[yan! michael kaiser x fem! reader, childhood friends au.]
synopsis: your grandfather once cautioned you against feeding strays. it’s a lesson you wouldn’t fully learn until many years later.
words: 4.6k
cw: yandere themes - obsession, possessiveness, implied stalking, slight dubcon (no nsfw).
a/n: [head in hands] this was supposed to be a drabble
“You be careful with that, now.”
At the sound of your grandfather’s voice, you glance over your shoulder, fixing your attention on the man standing in the doorway, propped up against his cane. Your knees and face are smeared with mud, as any seven year-old’s would be.
You turn back around, cooing gently at the scraggly kitten that eats the canned tuna out of the palm of your hand. You lift your free hand to scratch at its head, smiling as it nuzzles into your hand before going back to the food.
“Why?” You ask innocently. “It’s so cute.”
“It’s a stray,” your grandfather says, voice dripping with disgust on the last word. “If you feed it, it’ll keep coming back.”
You frown. Would such a thing be so bad? If the poor little guy was hungry, you would happily indulge it; after all, withholding such a vital thing to its survival would be cruel.
“But it’s hungry,” you whine. The kitten polishes off the rest of the tuna before looking up at you and meowing loudly, bumping its head against your palm. Your heart soars at the endearing action.
“I’m serious,” your grandfather snaps at you in the tone that tells you you’ll be in trouble if you don’t listen. You give the kitten one last pet before reluctantly retracting your hand. You bite down on your warbling lip and blink away tears when it meows at your sudden absence in confusion and protest.
You walk over to your grandfather, and he takes your small wrist into his hand. He takes in your crestfallen expression and sighs, shaking his head.
“It’s for the best,” he says softly. “You don’t want strays getting attached to you.”
You look up at him with big, watery eyes. “Why not?”
“Because no matter how much you feed them, they’ll always be hungry, and then they’ll never leave you alone.”
Despite your grandfather’s warning, you continue to feed the kitten.
You’re careful to do it somewhere he won’t catch you, though. It’s summer, so you’ve been spending a lot of your time in the park that’s only around the block from your house. Turns out the kitten has been spending lots of time sunbathing there, too, so you make sure to start sneaking out some canned tuna with your packed lunch.
You walk past the swingset and toward the large, twisting slide that you’ve gotten used to finding the kitten under this time of day. Your small purple lunch bag bounces against your leg as you skip happily, swinging your arms animatedly. The tune you’re humming gets stuck in your throat and dies as you duck under the play structure and find a small figure already huddled beneath the slide.
A boy in a black hoodie two sizes too big for his frail body sits criss-cross on the floor. Bruised hands gently pet the kitten, which is curled up in his lap and purring softly. He can’t be that much younger than you— probably only by a year— but he seems far smaller than the kids in the grade below you at school, concerningly so.
His head snaps up as your feet come into his line of his vision, wide, impossibly blue eyes locking onto yours. He flinches so hard that the kitten yowls and jumps out of his lap, startled. He curls in on himself defensively and his breathing becomes labored, yet his wide eyes never leave you, tracking your every movement.
You blink in confusion at his reaction. “Um,” you start to say, but you’re cut off by a loud meow cutting through the air.
You turn to the kitten, which has now settled at your side and is pawing at your lunch bag. You giggle— of course, it’s already come to know where its next meal is coming from. You pick up the bag and unzip it, producing the canned tuna from inside it. You grunt as you tug at the tab a few times, but finally it gives way and comes off cleanly. You place it down, and the kitten eagerly prances up to it and starts eating out of it.
After a long moment of watching it eat, your eyes drift back to the boy across from you. His eyes are locked onto the kitten with such focus that it’s concerning.
Then, you realize he’s not looking at the kitten— he’s looking at the tuna sitting on the floor.
You reach back into your bag and take out a sandwich secured tightly in saran wrap. You unwrap it then split it in half, extending your arm out to offer it to the boy.
His eyes dart down to the sandwich and back to you, but he doesn’t make any move to take it.
“Here,” you say, waving your arm up and down in emphasis. “You can have some, if you want. Mom always packs too much for me, so I’m okay sharing with you!”
He glances back down at the sandwich and hesitates for just a moment more before his hand shoots out, snatching it out of your own and quickly bringing it to his mouth. You avert your eyes back to the kitten as he eats it, slowly working through your own half of your lunch.
When you’re done, you peek into the bag to see what else your mom packed for you. There’s a small bag of chips, an orange, and a banana. Maybe it’s a little selfish to keep the chips for yourself, but the boy seems to be just as eager when you set the fruits in front of him, so it’s probably fine.
He finishes eating before you do, and slowly, he inches closer toward you and the cat. He begins petting it again, stealing glances at you when he thinks you’re not looking.
Finished with your snack, you crumple the bag up and throw it into your lunch bag before zipping it back up. You brush your hand off on your pants, leaving a smatter of chip dust behind that your mom will probably chide you for later.
You look up at the boy, who is already staring at you. He flushes red and is about to look away when you hold your hand to him and introduce yourself.
You tilt your head toward him with a warm smile. “What’s your name?”
Michael waits for you under the slide the next day, and the next, and the one after that.
Days bleed into weeks, weeks into months, and months into years. You become permanent fixtures in each other’s lives. You bring snacks and books, bandages and a gentle touch and an unspoken oath to never ask, never pry. He brings nothing but himself, but for you, that is enough.
Your mother never asks why you pack extra food, or where it’s ending up. She likely just chalks it up to you being a growing girl, and for that, you are grateful.
There are some days, though, where you’re being looked after by your father, who chides you for taking more than you need and makes you put the extras back in the pantry. On those days, you apologize to Michael for the smaller portions you both have, but he simply brushes it off. He says he couldn’t care less if you show up with no food at all, so long as you show up.
At some point, it stops being about the food, you just fail to realize it. Michael never breaks his habit of trailing behind you like your own shadow, and he’s not exactly a sociable person (in fact, his glare alone scares off any other kids your age who try to approach you two), so you figure there’s still something he wants from you. And because of your upbringing, hand-holding and leaning against each other and hugging is something so normal to you that you cannot even begin to suspect that there is something much different he’s actually after.
You’re fourteen and he’s thirteen the first time he kisses you.
It’s a sunny day, but not too hot; there’s a nice breeze in the air that keeps you cool as you sit in the grass, idly popping grapes into your mouth as you watch Michael kick a ball into a wall over and over again, as is customary for you two these days. As always, he eventually wears himself out and finds his way over to you, collapsing beside you and leaning his full body weight against your side as you complain and futilely try to push him off.
“Micha, get off,” you whine, shoving at his shoulder. He doesn’t budge, and instead sighs in irritation and wraps his arms around yours to stop your attempts. “You’re heavy!”
“Your fault for feeding me so much,” he mumbles into your shoulder, prompting you to roll your eyes. “Seems like oversight on your part.”
“Yeah, well, I wouldn’t have if I knew you’d grow up to be this annoying.” Your words lack heat, of course— you don’t really mean it, and even if it wasn’t evident by your tone, it’s evident in the way you relax into his embrace. “Seriously, though. You’re all sweaty. It’s gross.”
Michael gives one last aggrieved sigh before releasing you. He reaches for the water bottle set beside you and drinks from it, and you go back to your grapes.
A comfortable silence settles between you two as you observe the other people in the park. It’s summer, so it’s busier than usual, which means Michael will probably leave sooner rather than later.
You turn to look at him, but as always, he’s already looking down at you.
You tilt your head to the side. “Do you need something?” You ask playfully.
Michael stares at you a moment longer, the wind rustling his hair into his face. Then, he leans down so quickly that you can’t react before he presses his lips to yours.
It’s soft, gentle. It’s barely there, his desire contained by a hesitation you haven’t seen within him in so long.
When you don’t respond, he pulls back, his face carefully smoothed over into a blank canvas, but you know him better than that. Fear dances in his eyes, fear that he’s overstepped and swung a sledgehammer straight into your friendship.
You blink rapidly, trying to pull yourself together. “Oh,” you say, smartly, and then feel yourself flush red as you fully process what just happened.
“Sorry,” he mutters under his breath. It sounds wrong coming from him, and you reach out to grab his arm just as he starts to withdraw into himself.
“Hey, look, it’s fine. I just— you just caught me by surprise. That’s all.”
He looks back at you, and you feel your breath catch in your throat. His blue eyes are shining, but there’s something dark in them that you haven’t seen before, something you can’t quite place.
“It’s fine?” He echoes in question.
You feel your face grow hotter.
“Yeah,” you whisper back, “it’s fine.”
When he leans down this time, you respond in kind.
You’re always the one to break off the kisses shared between you two.
At this point, you’re convinced he’s not human, given the way that lack of air never seems to be a problem for him. If anything, he seems more annoyed by the fact that you’ve stopped kissing him than the fact that he’s nearly panting from how long he’s gone without taking a proper breath.
He’s insatiable, you quickly find out. Shockingly, for a few weeks following your first kiss, he spends more of his time kissing you under the slide than playing football. When you get tired or want to take a break, he just opts to hold you in a tight embrace until you’re ready to kiss again or have to leave.
Eventually, his initial enthusiasm dies down, but his way of kissing you never changes. Shallow, rapid kisses swapped between inexperienced middle schoolers, but he never lets up, always eager to meet your lips again and take in your breath in place of oxygen.
You never put a name to whatever’s happening between you two. You’re not friends anymore, that much is clear, but you two don’t have the means of going out on dates, either.
Regardless of what you are, he becomes clingier than ever following the shift in your relationship, and a small part of you can’t help but feel like you’re suffocating.
“Micha.”
He looks up from the ball at his feet, skillfully dribbling it despite the fact that his focus is elsewhere. It’s impressive; hopefully, one day, you’ll be able to see him play professionally.
Your heart sinks to your stomach and sits there heavily. Would that be the next time you see him? On some screen, miles away from him, years from this moment in this time?
You’re moving out of Berlin. Your father’s being suddenly transferred to an office in Cologne, and you have just five days to get all your stuff packed up and ready to go for the train ride on Sunday. You have a shitty starter phone— your parents aren’t keen on you having a smartphone, yet— but Micha has nothing. You suppose you could write to him, but that would put him at risk if his father got to the mail before he did.
When he catches the look on your face, he settles the ball at his feet and locks his full attention on you. “What’s wrong?”
You swallow, averting your gaze to the ground. “I’m moving,” you mumble.
A thick silence settles between you two. The soft breeze is sharp in your ears, like deafening static reverberating through your head.
His voice comes out sharp, digging in a way you’ve never heard it before. “What?”
“I’m moving,” you repeat. “I’m leaving. Dad’s job— we’ve got to go to Cologne.”
He doesn’t respond for so long that you finally force yourself to look up at him. His face has gone completely blank, and there’s only something dark in his eyes, something completely unreadable to you.
His voice is tight when he asks, “When are you coming back?”
“I—” You sigh. “I don’t know. I don’t think I am. I think the transfer’s permanent.”
He looks down, seemingly mulling over your words. When he looks up again, his gaze goes is cold, and he hums, straightening out. “No.”
You blink, confused. “No?”
“You’re not leaving.”
You furrow your brows. “What?”
He looks down at you derisively, seemingly irritated that he has to repeat himself. “I said you’re not leaving.”
“I can’t just not leave,” you spit out. He’s starting to be ridiculous, and his condescension has never been something that bodes well with you, having only been on the receiving end of it so few times. “I’m not gonna have any family here.”
He jostles the ball between his feet as if this is another one your shared mundane conversations. “So we’ll just run away together.”
You narrow your eyes at him in disbelief. “Do you even hear yourself right now?”
He slants a side look at you. “Do I look like I’m joking?”
“Oh, sure,” you say, voice getting higher with each word, “just two teenagers running away and figuring out how to make ends meet. Can you please take this seriously?”
His foot comes down on top of the ball, hard. He flicks a finger between you two. “I am the only one taking this seriously.”
“This,” you echo, incredulous. “A stupid relationship.”
He kicks the ball to the side and turns to face you fully, and that’s how you know you fucked up. Each word bites as he asks, “Is that all this is to you?”
“You know I care about you, Micha,” you say carefully, “but asking me to throw away my family to stay with you is insane.”
Something shutters in his expression, but it’s gone before you can even register it. “I knew it,” he spits, “you’ve never cared about me as much as you’ve led me to believe.”
You grit your teeth. “Are you serious?”
He shrugs. “You obviously don’t value me as much as I value you.”
“Oh my god,” you snap, “you are fourteen. Get the fuck over yourself.”
“You think this is meaningless because we’re young?”
“I think,” you hiss, “that we have our whole lives ahead of us. I wouldn’t ask you to stay by my side if you had bigger and better things ahead of you.”
He continues to stare at you in icy silence. You sigh, frustrated.
“If it’s meant to be, it’ll work itself out,” you say.
Michael tilts his head, as if considering this. His eyes wander your face, committing every bit to memory. Then, he walks over to you, seizing your wrist in his hand. You step back, a bit thrown off, but he lightly tugs on your arm, pulling you back toward him.
“It will work out,” he says, eyes boring into yours. “I’ll make sure of it.”
He leans down and presses a familiar, gentle kiss to your lips.
“Then you won’t have to leave me ever again.”
This time, when you pull away, he lets you go. Seemingly without a care in the world, he turns around and picks up the ball, heading toward the trail that he takes home.
You return to the park the day before you leave, but you don’t see him. You wait for hours, but he never shows.
