minutes to rediscover the needs of the body, thanking whatever god sent him back that the realtor had left toilet paper in the bathroom.
When he checked his reflection, he found his face had aged. Not much, but it reflected… whatever he saw on the other side. Sharper. The tilt of his eyes seemed less malicious and more wise, but perhaps he was projecting. His hair had a black streak running through it, but he didn’t dawdle too much on it, tying it up into a modest bun.
He pressed a hand against the mirror Akira had shattered only hours ago, for him. What a strange way he found himself in.
Casually, he tried to reach for the memories of death, and found nothing but a hollow. Just as he thought. Those memories belonged to him in death and only death. Fair enough.
For as controlling as he was on the other side of death, he found comfort in not remembering, in not questioning how he was returned. There was a strange certainty that it wasn't the same malicious force that had propelled the events before. That was enough.
He felt a strange nostalgia, exiting his apartment. He didn’t look back.
He walked all the way to Inokashira Park, delighting in the unusually cool day and fluffy clouds. His muscles stretched and flexed and he just felt so light.
He bought food with pocket change and an unguarded smile.
“Excuse me--” an old woman tapped him on the arm. He turned, an inquisitive glint in his eyes.
“Yes, ma’am?”
“You look like a strong boy, can you help me with this?” She nodded towards a traditional walking cart piled high with boxes. “I’ll compensate you for your time.” She followed up, a hopeful smile on her face. He couldn’t help the smile that he returned.
Goro proceeded to work for her for three months, living in her loft before saving enough money for a pathetically small apartment. Despite how it paled in comparison to his last one, he loved it. He was finishing high school online with his real name (apparently everyone just… forgot he was famous. And dead). He felt like he was finally, finally, headed in the right direction, soaking in the bathtub after a long day’s work.
It was only after he had accomplished all these things that he decided he’d like a cup of coffee.
Akira had a good day. Sojiro had spent most of the day away at a doctor’s appointment, and he had managed to handle the cafe for the entirety of his time away with ease. It was nearly time to lock up, and with no one in the cafe, he indulged in his weekly ritual.
He set a cup of Goro’s blend at his spot, a wistful ache in his heart as he watched the steam curl. Akira turned and went to the bathroom.
As he stood washing his hands, a curl of hair fell in his face-- an auburn strand that reminded just whose body had been given to him. There had been no explanation for it— that it was even possible. Morgana still stared at him, this complicated look on his face, when he did something like spout some criminal analysis or mindlessly put on gloves.
He twirled the hair through his fingers, a familiar dissociation settling over him like a second skin, before the tinkle of bells from the front door jolted him out of it. Right. Business.
He stepped out to notice someone already seated, cup lifted to their lips. He felt a moment of irritation--
Then the cup returned to the saucer, and the figure turned to him, and he swore, his heart stopped.
Goro sat, grinning at him softly, hair long and falling from his ponytail.
Goro Akechi.
Goro.
Goro.
“...I see you remember how I like it.” he said softly, voice netted neatly over an anxiety only he could detect-- but it wasn't done in an attempt to hide, to be deceitful, but to maintain the calm. Akira stared for… a long time. Goro was growing a look of concern before he responded.
“As if I could forget.” Akira spat all at once. His eyes were bugging out of his head, but he wouldn’t freak out. He wouldn’t freak out.
He ignored how his hands burned and shook. There was a faint yearning to cover them—in gloves or Goro’s hair, whatever was more ready.
“Hmm, I suppose I left an impression.” Goro hummed softly. There was something different about his cadence, something softer, kinder. Akira’s joints unfroze, finally, his brain catching up with his heart. He found himself walking across the room, Goro seemingly enraptured by the cup between his hands. “You’ve been well?” A discordant note of guilt, woven with care and stress. Awkward.
“I’ve… been healing.” he murmured, suddenly very close to Goro. “You’re alive.” He breathed. Goro hummed, still looking at his cup.
“I’m glad to hear that, and—” he smiled, turning to look at Akira. An actual smile, not a smirk or a grin or any of Goro’s multi-layered faces. Just a smile. “Yes. I am.” And he looked truly happy to be able to say that. Akira found himself smiling back in return, a giddy happiness budding in his chest. “It’s quite a situation we’ve found ourselves in.” Guilt crept in, dropping the smile and eyelids at once. An unpleasant look crossed his face.
“What, two dead boys chatting in a cafe?” Akira couldn’t resist, and was glad for it, if the side loped grin aimed at him from the periphery meant anything. Goro traced a finger delicately over the arm of the cup, the movement drawing Akira’s eyes. He wasn't wearing gloves.
A bloom of warmth opened up in Akira’s chest. He was the raven who knocked on the door, after all. Goro had let him in.
Hopefully he’d do it again.
“Well, neither of us seem very dead anymore…” Goro paused, honey brown eyes flicking over the tables a few times. “I… can't help but feel bad. I’ve—I’ve been back for a while. I wanted to come but—” he paused, breathing through his nose. “I needed to get my life together.” He explains, resolutely. Not apologetic at all, resolute, but still a little guilty.
Akira imagined he had a right to feel offended, or hurt, or angry that Goro would keep this from him for months. But he didn’t. He understood, and he was happy for him. Unbelievably happy to simply be standing there. Goro looked up at Akira. A soft smile, bold eyes.
“I feel like I finally got my life headed in the right direction.” he commented, eyes dropping to Akira’s mouth. Akira shivered with acute anticipation. “I’d like to start living it now.” he breathed.
Akira read into every implication, heart fluttering.
Akira felt ensnared, enraptured, amazed when he leaned forward and Goro’s eyes shut in a show of trust he’d never given before. He almost forgot to close his own eyes, but then he felt Goro, and he was lost.
The usual descriptors for a kiss fail here. It wasn't electric or stupefying or world shattering. It was gentle, and welcoming, and not at all feeling like a first kiss. Akira felt like he’d always known the way Goro’s lips felt, knew how to navigate his fingers in Goro’s hair, how to pull him close and drink up every part of him. It felt like something was being returned to him.
He had been dead, and the memories were hazy at best. He only really remembered the end, when his soul and Goro’s brushed against each other, when Loki and Arsene regarded each other as equals and put the battle to rest.
He brushed his tongue against Goro’s, delighting in the taste of his brew, knowing this wasn't a dream he’d wake up crying from. He used all his senses, skin prickling when Goro slid a hand into the back of his neck in such an intimate way it loosened his knees.
Eventually, they broke apart, small pants alerting them to the millimeters between them. Goro had grown, loomed over Akira now several inches taller, hair a tangled mess. A black strand fell into his face, and Akira let the love it inspired in him show on his face.
Goro held their foreheads together, a small smile on his lips.
“Would you live with me?” He asked, eyes closed. Akira hummed, shivers down his spine. He knew what Goro was asking-- would you walk this path with me, would you be there and allow me to be there for you, would you live life with me?
He answered with a kiss, pulling Goro ever closer, arms curled under his shoulders to snuggle him in while they kissed. It felt so nice, so pleasant, so… something in him that he didn’t even know was tense settled, and he could nearly cry from the relief.
The scales had been weighed for them, first present against past, and found them lacking. Now it weighs the present against the future, and all the world is now open to them.
Later, Goro talked into the early morning with Akira, limbs entangled, the shine of his black hair reminding him of wings. With the tang of coffee on his tongue and the red of the approaching dawn, Goro felt content to know that this could be how his new justice began.