The unease twisting in your gut doesn’t unravel until the train speeds away from the station, leaving Berlin behind you.
You’re about to turn eighteen when you see him again.
Not in person, but on a screen like you expected. The name Michael Kaiser sits in a scrolling bar across the bottom of the screen which plays footage of him playing on Bastard München’s youth team, his long golden hair flowing behind him beautifully. The news anchor says something about him being one of the most promising players of the new generation— not that that’s something you need to be told.
Your friend says something from across the table, ripping your attention from the screen. You don’t notice how tense you’ve gotten until you relax again.
Despite the lingering feeling of unease his memory leaves you with, you’re still glad he made it, after all.
“Who’s this?”
You’re back home for the holidays during your second year in university. Your studies have taken you back to Berlin, albeit a part you hadn’t grown up near and is still new and fresh to you. “Home” might not be the right word, though— you’re spending Christmas Eve at your grandmother’s house. She’s been hosting your entire family the past couple years since your grandfather’s passing forced her to relocate to a smaller house, an attempt to fill the empty home with warm presences.
Currently, she’s playing with a small, bedraggled dog that has wandered onto her porch. It’s wheezy and staggers when it walks, indicative of its old age.
“Oh, just a sweet little thing,” your grandmother replies as she pets its back. “You know, your grandfather always hated it when I would feed the strays. I did it a lot back at the old house on the other side of town, but there’s not too many animals on this side, so I don’t really do it anymore.”
You consider the dog. Its fur is matted, but nonetheless, its tail wags so hard from your grandmother’s attention that its whole body shakes with it. It sneezes pathetically.
You shove your hands into your coat pockets. “So this is a new one, then?”
“Well, not quite.” Your grandmother chuckles. “I first met this little guy back at the old house. I’ve been feeding him since he was a puppy! Seems he found his way back home on his own.”
“Huh.” Your eyes snap back to her. “I didn’t think they could actually do that.”
She laughs some more. “The most determined and loved ones can.”
You retreat back into the house. Your younger cousins jump on you immediately, demanding you play whatever nonsensical game they’ve thought up this time. You shed your coat, and with it, your lingering distress at your grandmother’s words.
“Oh my god, do you have a secret admirer?”
Your roommate’s voice pulls you out of your shocked state. The dread freezing your veins gradually thaws out, and you kneel down to pick the bouquet of flowers off the floor in front of the entrance to your shared apartment.
Blue forget-me-nots, with some blue roses interspersed throughout.
It’s October now. Just under a year has passed since Christmas, but your grandmother’s words are fresh in your mind, as if you’d heard them just yesterday.
You fumble around with the bouquet, movements becoming more frantic when you can’t find what you’re looking for. “There’s no card attached to this.”
“Well, duh,” your roommate says. “That would defeat the purpose of a secret admirer.”
Except, it’s not a secret who sent you these. You might have been able to brush it off if it was just the forget-me-nots, but the roses speak for themselves.
You flick your wrist out to the side, shoving the bouquet into your roommate’s chest. She grabs onto them, so you let them go in favor of getting the door unlocked.
“Figure out what to do with them,” you say as you enter the apartment.
She trails in after you, hot on your heels in incredulity. “Wait, you’re seriously not going to keep them?”
“You know I’m not interested in a relationship right now,” you say breezily, feigning a calmness that contradicts your racing heart. “It’s a sweet gesture, but I don’t want them.”
“I mean—” Your roommate stammers a bit before her words peter out. She sighs, then starts rummaging in the cabinet beneath the sink. “Alright, whatever you say.”
She ends up arranging them in a nice glass vase you weren’t aware you two even own and sets them in the center of the dining table. They mock you until they wither and die, and you can finally dispose of them.
By the time February rolls around without any further incidents, your guard has lowered significantly, which is, of course, your first mistake.
You’re lounging on the couch in the common space when there’s light knocking at your apartment door. There’s mostly college students renting in this unit, so it’s not uncommon for someone to stop by and invite you to some party or other, and with Valentine’s around the corner, there’s sure to be plenty.
You set your laptop down on the coffee table and get to your feet, sliding your feet into your slippers and crossing the room to get to the apartment entrance. You reach up and begin to undo the locks without checking the peephole, which is your second mistake.
You pull the door open, and immediately, everything freezes in place.
His eyes are as blue as the day you met him, only his gaze is far sharper than they were even on the day you left.
The television and billboards really don’t do him justice. He’s fully grown into his figure now, the diet and training regimen of a professional athlete filling him out in ways that the portioned-out food fed to him from your hands could not. His hair is choppy, but a face that gorgeous can make anything work. It’s pulled up into a messy bun made to look regal by the glasses sitting on the bridge of his nose. The blue rose on his neck is stark against his skin, and you eye the thorny vines that trail down and disappear beneath his shirt.
You meet his eyes again, apprehensive. His face is impassive, but the intensity of his gaze betrays him and keeps you pinned in place.
You clutch the doorknob so tightly your knuckles go white.
“Michael,” you say softly, and he frowns slightly at that. “What are you doing here?”
How did you find me? The unasked question hangs in the air between you two, but neither of you reach for it.
“Who’s Michael?” He asks airily. He steps forward, and hooks a finger under your chin before you get the chance to move away from him. “Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten your Micha already.”
You swallow thickly. “I haven’t,” you mumble.
He hums. His thumb brushes against your chin lightly as his gaze trails over your body. When it lands on you again, his eyes swallow you whole. “You look good.”
Heat floods your cheeks in spite of the dread settling in your stomach, and you look to the floor again. “Thanks.”
You attempt to step back, but there’s a hand that finds its way to the small of your back before you can. The hand on your chin tilts your head up, up, until you’re forced to look at him again.
“I spent so long waiting for you, liebling,” he says. “Is this how you greet your boyfriend?”
“Boyfriend?” You sputter. “I don’t—”
His thumb presses firmly against your lips, quieting your protests. “Friends don’t make out, do they?” When you don’t respond, he adds, “We never did break up, you know. I’m glad to see you haven’t cheated on me in my absence.”
You finally reach your breaking point, all the agitation and unease within you spilling over. You shove at him as hard as you can, but if he didn’t budge all those years ago, he certainly wasn’t budging now. You shove at him again, this time trying to use the movement to push yourself away rather than push him, but he swiftly grabs hold of both your wrists and tugs you back toward him. Caught off guard, you careen forward and crash into his chest. His arms snake around your waist, an iron cage holding you firmly against him.
“Micha,” you hiss, “let me go.”
“Now, liebe,” he coos, releasing his hold on you just enough for you to shift and properly look up at him. “You know what that will cost you.”
You glare up at him, but to your chagrin, he seems perfectly content to simply hold you and gaze down at you. As seconds bleed into minutes trapped in his hold, you crack under the pressure.
You tilt your head up fully, and Michael lowers his head just enough to be within your reach. You close the distance between you two, intending for the kiss to be short, shallow, and sweet, just like your first.
You honestly should know better at this point. One of his hands comes up to cradle the back of your head, and he pulls you back in just as you’re about to get away.
The next kiss is deep, far more passion behind it than anything you two shared before you left. He bites at your bottom lip, and forces his tongue in when you startle. A whimper leaves your throat as he continues to lick into your mouth. You reach up to try to shove at his chest, but he places his other hand over it, rubbing his thumb against your knuckles in a mockery of a soothing gesture.
You gasp out when he finally breaks for air. Your lips sting from the sudden release of pressure, and a thin trail of saliva lines your bottom lip. You stumble back, but firm arms are there to catch you again.
You look up, and his pupil-blown eyes cause that unease to settle over you once more.
Gently, he brings your hand up to his lips and ghosts your knuckles over them.
There’s a glint in his eye as he asks, “Aren’t you going to invite me inside?”
Never satisfied. Insatiable, and now, somehow finding his way back to you.
You should have listened to your grandfather when you had the chance.
Note from a graphic designer who has to fix this shit all day: rich black is prettier sure but for the love of the gods don’t use it for text if it’s going on newsprint. If its anything other than solid black it will bleed out and become unreadable.
Half my job is fixing this mistake all day from people who really really should know better. And now you know!
^exactly. Rich black is definitely better for graphics or large hits of black if you want it to be REALLY black and not look washed out. Especially if you’re printing in CMYK only (no spot colors), a rich black can really help tie your art together.
Fellow graphic designer here, another reason to never use rich black for things like text is because it strains the eye A LOT. Always use plain black or even a more muted black for texts, ESPECIALLY if you’re putting the text on a white background.
Hiii sorry for the reblog spam, an oomf reminded me Tumblr existed lol. Anywaaaaays do you have any thoughts of what modern Norton would be like? I always enjoy seeing what people think, especially when they talk about him mostly just in canon (time wise ig?)
I've been thinking of modern au Norton for quite a while myself. Happens with every character I like.. And don't worry about the reblogs, should've seen my face when I saw 50 notification tho..
He lives in a poor neighbourhood in a small apartment with a roommate whom he hates for never cleaning up after himself. He has lived independently practically his whole life—his father died of messed up lungs due to all that smoking—which made him act older than he is. Maybe he's in his early 20s. Acts like a man who has lived 50, though.
Despite being poor as dirt, he's attending college. Didn't pay a penny. Instead, he got in by getting top grades in high school. He'd always had a short tempter and an attitude, constantly getting in one fight or another, but never played about his grades. From an early age, he knew that his sole escape from poverty was good grades, which would give him a chance at a well paying job.
He buys clothes from second-hand or any other store that sells for cheap. He's a cleaning freak, so every nice shirt or pants he occasionally buys stay clean and wearable for a good while. It's not like he has the money to afford the clothes he'd want, but at times, second-hand has something good to offer. His style would be a mix of streetwear, maybe somewhat "vintage" since clothes at such stores are usually quite old. He never used his poor upbringing as an excuse for bad hygiene or questionable state of clothes.
Considering that in canon he likes to write poems and even dreamed of becoming a poet, I like to believe that he enjoys writing. He might not be an aspiring author, but he definitely enjoys stringing together words and sentences until they form something beautiful. Also, he likes good writing as a whole. Whether in books, movies, or games, he'll always notice and appreciate a good written story.
HATES the rich. That factor will stay with him throughout all the aus. He couldn't stand the rich kids in his class who flaunted their money in everyones faces and mocked the ones who struggled financially. He had to work at a gas station at the age of 16 to afford school supplies while those nepo babies partied away their parents' money. Also, even without his ignorant peers, he hates rich people. So much money and so many opportunities to do good for people in need, yet they buy an 8th car instead. Makes him sick.
Oh, also, he loves music. A good music piece is the same as good writing, especially in movies, shows, or idk, theatre. Music can make or break the scene, y'know? He's the kind of guy who constantly has his earbuds in and never takes them off, whether listening to music or not. Got into a lot of trouble with teachers in middle school because of it. Wired earbuds, btw. Can't afford the wireless ones.
Radiohead. Just saying.
He has his scar, I just can't really think of how it happened. Maybe an accident at a place he worked at while trying to pay off his fathers debts. Either way, self-esteem at the bottom of the ocean. He's insecure in the canon and he's insecure in this au. He did attract attention and definitely made a few hearts flutter (mine included :D sorry) but I'm pretty sure he never took any of the confessions or attention seriously.
OHHH forgot to mention that he used to get bullied in pre - and middle school. Like, getting beaten up or having his school supplies destroyed. He used to be such a sweet kid.. he was forced into toughing up, or otherwise, the bullying would follow him into high school as well. It's hard to befriend him. He isn't vigilant to people around him, just distant and dismissive.
The first time I had seen him was in the Plaza de Toros, under the blazing summer sun. The rays had fallen on him in a way that crowned that black hair of his, like a halo. In the same sense as a spotlight beautifying the ballerina, sunbeams were his limelight, every curve of his movement illuminated under the heat. And come the climax of the fight—where he’d drive his estoque into the heart of a raging bull—blood upon his chest, sweat upon his brow, and pride in his smile, I too, had been possessed by the same charm he had swayed the crowd with.
So much so, I had ended up in his dressing room the night after, the heat of his body on mine that no sun could replicate. A certain type of estoque was driven into me that night, touching more than just my heart, but a certain spot in my mind only he could tap into. A frenzied state of pleasure, where night after night, I’d leave with a certain dryness in my throat. That was his way of imprinting my tongue so that it may not speak another word but his name.
Hernando…
These trysts became tradition between us. I’d meet him just as the sun began to dip below the horizon, and as the orange hues filtered through the windows of his room, he’d vent all that he felt about his fight on me, making sure I felt every way he drove himself into me over, and over, and over again.
And I’d come crawling back for more, each time my heart leading me slightly more than the wants of my body. We had promised each other nothing more than a casual relationship, yet something in me hungered for him in the same sense he chased danger. At first, I shook this feeling, mistaking it for clarity after a night with him. But in the post-coital afterglow, when he brought me close into his arms, and I could feel the curve of his trained bicep accompanied by the beating of his heart, the feelings I had grew undeniable.
But they remained unspoken.
Not until the last time I’d see him, wherein he’d tell me that he’d be going away for a while, and that our relationship couldn’t carry further. He had delivered that blow with such tender sorrow, nothing but sweetness in the way he called me his love, apologies spilling from his tongue the same way his name would spill from mine had it been any other night.
But, I wasn’t going to have any of his bullshit.
If there was one thing I gauged from all the times he fucked me, it was that he got off on the danger of it. Getting caught, the possibility of repercussion, knowing just how much he could get away with it. Having rapidly risen to fame, he was the people’s prince. Young, handsome, courageous… Countless women pined to experience with him what I’ve taken for granted. If our relationship had been made public, everyone and their mother would line up to riot, no doubt pointing a finger at me.
What this had to do with the sweetness in his apology that bothered me was that there hadn’t been any form of sincerity behind it. Or at least, for the reasons that he claims. Truth may be that he loved me, but not enough to stop basking in the thrill of danger. I wasn’t a competition against his masochism with peril. When I read the letter on his nightstand a morning after—one encrusted with a peculiar sigil—I knew it was taking him away for good. And in my own right to selfishness, I was lured to his doorstep, in the shroud of dusk, for a final time.
Cast upon his face when he answered my fervent knocking was something that felt like an amalgamation of shock, heartbreak, and disappointment. There wasn’t even a trace of that excitement he used to greet me with.
“You know you shouldn’t be here,” Herenando mumbled, contrasting the boldness he used to envelop me with. He was halfway through closing the door, and would’ve been successful, had I not wedged my foot between the gap.
“Let me in,” I pleaded, “I just want to talk.”
That cast of disappointment cracked, and there shone a glimmer of why he hadn’t shunned me away harder: excitement. That thrill for something forbidden, doing something he knows he shouldn’t. He felt it, despite his moral conflictions—it was engraved in his bones.
And no was not something he could utter. Not for me.
In a defeated breath, he stepped aside, allowing me room to enter.
“It’s dangerous for you to be out in the night like this,” He began, peeking out the door for a moment before shutting it. When his attention finally settled back to me, I didn’t hesitate to bring him into a kiss, my arm hooked around his neck, forcing his head to dip to my height. Not that there was much resistance, or even shock in the motion. These encounters had been so frequent that every muscle in his body was conditioned to relax upon the feeling, and it wasn’t long before his hands did what felt natural to him.
But when I pulled away, did the clarity of circumstance settle back in. Hernando brought a hand up to my face, his finger brushing a strand of hair sticking to my forehead with the sweat of the journey here. There was a certain sadness laid upon his brow and seeping into his eyes. From that expression alone—the pain brought upon by just my presence—I knew that I had been loved.
“Is this your way of convincing me to stay?” He raked his fingers through my hair before cupping my cheeks in his palms, “My sweet girl…”
“I’m not here to convince you, Hernando,” I muttered, my breath against his lip, “we’re both smarter than that.”
I watched how flushed the skin of his cheeks turned, every freckle sitting atop a wave of pink. Now he was getting it.
“My darling, I leave tomorrow. I can’t…” His eyes fluttered as breathing seemed to become a chore for him. I watched as his chest heaved, skin spilling out of his loose collar just from the sheer size of his pectorals.
“Yet, you still hold me so close,” I curled a strand of hair from the back of his head around my finger, “something tells me you can.”
That was all it took for me to get what I wanted. A bit of poking to the embers of his fervor that remained kindled despite his attempts at extinguishing. Hernando was easy; all it took was the right thing to say.
He ensnared my mouth in a kiss that condemned me to this whole relationship with him anyway. It was messy, heated, disgusting in the way he salivated for me.
And I took that into my mouth with acceptance. He ground his teeth against my bottom lip, the sensation of his canines burrowing into the tender flesh, craving to draw blood. His hands groped around desperately at whatever he could, down my waist, up my bosom, whatever crevice he could hook his fingers around, he did. When the tinge of copper began to flavor my saliva, Hernando swiped the rivulets with his tongue before forcing entry into my mouth. There was that animalistic instinct that made him no better than the bulls he fought, driving him to consume every part of me he could. To leave nothing of me. That is what he knew I deserved, and it seeped in the way he relished the carnal taste of me.
“You’d think that, by now, I’d be able to say no to you,” Hernando broke away, whispering in a strained breath against my cheek. I felt the stickiness of blood that was smeared upon his lip as it grazed a sheer layer on my skin. He brought a finger to my chin, tilting it upwards to meet his gaze. It was my blood that colored his lips a vibrant red, a droplet of saliva, and hemo trailing down his scar from his reddish, swollen lips. There was a trail of faint crimson left in its wake.
From my own bottom lip—without Hernando to continuously suck the blood from the puncture his teeth created—it began to trickle out of my agape mouth. A tiny droplet slid from my chin, landing along my neck, one extending as far as my bust. His eyes followed the pearls, stopping at the concave shadow that sat just between my breasts.
“...But I’m not a man to deny temptation, mi amor. Now take this damned thing off.”
Henando’s hands began to pull at the lacing of my gown from behind. When it had come loose, Hernando shrugged it off my body, drinking in the sight he worshiped, hiding just beneath one measly layer of cotton. He looked like he wanted to say something, but held back as if reminded that words were a waste of time. He leaned into the crook of my neck, his tongue lapping up the drop of spilt blood before tracing it up to my jaw. From there, he planted kisses down my carotid. He knew that it was a sensitive spot there, and when he began sucking on the skin in some areas, I couldn't help but mewl something that sounded faintly like his name.
I wrapped a leg around his waist, gasping softly, while he left o-shaped bruises on my neck down to my collarbone. The wound on my lip had clotted, so it had stopped bleeding by now. But that wasn’t as far as Hernando was willing to go in his mission of ravaging me to the bone. He was the kind of man who went to extremes for the love of it, and there was still a part of me left untouched (though not for long), dripping in a ripeness only for him.
“Hernando, please,” I pleaded as the ache for him grew unbearable. I’d touch myself if I could, satiate the desire just a little, but I know he’d reprimand me. Then, for that small moment of pleasure, he’d punish me by extending his time toying around and teasing me rather than giving me what I wanted. That leaves me begging pathetically beneath him, hoping that he’d listen.
“Please what, amor?” He mocked, his hand snaking down my body with a ghost-like touch. He watched as I reacted in a soft whimper, amused by how little I had become in my lust, compared to his presence that commanded dominance. His fingers began to slide up my thigh, hiking up the hem of my chemise the higher they had gone.
“Don’t make me beg for it,” I scoffed in an out-of-breath laugh. He only looked at me with this amused little smirk, and I knew that no matter what, he’d get what he’d want.
“Is this not what you want?” He asked before placing his index and ring finger over the sensitive bud between my folds. In a slow manner, as if to ridicule my desire, he began making a circle-like motion with his fingertips. Just that alone felt like my nerves undoing themselves, the sudden tingly feeling pulsing from between my legs, drawing a shamefully loud moan.
“Now, I can go faster, or even use my tongue,” He whispered into my ear, his fingers moving in that same, excruciating pace, “all you have to do is be good, and tell me what you want.”
After leaving me with that choice, he peppered my helix with kisses. He knew my decision, but still decided to hear it because it got him off. Me begging, submitting. This was his capote, these moves all for the purpose of entertaining him before he actually got around to fucking me.
“Give me your tongue, Hernando,” I demanded, looking at his face. It was scarred up—rugged, even—but it still retained such refined beauty that it keeps me crawling back to his room, begging in the same way that I am now. “I want to see your face between my legs. I want to feel your tongue down there… please.”
Hernando let out a breathy laugh, placing a kiss on my cheek, “There we go. It wasn’t hard, was it?”
He moved his head down, lifting my leg over his shoulder. His face was obstructed as the edge of my chemise lay draped over his head. But the idea of him being down there was enough for me, even if I had begged for that sight.
I could feel him spread apart my labia before a familiar slickness swiped over my clit, sending an overwhelming jolt of pleasure throughout my body. I pressed my back into the wall behind me, trying to find stability as Hernando began working his tongue. God, he was eating me out like fruit on a summer’s day, saliva and juice undoubtedly dripping down that marred chin of his. It didn’t help that amid my breaths and babbling, I could still hear the soft slurp and suckling on his end. It was so filthy, it made me wonder if his fans knew that their prized matador—their heroic figure of courage—was on his knees after nearly every match, eating women out.
“You go a week without me,” I managed to breathe out, “and now you’re back on your knees, eating me as if you were starved.”
Hernando stopped, peaking his head out from my chemise to look at me. He wiped the wetness off his chin with the back of his palm, “I missed you, amor. You know that.”
He dipped his head back beneath, but not before muttering, “The taste of you is like no wine I’ve had before. It drives me crazy, knowing how long I have to go without you.”
The pace of his tongue quickened, and balance became an impossible task to maintain. From my thigh down, the leg I was standing on began to tremble as Hernando flicked the edge of his tongue side-to-side against my clit, which he fully exposed for his own greediness. I grasped at the crown of his head, fingers intertwining around the little waves Hernando had for strands, pulling just a bit at his scalp. I think it hurt him, given the groan he emitted. But something told me, with how he moved his tongue a little faster, that he didn’t mind.
I felt something prod around my entrance, and in a slow manner—as if to see how much it’d accept—Hernando began to slide a finger in. He pumped it slowly, fingertip to joint, at first. Then, when it was back at the fingertip, he’d go all the way down to his knuckle, all while his tongue continued working in the motion that it did. There was a rhythmic pattern to his skill—each pump of his finger coordinating with a swipe of his tongue.
“Hernando… Please…” There was an onset of tears beginning to take hold as he worked a knot within my gut. In every way, I needed him to undo it. To unravel me. I felt the way his tongue moved against my most sensitive points. I felt the way he curled his finger when it was deep inside. I felt it all, and now, what I needed the most was that overwhelming wave of euphoria only he could bring me to.
A familiar succession of loudening moans escaped my moistened lips as I gripped his scalp just a tad bit harder. This, not being Hernando’s first rodeo, he knew I was close to finishing and kept his pace. There was no quickening or slowing, just pure consistency until he felt that familiar tensing around his fingers, and heard an incoherent wail that vaguely resembled his name. My thighs twitched, my core squeezing together as I rode out my orgasm, his fingers still burrowed within me. He showed no sign of relent, even with all the thrashing about I had done because Hernando knew it was an addicting pleasure that I loved. The sensitivity post-orgasm, how weak and vulnerable he had worked me, to the point where small flicks were enough to draw out a twitch from the muscles in my body.
Perhaps this is what he felt, chasing danger, that pleasure to the point of physical discomfort. And he wouldn’t stop either, even amid the sobs. He’d only get enough when my body began to physically reject him. When my hand, against all my feelings, pushes his head away. That’s when he pulled out his fingers, withdrawing his head from between my legs—but not before placing light kisses against my inner thighs—revealing a disheveled man with slick, slightly swollen lips.
“Let’s get you to the bed, sweet thing,” He groaned as he got up from his crouch. I only nodded as I tried to catch my breath and stabilize myself. Hernando never gave me much of an option of carrying myself there. Before I could take a step, he had swept his forearm against my popliteal, throwing me off balance, forcing me to land into his other forearm. From there, he took me off my feet in a quick, effortless motion, my calves dangling from his antebrachium.
“Yes… Hernando…” I breathed, still in a bit of a daze, “my sweet Hernando… Can you be gentle? ”
He lay me down against the sheets, gently crawling on top of me until his legs straddled my waist. Hernando dipped his head down, sweetly kissing the side of my face.
“How about you get on top tonight, hm?” Hernando offered, between kisses, “You control the pace.”
“You wouldn’t mind?” I asked, propping myself up on my elbows. God, just getting a sight of him now—hair unkempt, sticking to his face and neck with sweat, eyes half-lidded with an almost melty look to them, skin spilling out of his clothes. Lord, what was he even doing with those still on? I extended my arms to the buttons of his blouse, promptly unclasping them.
“Seems like someone’s down with the idea,” Hernando cooed, a soft whistle escaping his lips as his eyes glanced down at my handiwork. He grasped my wrists, however, preventing me from taking his shirt completely off. With a sweep of his knee, Hernando rolled himself onto his back, landing me on top.
“But isn’t this a better angle?” He retorted, making a shooing motion with his hands, “Go on now, continue.”
I did as I was told, undoing the final few buttons before sliding the blouse off his shoulders completely. I ran my hands down his stomach, feeling every rise and curve of the sculpting Hernando had obtained over the years. His physique resembled that of a divine statue, like he had been the muse of some sculpture of Ares, or a great warrior. But he had the sensitivity of a frail virgin, and when I touched him, his breath shook.
I was lucky to have him in my hands as he is, and taking advantage of the moment, I took my liberties to kiss along the scars across his chest. I bit and sucked on some patches of his skin, just as he had done to my neck. Before he left, I at least wanted to leave one marker of myself on him, even if it was temporary. I had sucked six lovebites onto him, each of them a vibrant red, bound to turn a deep purple over the next few days.
I admired my doing, dragging my eyes up his heaving, flushed form. He had a subtle farmer’s tan, the outside of his arms being a fair bit darker than his torso. But just staring at his vulnerability isn’t going to soothe my greed for further intimacy. I traveled my hands down to his pants—a faint stain splotching the center of the tent his erection created—unbuttoning the clasp, and pulling them down along with his underwear. The first time I had seen Hernando’s size, it had intimidated me greatly, despite it not being my first experience with one. He really packed on unforeseen length, especially when it stands upright as it does now. On the times that I’d take him into my mouth, I could hardly make it halfway before shamefully gagging.
There was a sheen coating the tip of his penis, droplets of precum trailing down to his base. Poor boy, he had been hard for this long. It doesn't matter now, though. I was finally reaching why I had been drawn to his doorstep, and why he hadn’t slammed the door on me.
I lifted my chemise and deepened the straddle I had on his waist, opening my thighs further as I began to lower myself onto his tip. There was a bit of a pinch that came along with his girth, but it was something that quickly subsided once he situated himself fully within me.
“Oh… My,” Hernando moaned, his voice coming out muddled with breath. His calloused fingertips grazed the flesh of my hips, resembling little bites in the roughness of its texture, contrasting the way he held me down so tenderly. He grasped my hips like the hilt of a sword—trained on where precisely to hold, that death would unravel him if he held me the wrong way—all while I began rocking my hips up and down on him.
I started off at a slow pace, as Hernando had allowed me previously. I spent most of my attention exchanging wet, sloppy kisses with the matador, quivering against the lips of his open mouth. As I pulled away to get in the rhythm of moving faster, he propped himself up on an elbow, using his other arm to reach around my neck and bring it down to his height. He buried himself in my clavicle, his lips attaching onto any patch of skin he could. He began thrusting his hips in tandem with mine, hitting a deeper spot within me that shot a tingle up my spine.
“Hernando…” I sputtered out, “Please, it’s really sensitive there.”
Of course, though, I should’ve known better than to express that. He was a man who angered and fought bulls for a living. It was in his character to have that tinge of sadism, to get off on abusing my sensitivity.
“Is it now?” he asked in a mocking tone, wrapping his arms around my waist, forcing me to close the space between us. With my body pressed against his, I had no choice but to hang onto his neck as he began to buck his hips faster into mine.
“Hernando..! I.. really,” I cried out, only for him to interrupt by pressing his lips onto mine. A string of saliva connected our mouths, even after he parted (though, not by much) for a breather. He shushed me softly as my pleas for mercy became incoherent babbling, given the immense pleasure coursing through my body in waves.
“Shh… You can take it, yeah?” He reassured, pressing my cheeks together with his thumb and index finger, “Let me go faster. I know you can handle it, mi amor. All you have to do is sit, as you are now.”
I should’ve known that he had given me a faux sense of control. Having the upper hand was a tendency he carried even into the bedroom, which I didn’t mind all too much. I liked how he thought for me and how little I had to do to please him. Even now, despite my begging, I really didn’t want him to stop, and it worked both ways for us. He derives pleasure from my begging; I derive it from his reluctance.
I nodded, relaxing my hips—and with it, my movements—as Hernando began to take charge. He pushed me off him and sat me upright, insistent on watching how my body moved as he rammed into my pelvis. He trailed his hands down my body, pulling down the hemline of my gown, exposing my breasts for him to see. His eyes were glued on them for a bit, mesmerized by how they moved in tandem with the rocking. Then, he reached out, feeling them for himself, even if it wasn’t something new. He placed my nipples between his fingers, pinching and twisting them slightly as his cock dug into my walls hard and deep.
“What happened… To me, taking control?” I couldn’t help but ask, despite the fact that I was practically drooling senseless over Hernando thrusting into me.
“Sorry, amor,” He groaned, a faint laugh trailing off at the edge, “but you weren’t going fast enough for me.”
I threw my head back as he quickened his pace to the fastest he could go, the perverted sound of squelching, skin slapping, and our combined moans echoing about the room. It sounded like a brothel scene with just how shamelessly loud we had been in our acts. I wouldn’t mind being a personal night lady for him, if I wasn’t practically that already. God, he was fucking me senseless every so often; it made me forget I’d never see him again after this.
One thing about fucking a matador is their seemingly endless stamina. Hernando could keep his pace without slowing down for a good while, and this consistency had been the leading cause of my orgasms many times. His hands were back down to my hips as he guided them to match his movements, as if I were a doll for him. But God, just on his own, he was hitting all the right places at the right pace, there wasn’t much I wanted to do but “take it,” as he said.
“Hernando..!” I panted out, the syllables coming out broken up because of the movement of my body. He was taking me to that precipice of pleasure again, and I was going to ride him right off of it. I placed my hands on his wrists, digging my nails into the tanned flesh, a string of slurred pleas and whiny calls for his name escaping my lips in rapid succession.
“I’m gonna cum,” I rushed out in a singular breath, “Hernando… Fuck…!”
Shortly after I had announced that, every muscle from my bosom down had begun convulsing with the overload of pleasure. He slowed, just a bit, to let me ride out the feeling, stealing a kiss from my lips as I finished on him. He slid out, panting to catch a breath. But of course, though, this wasn’t over until he finished.
“Turn around,” He instructed, and like a lamb, I listened. I got on all four’s, sticking my ass in the air, and he slid himself in again. This time, he was fucking me for his own pleasure only, starting up at that same, rapid pace that he had made me cum with.
Of course, his pleasure also included overstimulating every part of my sensitive vagina. Despite being occupied with his thrusting, Hernando managed to loop an arm around my hip, fingers reaching right between my legs. He touched the same spot he flicked with his tongue, though this time he was moving his fingers in a quick, circular motion. At this point, I had been crying from the sensation again, tears wetting his pillowcase that I burrowed my face into to help muffle the screaming.
Hernando leaned down, kissing up my scapula until he got to my ear, with which he whispered with a strained groan in my ear, “See how good you are? What am I gonna do without you…?”
“I can touch myself, but it won’t be enough,” he added, his movements growing messier, a big indication of his climax, “I… could… I… Fuck…”
His breath was getting ragged now, and I pulled my face out of the pillow.
“Kiss me, Hernando,” I pleaded, turning my head to face him. He listened, leaning down over my shoulder, his kiss rough and wet.
“Say it again. My name,” He groaned, driving himself deeper, “please.”
His name left my mouth in a bitter sweetness. He knew he wouldn’t hear it again, and he was making the time of it now.
“Oh, my sweet girl,” he quivered, his movements sputtering, “oh God, I’m gonna finish.”
He had given about a few more thrusts before a slickness filled my canal, evoking a whimper, almost in unison with his moaning. He kept it in there for a bit, pumping every last load he had into me, before sliding out, his dick covered in a mixture of our bodily fluids. Exhausted, I could do nothing but lie as is, panting for air as Hernando reached for a spare cloth to wipe me with. When he cleaned the scene up, he began to dress himself. I stayed sprawled upon his bed, engulfed in sheets that smelled like him, savoring it before it was gone.
“Amor, you can’t sleep here tonight. I leave early,” Hernando crawled over to me, tucking a strand of hair behind my ear as he stroked my head sweetly, “I’ll help you put your clothes back on.”
As much as I wanted to stay, I understood his sentiments as well. I had come here to squeeze one last, good fuck out of him before he ships himself off to some place far. I didn’t want to overstay that. I peeled myself off his sheets, giving him a glance more poutier than I would’ve liked. I paused for a moment, wanting to express something, but nothing ever came out.
Instead, I just kissed him on that chin scar of his before getting dressed. He had kissed the top of my forehead in exchange. The process was wordless, and as he waved me out the door, the final glance I had given him must’ve been what Orpheus felt on his way out with Eurydice—a final look back.
He's insecure, even though instead of suffering, he learned to live with it. He can't change the facts. Can't undo his terribly sick lungs or erase his poor background. Neither can he get rid of those damned scars that remind him of maggots crawling all over his body.
He survived partly by accepting parts of himself he can't change as facts.
And the fact is that every other person you talk to is a better option than him. This one is richer, that one looks better, and the one over there is friendlier and it won't be as hard to deal with as it would with him. Norton can not offer anything beyond himself and how can that ever be enough?
So why are you even spending time with him? Why ask to play another round of golden cave? Just leave already. You staying feels like pity.
But also don't leave him, because he loves you. He does, despite all the struggle he goes through just to choke out that confession. Your kindness, your belief of never judging a book by its cover, your existence as a whole reminds him of a summer day. Whenever you smile at him, it feels as if the sun decides to cast its warm shines just at him.
He's a jealous person. Very much so. If you like to play cards with him, but one evening will be playing with someone else, his whole day will go down the drain.
His mood gets worse, he becomes more reserved and short tempered. He'll act like a total jerk, even towards you. He'll also never tell what the issue is.
What should he say anyway? That at his core, he's the greediest person you'll ever meet? That he hates sharing even if you're not his partner? That he wants all those smiles and laughs for himself, despite being the last person to deserve it? He'd sound pathetic.
My own ranking for all the Heart Cage love interests from most favorite to least favorite (Spoilers)
G#/Hahn/Half
Enox
Sid
Dane
Luke
G#
I love Hahn very much! His route was fun to play; I was looking forward to it the most when I was playing Enox, Luke, and Dane's route. I really love his voice and his voice actor did an amazing job voicing him! I also love his other personality, Half. Ik he made more appearances in other love interests' routes, but I really wish his route was a lot longer. I also find it funny and cute how freaky the guy is. I tried finding other content of Hahn through the creator's Twitter and Patreon. I even bought Before the War so I can see more of Hahn.
He reminds me of Mr Chopped from Homicipher. I can't help but see a bit of a resemblance to him. I picked the cat ears just because of Mr Chopped
I think it's funny how he tries to get the MC's attention by turning himself into ads, posters, billboards, water packaging, and even a dog.
His yandere side is shown more in Dane's route, where MC chooses to go with Hahn. He plans a wedding for himself and the MC.
"G# wore a cute smile, but his words were dreadful." I wish we could see more of that.
Half has some enjoyable moments as well when he was in a collar. Half was dying in the inside while Hahn was enjoying every last second of it. I also like how distinct his voice is so you can tell who's who.
I enjoy the chapters where MC travels back in time. We find out more about him and how Half came to be.
I do wish we can have this version of Hahn wear a dog collar
The moment where Hahn tricks the MC into traveling back to her time gave me flashbacks to when the Homicipher MC left Mr Crawling alone to travel back to her real world. Both moments make me die inside.
My biggest concern in one of the bad endings in Hahn's route was whether Dane forced him to turn into a dog, turned him into a dog, or he was willing to turn into a dog because this would be his only way of spending time with the MC. Well Dane said it's in his own terms so I'm guessing it's the latter.
If I were him, I’d maul him if I hear that (Not hating Dane at all, he’s a cutie)
Honestly, I'd replay his route 1000 times because that's how much I love him. I didn't think I'd like him at first, but seeing him in other routes and his relationship with his brother, I became interested in him.
2. Enox
He's a cute guy as well. I enjoyed his voice a lot.
He's a mix of Yandere and Tsundere but he's more of a tsundere than a Yandere. His Yandere side only shows up in the cage ending and a bad ending where MC is in a coma (Not saying he isn’t a yandere, it’s just that the other men made him look tame). His route was the first route I played through. He had lots of cute moments with the MC. While playing through all the routes, I was hoping he'd make an appearance in Luke, Dane, Hahn, or Sid's route but he only got a mention in Luke's route. Kinda makes me sad since Luke made an appearance in Enox's route. I'm glad to hear that Enox will appear in N's route in the future.
I do also like how he was looking out for the MC. I think it's funny how N was the one who convinced him to buy a teddy for the MC as an apology.
3. Sid
The childhood friends-to-lovers trope always gets me. Knowing how sad he felt when he only saw 9/10 futures where MC picked another man over him made me sad. I find his love for the chicky doll so cute and how in his inner world, he wants the mc to make more of them for him. I think he’s really cute when he’s honest about what he wants the MC to do to him.
His cage ending is probably the most saddest compared to all of the love interest. He’s watching a movie of him and MC getting married while he’s unable to do that.
He also gaslights the MC a lot (Only works because he took her to a different world).
4. Dane
Now, Dane. He would do anything to be with MC, and that's shown in every route we play in. In Enox's route, Dane erases her memories of her and Enox together (in the Cage ending). In Luke's route, Dane finds out that Luke and MC had sex (This happens when you pick the option to get coffee). In Hahn's route, there are two bad endings involving Dane. One where MC calls for help and Dane appears and one where Dane time-travels and takes MC back. In Sid's route, he travels to another world to take MC back with him (Only happens when you choose to text him back). He's the biggest yandere compared to all of them. He even breaks the 4th wall at some point.
I think what makes him quite threatening is that this gentle and kind man used to be a cold-hearted, emotionless god.
He would erase her memories to make the MC live a happy and normal life (Ironically, because of her memory wipe. She wants to uncover the deaths of her parents and what happened in her childhood.)
5. Luke
He's my least favorite out of all of them. He's good and all, but he was a little boring compared to all of them, and his route was really long. I will say that he's a better yandere compared to Enox. His route is probably the only route I wouldn't replay unless I'm missing a CG. I will also say that his backstory is kinda lame compared to all of them.
This is overall my own thoughts and opinions on them. I really love this game a lot, and it was so worth my 21 dollars. I'm planning on playing the creator's other works, "Please don't hate Christmas" and "Oh my Witch". I'm looking forward to more stuff from RiceOtomeCoffee!
this is hilarious but also im gonna cry like this teenage gamer died and they buried her with her high score. no one took back the pot or divided it up because no one would play against her again. her family and friends buried her with her wins. im crying
Hello? I wonder can I have a request? The reader is Makoto yuki's lover, the reader has witnessed his death. Several years after his death, the reader joins IT, but she still summons Persona with her evoker and is several years older than the members of IT. How will Makoto react to adult readers in Persona Q1. (My grammar is still not very good, I hope you can understand)
Thank you for your patience, life has gotten in the way but I'm finally here with your request. (And, hey, your grammar is fine! I understood. In fact this is an idea I have also had in the past!)
Thank you for the request!
You've changed. Time has affected you, of course. Being from a couple years in the future of the SEES members, it's obvious you're older. You can't keep your expression completely in check when you look at them. Knowing something you won't say. Looking at him- at Makoto- with something you won't say.
You still use an evoker, even though you don't need to by now. "It's more reliable, after using it so long." You still use it, but so much more naturally than your old teammates are used to you using it with.
Makoto doesn't know how to rectify the two versions of you. His teammate, his friend, his love, the person who should be at his side. The person you still are. Even if only because you follow on instinct. If only because you reach for him with long unused habits you can never quite lose.
But you're different, too. Older, not just than when he last saw you; you're older than the other members of the Investigation team. The oldest of the group, though you still look to Yu for leadership. At least when you aren't looking to Makoto.
"Is something wrong?" He's been staring for a while. It isn't surprising you noticed. Fidgeting under his gaze. Knowing he must have noticed the ways you're acting. "Makoto?"
"No." Makoto shrugs. You know him well enough to read the subtle changes in his expression, though. He knows that, too.
"Then?"
"Maybe I just want to look at you." A startled scoff leaves at his teasing. You would have been embarrassed, once. Now you just look fond. Nostalgic. As if you've missed this. Missed him.
"You're not usually that cheesy."
"So I won't change much?"
You flinch. Barely, but it's enough that Makoto can see it. Enough that he knows something has changed. He says your name, a barely whispered question.
"You haven't changed at all." There's so much hurt hiding underneath your words he doesn't want to face. What could have happened? Why do you look at him as if-
"Oh." He smiles at you, just barely.
"What is it?"
"Nothing." He's figured it out. You both know. But Makoto says nothing except, "I'm sorry."
"Makoto-"
"I love you." He needs to tell you, even if you won't remember he has.
"Of course you do, I'm your girlfriend," you say, teasing. But there's that fond expression again. The bittersweet feeling between you.
"Are you?" Are you still, he means. You look away.
"I love you," you say, instead of addressing the reality. No, you aren't. How can you be when he's not there? When you've grown into adulthood without him? It hasn't been long, really. You love him, probably always will, but you can't be with him.
He wouldn't want that.
"Okay," Makoto says, simply. Accepts what you won't say. He doesn't want to hurt you. Simply takes and holds onto every little detail of the ways you've changed, while you take in how much he's the same as you remember.
Eventually, before everyone returns to their own times, curiosity will get the better of Makoto.
"Were you there?" He asks.
"What?"
"When I-"
"We all were," you say. So that he cant put it into words. He died. You were all there, when he stopped breathing. It was horrible.
"I'm sorry."
"It's okay..." it isn't. "I don't think you regretted it."
"I should regret something." You stare at him, but Makoto shrugs off your confusion. "It hurt you."
Oh. It did. He watches the way you tense at the acknowledgement. Then, with a maturity unfamiliar to him, you breathe a sigh and tell him, "I'm okay."
"I'm glad I got to see you."
You hesitate at the sudden change in conversation. Makoto only offers a barely visible smile. "What do you mean?"
"When you're older." Makoto grabs on of your hands in one of his. "You got cooler."
"Cooler, huh?" You open your mouth to tease him about not thinking you were cool, originally, but he cuts you off.
"Pretty, too."
"Now you're just- you're teasing me."
"A little."
You've changed. In a world without him, you've grown into something different. But the light flushing of your face as he drops monotone descriptors on you hasn't.
You're still you, so Makoto will remind you he loves you, for this little extra time you've been given. Even if you might not remember.
inspired by @yandere-romanticaa's fic! Tehee your works are so eye opening 0.0 <333
I licherally haven't created a yandere content for such a looong time lolol let's see if I can still pull this off lmao
The very moment he laid eyes on you, Ren believes he was smitten.
It was only a passing glance, there wasn't anything else to look at while waiting for the rain to stop, and you were walking by with your head low. He could barely make out your face, but it was enough—something deep within him locked onto you and wouldn't let up. Not until he learned your likes, dislikes, how you talk, how you act, how you tick, hell even just getting to look at you—litteraly anything.
When he grabbed your shoulder he wasn't thinking—an action done automatically out of desperation, but when you locked eyes with him he could just barely remember to apologize. Ren knew then and there he was done for.
For as long as he could remember, there's always been something missing. He would wake up to do the same carbon copy routine over and over—not talk to his parents since they were at work, eat alone, go to school, barely pay attention to anything around him, go home, have dinner with parents that didn't really know him, stay in his room, then go to bed. Rinse and repeat on autopilot, not understanding what everyone around him had that he didn't. It was almost like there was a void in his soul that could never be filled—until he saved that woman and wound up here.
For as long as he knew his heart was empty, but you filled it. He doesn't know why, and he desperately wants to.
Though… first he needs to figure out why you're avoiding him.
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This snipbit into Ren's mind is for [A Change of Fate]! His first encounter with Bug/Reader :)
I've had an idea for a Persona fic and it's been sitting in my drafts forever. I have a ton written, but somehow not a single chapter is completed. I don’t know if I'm ever going to finish it, If I don't talk about it soon I swear I'm going to explode.
It's about a Player/Reader/OC(?) that gets transported to the world of Persona after meeting their end (normal isekai things yk). They wake up with no memories outside of some vague life they feel they didn't actually live. They end up at the arcade, run into Ryuji, have all memories but their finally moments come back to them and panic. Now they have to figure out how they want to go about existing in this world. Do they want to intervene in the plot or not? Do they even have the strength to?
Still not sold on making it an OC or a Reader Insert (drafts are a mix of both rn it's hell), but it's vague either way. I don't want to name or design the Player, I only do that when I'm drawing the more emotional scenes. For the most part they're merely a catalyst for my unhinged ideas and amusement.
If you want to hold out for the teensiest bit of hope that I finish the fic and post full length chapters, then stop here. There will be spoilers ahead in the form of a vague unhinged plot summary of its entirety (oops it's around 22k words).
If I do finish any scenes I find pretty good I may or may not post them separately. If I do I'll link it to my pinned.
(The rest of this is written in second person (you/your/yourself))
(ALSO a warning that comes with mild spoilers. By this ideas very nature this is—in way—a fix-it-fic, but the ending is still very bittersweet)
(ALSO ALSO it has very minimal proofreading done. I tried but it is long. Though the AO3 version has more proofreading and is more up-to-date)
You wake up with no memories in a house by yourself, until you find papers saying you were accepted into Shujin Academy and start in a few days. Then you get vague memories of a normal life leading up to you deciding to study abroad at Shujin. Something about the whole thing seems off, but you shake it off and start to get ready to get the last supplies they need and to familiarize yourself with the area.
As you're walking around you keep getting hit with waves of nausea until you reach the arcade. Staring at the Jack Frost claw machine you nearly collapse, but someone catches you before you hit the floor. You thank him and end up talking and enjoying the arcade together for a while. At some point you mention you're going to Shujin and the guy seems pretty happy about it, but also warns them almost everyone there kinda sucks, teachers included. That's when you both realize you never introduced yourselves to each other so the guy goes first and—
He introduces himself as Sakamoto Ryuji.
Everything clicks after that and you remember that you are in fact, a player of Persona and you should not be here. You don't remember the events leading up to you waking up, but you remember the rest of your life and start having a panic attack. Ryuji—Sakamoto (they're real people now you can't just use their first name anymore) tries to help you through it, but when he does you look around and recognize all the buildings around you and panic even more.
You try to play off your panic as just being tired. You didn't realize how long they were out for and have to get back home! You make sure to tell Sakamoto you're happy you'll know someone when you start Shujin so he doesn't think you're running away from him then quickly, but cautiously, make your way back home.
You wake up the next day, realize not only are you in Persona, you're months before the arrival of Joker. You proceed to have a breakdown.
When you start Shujin you've sort of committed to not changing anything drastic in the plot, then Sakamoto steals you away at the first chance he gets. You can't bring yourself to deny him.
Of course hanging out with Sakamoto you eventually run into Takamaki Ann and Suzui Shiho, the track team (if you could kick them in the crotch you would), and unfortunately Kamoshida.
He warns you about hanging out with the likes of Sakamoto and tries to get you to join the volleyball team. You refuse as politely as possible and speed away from him.
You've been around for a couple months now learning to live on your own and start to wonder what your in-universe parents are like. You don't imagine it's anything good. Sure they're paying for the apartment and giving you a hefty allowance, but not once have they reached out to you. You don't know if they're expecting you to be the one to reach out either. As long as they don't bother you, you don't plan to bother them to find out.
All too soon the years change and you meet Yoshizawa for the first time. You never stopped to think about which version of the world you were in, and seeing Yoshizawa Sumire—currently Kasumi—makes you realize that Maruki is going to be an issue. It would be terrible for him to learn anything about you so you have to do your best not to stand out to the school when Joker arrives. Oh and he's arriving in a few days. Great.
You spend those few days trying to think of ways to subtly help and how what you might do could affect the future, but don't come up with anything in time.
When you walk to school and see Joker standing waiting for the rain to stop you don't know what to do. You're about to talk to him when a thought crops up in your head.
"Would you even be able to get a persona?"
You don't want to be a liability so you walk past him with your head down.
Or at least you tried to walk past him, but he ends up grabbing you. You're surprised and it looks like he's surprised himself that he did that and apologies. He struggles to put his thoughts together while you stand there awkwardly wanting to get away as soon as possible. He's giving you a look you don't know how to feel about. Then Takamaki shows up and basically saves you from that encounter.
Then Kamoshida drives up in his car.
You didn't want to get into an enclosed space with him, but you knew if you didn't join you'd end up walking with the boys and getting stuck in the palace (which is honestly worse). You also remember how Takamaki looked during the cut scene and couldn't stand to leave her alone with him, so you got in the car.
Waiting for the boys to get back from their kidnapping is agonizing. When Sakamoto finally arrives after lunch and you ask hum if he's okay he kinda avoids the question. Which is about what you were expecting.
After the final bell rings Sakamoto tells you to he has something to do and runs off without you. That's fine since you know what he's gone off to do and make your way out, accidentally bumping into someone in the hall. You hear the murmurs of the student body around you and glasses hitting the floor before you lay your eyes on who it is. Of course it's Joker.
He introduces himself to you. Amamiya Ren. At least now you know which name he goes by, but this is still not ideal! He's also still got that strange curiosity in his eyes when he's looking at you. It's intense. You don't like it, so you quickly make an excuse and leave. He has to talk to Sakamoto anyway.
You're watching the events of the game take place from the sidelines, wanting to help but to scared you'd change things for the worse. It's when Suzui falls from the roof the guilt sets in and starts to eat you alive. You make your way up to the roof to stew in it and cry when you hear the door slam open and Sakamoto shouting.
You forgot they resolved to take Kamoshida down with the Metaverse today. You're also surprised you can already understand Morgana.
Yet again you're put into the position to make a choice and let yourself be known to them. You're actually about to when you look over the edge of the roof. That's when the last bit of fog on your previous life's memories clear up.
You were pushed off of the roof. It was an accident, a sore loser who couldn't get over his own ego pushed your friend, accusing her of cheating in a tournament. She lost her balance and ended up crashing into you, making you tumble off the side. Everyone that was there tried to reach for you, including the egoist, but none of them were fast enough. You distinctly remember the feeling of your head caving in before everything went dark. It was dark for a while, before you woke up in that apartment.
Your vision blurs as you start hyperventilating. You scramble away from the edge of the roof and run all the way to the station, wanting nothing but to go home.
The next couple days you try to avoid every canon character, which isn't that hard since they're focusing on Kamoshida's palace. Unfortunately the man himself notices you're on your own and tries to harass you. It's both fantastic and horrifying when the thieves start showing up again and hanging around you until you get on the train. Something must've happened in his palace regarding you. If none of them can keep an eye on you before they enter then they always ask you to go to the store for them. If you didn't know what was going on you'd have a lot more questions, but you're content to do their shopping for them.
After they change his heart they strong arm you into hanging out with them as a group. It's not at the buffet so you guess they already ate there and solidified themselves as the Phantom Thieves.
You feel you're going to go insane waiting for them to find Madarame. Important people keep bumping into you and it's stressing you out. Amamiya keeps trying to get you to talk or hangout or something so you keep having to make excuses, Kitagawa asked to sketch you 'cause apparently your solemn look down at your coffee sitting alone at a cafe was the perfect scene for him, you keep getting asked if you want to study for midterms, and you literally bump into Akechi. It's the most shame and terrified you've felt in this world. You want the plot to start happening so you can get a minute to breathe.
Finally after exams are over they start Madarame and you expect your interactions with the main cast to go down. How wrong you were.
The thieves still ask you to buy items for them occasionally, though now Amamiya seems to use it as a way to talk to you. Sometimes someone will message you asking to buy something ASAP and bring it to the passage before bolting. You think they're using you to get items during a palace run so they can stay in longer, but you're not asking. Then Takamaki practically begs you to join her for a modelling gig.
You assumed she was talking about her actual job. Maybe she picked up a more free gig and she was allowed to pick someone to join her? Suzui still wasn't able so her next choice was you. You have trouble saying no to these people so of course you agreed to join her.
You're petrified when you end up standing in front of a shack and not a studio.
One thing happens after the next and you're on the verge of a breakdown inside the palace. You can't pay attention to anything. The only thing you notice is Kitagawa getting his persona so you move out of the way on autopilot. Before you all exit the thieves try to ask if you're okay, but you wave them off and ask to leave. As soon as you do you head home.
When you get inside and after a bit of hesitation, you call your supposed mother and learn she's really weird. She does what she asks of you though and now you're home bound for some terrible "illness." She somehow got the school to agree to send your work over while you're "recovering."
It's Niijima Makoto the school sends to hand over your work. They also give her your number. You message her to tell her she doesn't have to physically give you the work, that it's excessive and sending it through an email would've been fine for the school, but she doesn't relent. You have her drop your work off in front of your door and watch you pick it up from a distance, cursing the principal out in your mind all the while.
You receive an endless amount of messages from the thieves, but you ignore them all. They never stop as the week passes, but the contents change.
One day Niijima shows up at your door with Sakamoto in tow and he basically bullies his way into your apartment. They help you air out the place and try to cheer you up. Niijima takes the work you finished and organizes what you didn't while Sakamoto gives you a ton of games to borrow and asks you to play at least one of them to completion. None of this makes you feel any better.
A few days later you're sent a calling card.
??What the fuck??
You don't know why you were sent one or how it would even feel to get your heart changed. To be frank you don't WANT to know! You're fine! They're ignoring your messages now so you guess they've already jumped in. But to where? Mementos? A palace?? Was whatever they think is wrong with you strong enough to make a palace???
If you think about it any longer you feel you'll go insane, so you try to get some sleep, hoping you can skip whatever process happens during a change of heart. You barely get any when your phone lights up. Hoping it's a message from a thief you open your eyes only to be greeted to a black and red swirling eye.
You throw your phone across the room, turn to face the other wall and go to sleep.
Much later, you wake up to someone banging on your door. Just to get them to shut up you open the door and end up nearly knocking Sakamoto out. They came over immediately after they left and they're almost frantic as they explain the situation.
Yes, you had a palace—still have a palace. They didn’t change your heart. Not because they couldn't, but because it apparently wasn't a good idea. After the fight they got to talk to your shadow and they seemed to be much better than before.
You're able to piece together that they basically handled your palace like a jail in Strikers/Scramble. Now that the scare is over you realize you feel more… put together. This is the most at peace you've felt with your place here since meeting Sakamoto.
But beyond that you have no idea what they exactly talked about that made taking your treasure a bad idea. They don't explain, and you don't ask. You're too afraid of what they might've seen inside of it and you're sure stress radiates off you in waves, but they never push it. What they end up doing is reiterating multiple times that they're your friends and can and will help you through whatever you need.
You go back to school. Madarame apologizes and the student body clowns on him. The Social Studies trip happens but you don't go. You still somehow run into Akechi again and now he wants to use you as his rumour mill. Like always you have a hard time saying no to these people when you probably should.
A few days past with Amamiya insisting that he hangout with you. Sometimes the others join, but it's mostly just you and him. The last time you were together he left just a little agitated. When you asked he only said it wasn't anything you did, which obviously didn't answer the question. There's no time to ponder though when Niijima blackmails the group the next day.
They're scrambling to find any information, but refuse to go to you for any help. They don't even let you walk around Shibuya, blaming it on you needing more time to recover from your illness. They know you weren't actually ill they just suck at excuses. It makes sense since it's the mafia, but you’re itching to do something to keep them from getting blackmailed again.
Of course between your inability to come up with a plan to save your life and constant hesitation, Niijima ends up running into the lion's den and getting them all in trouble. They basically come to you after they've already gone into the palace with their tails between their legs. For a variety of reasons, including their stupidity (and cause of the location),the hideout changes to your apartment.
The first couple days is the same routine as before. They jump in and have you get items for them, but since you know you're able to bring them more things they could use. They don't make much progress in the palace despite this though to your confusion and their ire.
One day they don't show up at your apartment anywhere near the time they should be back. They haven't asked you for items either, so unless Amamiya brought a crapton with him it starts to feel like something's gone wrong. Your nerves get shot and after almost an hour of nothing when you remember you have the Metaverse app on your phone. Fearing more for them over yourself you input Kaneshiro's palace keys and go in.
After hyping yourself up, you force one of the ATM people to carry you to the floating bank. When it gets there you bolt out of its arms and through the secret passage into the building and immediately hear the sounds of a fight going on.
It doesn't take you long to find the source of it, and as you peak around the corner to see you find the Phantom Thieves fighting a bird. A really, really fast bird. They can barely land a hit on the thing, and when they finally do it barely does anything. The bird keeps moving around like it wasn't just stabbed, electrocuted, and burned all at once.
Morgana is also knocked out cold on the floor, his bandanna and fur singed at the edges. The rest of the thieves are extremely tired and must be running low on SP.
This bird shouldn't be here, hell it doesn't even look like a normal shadow! Despite knowing this is not a regular encounter in this palace it feels familiar somehow. Once you remember why it takes everything in your power not to groan.
Unfortunately not only were you a Persona player, you were a Persona player that modded the game.
Specifically, you modded it to make it harder. Much harder.
You are now seeing the consequences of your actions, but it's not like you thought you'd be forced to fight this dogshit in real life! How were you supposed to know your methods of self torture would follow you to merge with this worlds Metaverse and create nothing but problems. If you'd known you would've saved yourself the trouble. Unfortunately you can't go back in time to slap yourself in the face for thinking of downloading all of that garbage. You just have to deal with it, but you have no clue how.
It's obvious they were not prepared for a fight like this and you can't blame them, but you can't jump into the fight to give them advice. You don't have a persona, effectively making you a sitting target. A liability. You didn't bring any items to help you for this either. You can't help them, but they also can't afford to fall here.
You back away to root through any antiques or statues laying around, hoping to find anything, but instead get ambushed by a group of shadows. They knock you into a corner and radio in Kaneshiro. You think you're done for.
It's when you hear the thieves cry out at another member falling that your resolve strengths.
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"It appears this flickering lamp wants to shine as bright as the stars in the sky, but still allows darkness to cover their truest desires.
Is this still a game to you? Do their deaths not matter? Should they fall, are you expecting time to reset for many second chances?"
"Of course not. They aren't characters on a screen anymore. They're living people trying to change the world for the better, and I want— I need to help them! They can't die here!"
"Then stand and free yourself of your demons!
I am thou… thou art I…
I lend you my light to fight for what is right!"
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It blasts all the nearby shadows away, leaving you standing. Not taking any time to marvel at your new power, you leap past them to save the thieves from the bird.
After reviving Morgana and Ryuji, you help guide the Thieves on how to take down the enemy. As soon as you do you're all rushing out of the palace in the Monacar and getting to your apartment as fast as possible.
When everyone recovers, They're all grilling you for answers, wondering when you got the app on your phone, how you knew what Kaneshiro’s keywords were, how you knew what to do in that fight etc. You reply with lies and excuses, which they catch you on every time. Eventually you run out and you gotta spill.
You tell them about the game (not about your original reality though), and you're surprised when they almost instantly believe you. They say it's because the way your palace worked and the talk they had with your shadow at the end.
Now that you've finally confirmed that for them they start to speculate where it could’ve come from. Yet again you're shocked they're worried more about the game then about you. They're honestly appalled and saddened you would even think that, so they reinforce you're their friend first and the knowledge you have of future events is now a really cool helpful bonus. None of them leave until you promise to use their first names from now on and confirming you're joining the team.
Amamiya—Ren stays behind for a bit longer to learn about his protagonist status. In turn he tells you he's been trying to get your confidant leveled since he learned about it (but really since he first laid eyes on you). You blame his fixation on being a protagonist to a player. He tells you he doesn't give a shit.
By the end he's relieved and explains your confidant kept locking itself, but now it's free of chains. He threatens you with the promise of him taking up multiple of your free days before leaving.
When everyone meets up again you get your code name Bug. Like a bug in a video game, you're a bug in their fate. You would’ve denied it if Ann hadn't called it cute. Ryuji called you weak for that, then was promptly hit.
On your first actual outing as a Phantom Thief you can see how bad your modding habits have affected the Metaverse. None of the bosses have become harder then they originally should be, but more shadows then you're expecting are from your mods. You highly doubt it'll stay this way moving forward.
Now that you're helping Kaneshiro’s palace is a little easier, but it's still confusing as to why modded shadows are even here. Morgana blames it on your preconceived perception being stronger than most because of the game. Basically the palace gets warped by both you and the ruler. You really wish you could call bull, but spot another bird in the distance and cry.
During down time you head into mementos by yourself to talk to Jose. You needed to know if he could tell you were from another world, and if he did to be quite about it before the rest came down for requests. You're having a nice conversation with him when fighting is heard in the distance. Peaking around the corner you find the Black Mask fighting off more of your modded shadows. He's not doing to good, and the shadows aren't making it easy to escape.
You're conflicted one whether you should help him or not. You know you should, but he's still very much Shido's lap dog rn.
Then a voice pops in your head asking if your efforts start and end with the Phantom Thieves. Of course not, so you promise yourself to save everyone you possibly can and you get your second persona.
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"It appears your meddling has cause problems for more than your own.
Then end you seek goes against the will of the world, continuing down this path shall will bring great struggle and hardship.
Do you still plan to defy the gods of this world, knowing all will be against you?"
"I don't care. In this world, I'll make sure—"
Your chest burns as you gaze upon the fight happening before you. It feels like daggers are stabbing into every inch of your skin, twisting, but you stand tall. Not once taking your eyes off of what you now perceive as your ultimate goal.
"—I'll make sure no one has to die!"
"Then it would seem you have finally clipped all threads tying you to fate. I shall lend you my strength to brave this future head on!
I am thou… Thou art I…
Carve out a path of your own and show fate its place!"
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You don't allow yourself a moment to ponder the implications of getting a second persona before you're jumping into the fray to help Akechi.
After a long fight and subsequently long interrogation with a sword at your neck, you manage to convince him that you want to help. Also to wait to doubt the validity of your future knowledge by telling him about Shido's plans with Medjed. He nearly slit your throat for that alone though…
Going back to the thieves you don't say shit and you all take down Kaneshiro. Afterwards it's a barrage of studying and being dragged to hangout left and right before Akechi runs into all of you in the subway. He points out your group is sus as fuck and you can tell he expects to meet up with you later.
Meeting up in Mementos again he says he believes you and is willing to work with you to change the future cause fuck fate. Especially if it means he lives to see the fall of Shido. He also has a few choice words he wants to say to the gods you described… with his sword.
You both agree to plan in the background before revealing him or your full hand to the rest of the thieves. You try to at least get Ren in on it too, but Akechi can barely handle your sudden team up. He's not immediately jumping for joy at the thought of anyone else.
Alibaba shenanigans happen. The thieves try to pry who they are out of you, but you feel it's easier if they figure it out themselves. You don't know what would change if you told them and just went in. It's not worth the risk of Futaba not overcoming her perception herself or gaining her persona.
One break-in later you're in her palace and… It sucks.
Most of the palace has changed to reflect the many mods you injected into the game. Makoto thinks it's because her palace is so disconnected from everything else, your presence effects it more. All to say most of the shadows in here are beyond irritating. When you were playing the game, it was annoying and bullshit sure, but now actually having to fight these things has put the fear of God into you.
Every fight is life or death more than before. If a shadow can hit a weakness they will, if it has an insta-kill you better bet it's going to land it at least once, if it can inflict an ailment it just so happens it will use the more BS modded version. Burn will bring someone to the brink of death, despair saps every ounce of energy someone has left, rage is now a worse brainwash, and a ton of new ailments you wish you could remember from the mod. Of course they can access moves that shouldn't exist too.
The bosses are a whole different nightmare themselves.
Slow as you all were, you were able to make through a majority of the palace. Only to get stopped by a boss only weak to bless. You're able to get around it for now, but you need to go that way eventually. Ren doesn't have anything of value and you're no help in this case. To not risk all of your lives in this shithole he chooses to grind in Mementos to fuse a decent bless persona.
You know it won't be enough though, so you rush to inform Akechi that he might be needed earlier than planned. He asks why so you tell him how everything's gone and he blames you. After staging a meetup in Mementos Akechi joins the team as Crow to everyone's disappointment, besides you and Ren.
When you fight the boss again it's still a struggle, but Akechi makes it so much more bearable.
The palace crawling goes a little smoother than before with the extra member, but it still takes a few days to get to the end. During this time you and Akechi are desperately trying to rework your plans. You also ask him how he's holding up going through Futaba’s palace, but he brushes you off redirecting you to how she would feel with him here. You feel awful and resolve to tell her when she wakes up.
The Wakaba fight happens as normal, but this time with you and Akechi included. He hates seeing her again and Ren takes notice.
When summer break officially starts for everyone Ren basically kidnaps you and Akechi. He gets you to explain yourselves and becomes the next to be in on the planning. He asks when you and Akechi planned to tell everyone else and you don't have an answer, which disappoints him. He agrees to help with initial planning to avoid all the drama that happens during and after the Hawaii trip, but only if you tell everyone afterwards.
After that you're playing the waiting game.
You hangout with the thieves, explore Mementos with Akechi and Ren, more planning + stress over the Hawaii trip after remembering the principal dies, Ren informing you over the unique state of your soul— wait what?
Apparently soon after your Mementos trip, Igor informed Ren that your soul is beyond what he’s seen before. You're not a wild card, so you can't get personas on your own, but you can still wield multiple. Then when Ren asked how you could get more, he called you a leech. Someone capable of stealing personas, no matter how strong, and keep them forever. No matter how hard he tried to get it back, he wouldn't be able to without killing you. Fusing a new one would also be impossible if you were to ever obtain one, so he told Ren to be weary around you. Maybe break the team up altogether. Hell, that Akechi guy is also suuuper sketchy and untrustworthy so he totally shouldn’t be working with either of you at all.
Akechi had nothing to say about the obvious try at manipulation, while you went of on a rant about "Igor" calling you a leech.
One more Mementos trip and figuring out what the faker meant by "leech" you gain your third persona!
Around this time you also remember your palace still might exist. Out of pure curiosity you enter and find it's nothing like the thieves described. At least not anymore. Some time between now and your sudo change of heart it's shifted from a normal palace to something more akin to the thieves den. There's rooms where your personas reside in (you count six with no room for more) and what looks like a war table in the middle.
During one of your Mementos runs a door also appears for you, leading you straight into your palace. This instantly gives you an idea you can't wait to tell the planning committee.
It has to wait though because Futaba wakes up and puts a stop to the fake Medjed. The thieves then switch gears and put their efforts into making her more comfortable with all of you. Things proceed as normal, besides her outing you being a seer immediately. You correct her ("I wish. I just played a game where all of you were the characters" "Oh… What??") and move onto the beach episode.
Later on Futaba comes up to you and asks if you know what happened to her mother.
It's a very intense, emotionally driven conversation. You're trying desperately to explain why you had to bring Akechi in did you really though? and vaguely explain his side while Futaba is rightfully pissed off. She feels gross knowing her mothers killer was in her head.
She tells you to leave her alone and you do, now wondering if you're going about this the wrong way.
You spend the next day trying to finalize your plan with Ren and Akechi, while also trying not to let the guilt eat you from the inside out. It's also agonizingly difficult to focus when a major part of the problem is sitting next to you.
Akechi ends up pulling you to the side after one to many caught glances had his irritation bubble over. He doesn't take you brushing off the problem lightly with it impeding on the planning, so you spill and tell him what happened with Futaba.
He doesn't have much to say about this situation, not much positive anyway. Though he does say you’re the only one that can tell them what's happening, so you have to get your shit together. You fucked up, but you need to focus now so people will stop dying through the Metaverse.
The meeting concludes with no solutions made again.
There's still time before you have to call it a day, so you make cookies to act as a peace offering gift for Futaba. You knock on her door hoping she responds so you can apologize for the gross negligence of her feelings. When she doesn't respond you leave a note and homemade cookies before going home.
The next meeting you're able to stay on track and able to come up with a plan. You can't deal with Okumura, at least not yet. If you were to change his heart, Akechi will be forced to either kill him or go into hiding. Letting him die isn't an option, but going into hiding is too risky. Though you can't leave him alone either. Shido wanted him dead to begin with, if it doesn't look like the Phantom Thieves are interested in looking into him at all there's a chance he might send Akechi to kill him anyway. It's easy to forge a calling card, that's what they do with the principal after all.
So during the Hawaii school trip, Akechi will take Morgana (for the support. He says he doesn't need it but you insist) and try to recruit Haru to your cause. While he's doing that you're also waiting for the poll to pop up and fester for a little. Once it has, the idea is to make a big show of it being fraudulent and how all this evidence popping up against him is too sudden. At the end making sure to note that you will be looking into this yourselves later. Hopefully by the time everyone else comes back you'll have a new member and be ready to move onto phase two.
To change Sugimura's heart.
Haru still needs to be saved before October 11th, and the Phantom Thieves still need a public target. This kills two birds with one stone. Then on the same day you plan to send the calling card to change his heart, you'll also kidnap Okumura.
You're not actually going to do that, but the plan does involve making the public think he's gone missing. Both Ren and Akechi (and you tbh) can't believe this is what your plan devolves into, but the best way to make sure he stays alive is to keep him in somewhere safe where no one can find him. Somewhere you can easily bring him where not even he will know you're involved.
The Metaverse is the easiest solution. While Mementos isn't an option, your palace will keep him out of danger. It'd be easy to have Akechi go up, trick Okumura into the Metaverse (possibly with the help of Haru if she agrees to join), and convince him to agree to hide away for a while. Then Akechi brings him to your palace. Your personas will also make sure he won't even remember his time there.
His sudden disappearance should also cause the public's uproar a little more and Shido to question what's going on. Hopefully he's more focused on finding you guys than killing Okumura.
Safe to say you're not particularly proud of this plan, but none of you have come up with anything else and Hawaii is around the corner so this will have to do.
You're plan wavers into jot notes and vague ideas after this. Plans usually never stay on course so you have to revisit what to do when everyone's on the same boat. You have 45 days after the 11th before Shido's palace is initially supposed to start. Removing days you'll be focused on something else, that only leaves about 34 days for you to figure out something attention grabbing and follow through.
Before you can get there you still have to do the first part of your plan, and unfortunately the first part of the plan requires Futaba. She's the only one that can hack the Phansite to leave the initial message. Your positive Futaba's still mad at you and there's no way in hell she even wants to be in the same room as Akechi. That leaves Ren to try and get her on board so he leaves to go talk to her.
When he comes back he arrives with Futaba in tow. You tense when she comes over to you, but are surprised when she clings to your clothing.
"I'm still mad at you, but if you promise not to hide anything like that from me or anyone again I'll forgive you."
You give her your word and tell her you'll inform everyone once you get back from the trip to Hawaii.
She ignores the massive elephant in the room for a while longer before turning to Akechi. She starts by saying she'll never forgive him, but wants to hear why he did it though his own mouth.
He evades answering the question in any satisfying way until you heavily gesture that he should be a little honest. Once he provides the bare minimum he walks out and Ren goes after him, leaving you with Futaba. You accidental sigh out wondering if you're doing anything right. Futaba tells you you're trying to save a murderer with a tragic backstory, a rich guy that exploits the working class until they die, and are sad over not being able to help your pushover, sad excuse of a principal that happily endorses the man behind the slaughter. There's not many ways you can do any of that "correctly."
You thank her and she just reminds you that you have to tell her all about the game. When you try to say that wasn't what you promised she just turns around, pretends to not listen and threatens to rescind her forgiveness.
Ren comes back without Akechi. He informs the both of you he had to head back home, but he plans to follow through on his end of the plan. So you tell Futaba what she's going to be doing and head home yourself.
Now you're nervous about how you're plan's going to go. You hope well, but you highly doubt that after you let the rest of the thieves know Akechi is the Black Mask. Then you think about how you'd be telling them after he just killed someone and realize you should tell them a lot sooner.
School starts, you meet with everyone individually to explain what's going on. With Morgana, Ann and Yusuke it goes surprisingly better than you were expecting (though you suspect Morgana is only saving it to pester Ren about it later). Though it goes as expected with Ryuji and Makoto. They both already hated the guy so this was only adding fuel to the fire. You're hoping a talk with Ren will help Ryuji get his thoughts in order before he ends up lashing out at Akechi.
The Hawaii trip starts and the first part of the plan begins.
Futaba’s able to take down the poll on the Phansite and as suspected the public lashes out. Ren makes sure to inform Mishima not to put it back up. Morgana's and Akechi's side goes through a few hiccups, but in the end Haru agrees to join and Morgana helps her get her persona. Akechi had to leave at that point to get the principal on Shido's orders then lay low.
No one was able to enjoy the trip to Hawaii.
You all get back to Japan and things still do not go smoothly in the slightest. The meeting to explain who their next target is and why is… rough to say the least. Makoto is being more antagonistic than you hoped for, Futaba is giving him a wide berth and still doesn't really talk to you (though both were to be expected), Ryuji is calmer than you thought he would be but still aggressive, and Morgana clearly makes his disappointment known. Ann, Yusuke, and Haru are the only ones able to get through it without unworkable levels of aggression.
Ann is one of the kindest people you've ever met and willing to give him a chance (even if it's just 'cause you and Ren like him), Haru knew from the start this time around, and Yusuke can see where Akechi came from even if he doesn't understand how it got that extreme.
Everyone is emotionally exhausted by the end of the meeting, but you're able to explain what's going on to everyone else. The others are a bit upset to learn of this. They're disappointed you went off and planned on your own (and with Akechi which is super dangerous btw what were you thinking—) and force you to promise again to tell your teammates when something is happening. One by one. It's embarrassing but you do it.
Once that's done the hideout changes to your thieves den and you start Sugimura’s palace. It's… better and worse than you were expecting.
In terms of difficulty it's surprisingly not complete bullshit. You were expecting everything to be harder after the hell Futaba’s palace put you through, but it's a fair mix of "harder by Persona 5 standards" and "harder by your dogshit modded standards."
In terms of palace contents… it's more subtle than Kamoshida's, but still painfully obvious what's happening. You all want out of this palace as soon as possible. You're happy the war table in your thieves den is seeing some use though!
The treasure is located at the very top of this skyscraper of a palace. Futaba blames the height on his ego. When you all notice the treasure room shift occasionally to a bedroom, you secure your route and leave immediately.
The next day your plan is sent into motion. Morgana leaves to deliver the calling card to Sugimura, Akechi and Haru are sent to get Okumura, and Makoto and Futaba have to make sure there's no evidence left from either. The rest of you wait until Morgana comes back with word to enter Sugimura’s palace.
While you're waiting Ren gives you another persona that cost him nearly all the yen on his person. You would've scolded him right then and there, but you were much too focused on your new addition.
Once everyone shows up, they check on you to make sure there's no side effects of him being in your palace and your personas give you the okay. Everyone is still iffy on this plan, but Haru assures everyone that she'd rather they do this then have him found dead somewhere.
After one last once over everyone heads over to steal the treasure and encounter Sugimura's shadow. He's almost as gimmicky as Okumura’s and it annoys the fuck out of everyone, but you all get through it relatively fine.
While waiting for Sugimura's heart to change you all enter a period of limbo. You and Akechi want to plan ahead, but everyone else tells you to relax for a second. You've been stressed and need to take a minute before you explode. They also bring up that Sugimura hasn't even apologized yet so the waiting game begins again. During this time Haru tries to keep the business afloat as best she can before you can help with her father, Ren accidentally enters Maruki's palace with Yoshizawa, Akechi's keeping tabs on Shido, and you all enter Mementos a couple times when everyone's free to train and let off steam.
The celebration is still held at Destinyland. The trip is a little stained with stress, but you try to enjoy yourself anyway before you have to think about the future. You have more fun then you thought you would running around an amusement park just for yourselves. Akechi can't join since he has to play to Shido's whims and act like he's still looking, so you and Ren take a bunch of pictures and buy him souvenirs. At the end of the day you're all sitting around eating when Haru gets notified about a live stream and your blood runs cold.
For a brief moment you think you've failed at saving someone again, but your personas chime in and say Okumura’s still in your palace, and there was no way for Shido to know about Sugimura. It still does little to calm your nerves.
When Haru tunes in it appears to be a news live stream talking about Sugimura’s apology statement. He made what you could only assume was this worlds equivalent to a twitlonger. Explaining what he did and why he was so sorry and that he'd be stepping down to better himself. While there was no death on live TV this time around (thank god), this is still a little disappointing with no promise of jail time.
Ann and Yusuke note that this whole thing felt hollow. You all took down someone obviously deserving, but it feels like you didn't do anything. Makoto marks that on top of Sugimura not showing himself for his apology, it's probably because of the public's reaction.
They seemed.. split at best of this turn of events. A majority are unsatisfied to a certain extent. A lot of people where happy when they heard of everything Sugimura was doing, but a lot of people were still upset. No one knew who Sugimura even was (he's in politics so really that's their own fault but whatever), so the apology feels hollow. Yes you changed the heart of a scumbag, but how did you even find this guy? How'd you end up investigating him when the entirety of the internet was rallying behind Okumura?
Technically, this is still good for you. The Phantom Thieves just need to get their name out there—it doesn't necessarily have to be all positive, but it still leaves a bad taste in your mouth. Some of the others are more infuriated with the public perception as well.
Despite all your efforts, the night at Destinyland still ends on a sour note.
The next day during a meeting between you all (still minus Akechi), Okumura’s disappearance finally breaks out on the news.
This makes the public unrest even more palpable. A more than insignificant amount of people blaming the Phantom Thieves for not going after him first and letting him get away. Some people note that if the Phantom Thieves could find Kaneshiro, then surely you guys could find Okumura too! Some are also going so far as to suggest you kidnapped him, which isn't that far, but he agreed to be protected in the first place and it's wild they came up with that at all.
It makes every thief antsy and hard to keep their stress at bay. A new target—or at least something else eye-catching obviously has to be found soon. No one has any ideas though, not even you. Ann suspects the public won't be happy with whatever you do anyway. If it's not finding and changing Okumura’s heart they won't care.
Then Makoto reminds everyone that you all have to lay low for a while and act like normal students. Tensions are too high to do anything rash, and you have midterms to study for anyway. Disappointed and anxious, everyone splits off.
The next few days is a barrage of studying with your friends exams. You try your best to keep your mind off of everything and all of them are really good at acting like clowns or actually helping you study.
Coming into Shujin the day after you overhear some kids talking about the police. You… completely forgot about the investigation, so you quickly inform everyone over the group chat. Ryuji bashes you slightly for forgetting. Then Akechi is brought up and why he didn't say anything and hasn't said anything for a while now. He finally comes on, types out "I'm busy" and promptly leaves again. After Makoto remarks that everyone should be careful with what they say everyone shuts their phones off.
You're stressed during your interrogation, but they don't ask you much questions so you think you got through it fine. All they really did was ask easy yes or no questions you already knew not to lie about.
After school everyone meets at your place to discuss the interrogation, then move onto the investigation. They ask you if you remember what's going on, but before you can say anything Akechi appears out of thin air. When everyone shouts in surprise he's taking out the battery in his phone and tells everyone else to do the same.
He arrived at your apartment through the Metaverse 'cause he needed to be absolutely sure no one was tailing him. After they do that he finally divulges as to why he's been absent for so long.
He was busy dealing with everything at the precinct and trying to understand the sudden cold shoulder he's receiving from Shido.
Shido's still holding meetings with him, but all of them haven't been for anything important. No exchange of information, no targets—he's not even venting anymore, Shido's giving him nothing. It's all just to waste time, so Akechi can only assume Shido's become suspicious of him and trying to fish for evidence. A change in behaviour, connections he might have made, anything. All the extra work that's been piled on top of him is also probably to increase his stress and chances of tripping up.
To add onto the horrendous news he just dropped on you, he also informs everyone that Sae Niijima is on the brink of falsifying a case on the Phantom Thieves.
They ask how they managed to deal with all this in the game, and you tell them Ren just told her everything that happened and she joined their efforts. Before they get too happy about it though, you do note that Ren was locked in an interrogation room deep underground, beaten, and drugged. This was also after she received a calling card, so who knows if she'll listen as willingly as she did then.
"The police did WHAT!?"
"Long story worth over 100 hours of game play— look it's probably not going to happen so can we move on?"
"You can't just say that and expect us to get over it!"
Pushing aside the horrifying reality how far the police brutality and corruption goes, you can't talk to Sae Niijima without something more concrete to get her on your side. Since their ticket to taking it even a little easier is off the table, you all still have to lay low for a while. Makoto enlists all the second years to help in the festival executive committee to meet without suspicion.
Planning for the festival is as boring as you thought it was, and unfortunately the student body still want to see Akechi as their celebrity guest. He outright refuses to step anywhere near Shujin unless it's for an investigation, so you have to lie to the student body and get someone else "oh, we apologize, but we couldn't get Akechi. He's currently very busy working on the Phantom Thieves case and can't spare any time to stop by. So sad… anyway—"
The Cultural Festival is still a moderately fun time despite the impending doom it feels like your group is currently facing. Spending time with everyone takes your mind off of it at least for a little while.
The next day you wake up and remember the thieves are supposed to get slapped with a large bounty and hurry to watch the news. You played it the entire morning and even on the way to school, but no announcement of a bounty ever came. The Phantom Thieves still become wanted, but the police only ask for any information
It puts you on edge enough to inform everyone about the change. While they're glad there's no bounty on their heads, it's still concerning, and gives more credence into Shido putting his efforts into investigating Akechi. He is Shido's best asset, so having even an inkling that Akechi might have turned means a tighter leash on him and less opportunities for him to help you guys.
Not wanting to sit around and wait for Akechi to plan your next steps (he'd call you all morons if you ever did that anyway), Ren decides to at least scope out Maruki's palace to see if they could possibly deal with that earlier.
When you get in everything seems normal, but when you try and go beyond the entrance you all end up back outside. Going back in and trying another door yields the same results. Hearing laughing in the distance only makes the Thieves want to figure out what's going on more, so after Futaba checks the surrounding she says to try the front door twice. You walk in, turn around, and walk right through the door you just came in and somehow it leads you to… an empty hallway. Granted it is a different room, but it's still not really progress.
Everyone is already fed up with this palace when going back through the door again doesn't lead you back to the entrance, but into another hallway with more doors.
You are so lost at this point since none of this should even be happening at all. Yusuke wonders if this is some form of punishment for trying to do this "earlier" than intended, and Morgana thinks it might be some sort of defense mechanism.
Low and behold Morgana ends up being correct! Azathoth comes around claiming the cat is right and that he is protecting the palace in his rulers place. He laughs everyone for thinking he'd let them get anywhere, ignores any attempts made to fish for answers, and leaves.
Ryuji opens one of the doors in frustration and nearly gets punched in the face by a shadow.
You all spend… more time than you'd like to admit running around opening doors. Each new pathway always taking you back to the start at the end of it. Once everyone's to exhausted to continue and agrees that nothing's going to get done at this rate you finally leave.
You and Ren tell Akechi about everything that happened and he focuses on the fact Maruki's persona was personally talking to you guys. He thinks this would be a good opportunity to get information on Maruki without actually having to talk to him. He also notes that making progress in his palace might be impossible without learning more about his powers anyway. Ren agrees with him, so Akechi does his best to get time off for tomorrow.
Akechi manages to pull through, so the next day you're back in Maruki's palace with him in tow this time, hoping to gain something out of this visit. Be it information or by some miracle, progress.
Azathoth is there to greet you as soon as you step inside and calling your group "bold" for daring to come back. Akechi steps forward to try and manipulate it into telling him how Maruki's powers work. Azathoth see's through it though being able to read Akechi's mind, and instead offers to show everyone. Then it teleports everyone to different sides of the palace and places them under the effects of actualisation. It doesn't end up working on you since Azathoth isn't actually able to read into your deepest memories. There's not enough for him to draw upon to actualise into a fantasy for you, so instead to keep you out of the way he places you onto a pedestal. It's high enough that if you were to jump off you'd without a doubt break something.
When you're put up there all you can think about is the event that got you sent to this world in the first place, and break down. You're there for a while, hyperventilating and begging for someone—anyone—to get you down from there. You freak out when something starts to circle around your waist and pull you upwards until you're pulled into somebody. It takes a bit longer for you to calm down and open your eyes, and when you do your vision is filled with floating holograms filled with code and random hieroglyphs fluttering across the walls.
Futaba continues holding onto you tightly, trying to ground you and asks if you're doing any better. When you tell yes she says she's going to make her persona spit the both of you back onto the ground now. It's a short distance so you should be fine! You give her the okay and wait for your feet to finally touch the floor before you're thanking her profusely. She's a little embarrassed, but otherwise brushes it off. You're her friend and her teammate, she would never leave you in that kind of position. Especially when she knows how awful it is to feel that panicked.
Taking another moment to fully calm yourself, you remember everyone was supposed to be put under the effects of actualisation, and ask Futaba how she was able to save you.
She tells you she was, but her persona alerted her to you being in trouble. When she arrived and saw you in that state she realized she was in a fantasy and had to snap out of it to help you. You thank her again and set off to find the rest of your teammates.
You both end up coming across Ryuji and Makoto and freeing them from their fantasies, and afterwards you hear something collapse in the distance. Futaba brings you to where it supposedly happened, and when you enter you find the place has been utterly demolished.
Following the path of destruction leads you to Akechi. He's a mess. Breathing heavily on the floor and completely disheveled. He nearly cuts your head off when you try to walk towards him, but quickly puts his sword away when he realizes it's the real you.
The others stay off to the side while you're helping him up. Makoto asks him what happened here and Akechi's only response is to call this his hell.
They would've asked why, had the room not started to shift. Akechi's hold on you tightens as everything that was broken gets put back where it was in peak condition, and a couple people start to form out of the dust that was scattered across the floor.
Oh.
It's his parents.
You don't know much about his mother, other than the fact she killed herself, but watching Shido attempt to be fatherly towards Akechi is enough to make you gag. You can't begin to fathom how Akechi is taking this himself.
It quickly sinks in for the others what the gravity of the situation is. With the way his grip on you tightens even further, and the way his other hand twitches as if ready to throw his blade through their skull.
You're positive you're moments away from entering a fight, when lightning strikes them both, shocking them in place. It's Ryuji who announces it's time to leave, grabbing your other arm and bolting off with Futaba in Makoto's grasp running beside you.
"He's your dad??? No wonder you turned out the way you did."
"If the peanut gallery could shut the fuck up and focus on escaping I'm sure that'd be beneficial to everyone!"
You're all panicking running through hallway after hallway and coming to the realization that the house has suddenly turned into maze. You're weaving through the cognitions attacks and doing whatever you can to try and slow it down so you can backtrack if you ever come across a dead end.
Eventually you find the door you used to get in here, but it won't budge which effectively makes it a dead end. You quickly turn around to try and find a different exit, but the cognitions have caught up to you and trapped you there. They fuse together with a bunch of objects in the surrounding area and become an amalgamation of things you assume Akechi's supposed to love. There's no way around it now, so you're forced to fight it.
The only thing this… thing seems to be weak to is gun, but very quickly you all run out of bullets. It seemed like all anyone could do was scratch it when trying anything else, and soon the fight turned from "is this weak to any other element?" to "is there anything in this area I can throw at it to simulate gun damage?"
In the midst of everyone outside of Akechi rooting through household objects, Futaba is able to come up with a plan. A plan that requires Akechi to enter her persona with her for a bit while the rest of you keep the cognition occupied. Akechi's the only one with gun skills so it'd be a pain to let him off the front lines, but you all trust Futaba and tell him to get in the UFO. After a moment of hesitation he eventually does.
They're separated from the fight for some time, long enough for the pressure to start being felt by the rest of you, but Akechi soon descends from Necronomicon. He walks past everyone, only to aim his gun right at the cognition. Futaba tells the rest of you to stand back before starting to charge his gun. That's when you notice the green pixels flying off of his gun in sparks.
Once it's fully charged and Futaba shouts at him to fire, you're surprised when he calls out to Hereward and is actually able to summon him.
Hereward shoots its arrow at the same time Akechi pulls the trigger and creates a massive explosion on impact with the cognition. When the smoke dissipates and you see no part of that monstrosity remained, the doors behind you opened. Everyone is swift to make their exit, and while you are too, you can't help but ask about what you just witnessed.
"When'd you get Hereward!? You've been using Loki this whole time??"
"Just now."
"???"
You're utterly confused and Akechi refuses to elaborate. When you look towards the others to see if they have any answer, Makoto shakes her head, Ryuji shrugs, and Futaba looks away.
While wandering around looking for any of the other Thieves, Makoto and Ryuji waste no time asking what the hell all of that just was. Akechi for the first time willingly answers questions asked of him (no you're not upset he answered them and not you. Of course not). The questions he chose to answer end up with him talking shit about Shido and ignoring everything else, but it does help the three not in the know understand him more.
Finally you run into the Thieves not already with you and make a b-line to the exit. It's safe to say this try at Maruki's palace was also a bust, so you leave pretty dejected having made no progress at all.
Everyone's mood—though already sour—immediately gets shot when you bump into Sae Niijima as soon as you leave the palace.
Filled with confusion, suspicion, and righteous fury, she demands you come with her to her apartment.
She was looking for Akechi. It was urgent, and he wasn't responding to her messages. When she asked around, the last place people saw him at was the stadium. She went thinking he was following a clue, only to see all of you appearing out of thin air.
Once you get there, the conversation with her quickly devolves. It turns from Sae sternly talking to you all and everyone trying to provide her with answers, to her yelling about all the trouble your group has caused and everyone frantically trying to rebut her claims. She doesn't believe a word any of you say and finds it baffling that you're somehow the cause behind Japan's recent incidents. You're at your wits end when she starts to harp on Makoto for getting involved with the Phantom Thieves, comparing her to their father, then trying to walk away.
None of you can allow her though, not when she's still so wound up and will clearly sell you out immediately. Makoto and Ryuji block her way to the door and everyone is trying to get her to listen, but it only makes her more agitated. When all seems to be reaching a boiling point, you hear someone behind you starting up the navigation app and without delay you're all sent into the Metaverse.
The house for the most part looks the same, except now there are two Makotos. It's Akechi that passes from behind you, dressed in his red and white rebel outfit, and explains why he sent everyone here. The only way to make sure she couldn't leave and force her to listen to us was to show her. What better way to show her than with her own palace?
Sae's still angry, even when looking at two Makotos she just thinks it's some form of joke, until Morgana starts to speak. Almost instantly all anger turns into confusion, and gets worse when you tell her that's your cat.
Now she's finally willing to listen to you, Ren's able to explain what's going on from when he arrived to now with everyone else chiming in here and there. To help explain the concept of Palaces to her, since you were already in one you went towards where her casino is. It's a reality check for her, when you explain what's in there and she has a brief encounter with her shadow.
Afterwards you exit her palace. She tells you she understands what you guys are doing now and that she needs a moment to clear her head. You still can't fully trust that she won't tell anybody, so Makoto elects to go with her for support.
Now that you all can finally breath everyone nearly collapses where they are.
You melt into your chair while everyone else talks about the events leading up to now. You chime in a couple times when they're talking about Sae, then they start to talk about what happened in Maruki's palace.
They each go over their own experiences when you all were separated by Azathoth. You learn Ren wasn't one of the people completely effected by the actualisation. He was put into a fantasy, but couldn't be fooled into thinking it was real so he was able to escape and help the others you and Futaba didn't find.
Despite the others mostly opening up (Everyone involved in Akechi's skirts around the topic. Akechi just calls it shit and asks to move on) you're very brief about yours and completely downplay the event, only saying that Azathoth couldn't use actualisation on you for reasons unknown and just put you somewhere high up so you couldn't interfere. You don't get to move on from it though, because Futaba ends up mentioning how awful you actually felt. While explaining the fantasy that Azathoth gave to her brought her mother back, the only way she realized it was fake was because she ended up in the room you where kept in. You were near inconsolable and could barely hear a word she was saying. The only way to help was to snap out of the fantasy herself and use her persona to get you down from there.
You get sympathy looks from some that you wave off as just your fear of heights getting the better of you, but the others look at you with some form of guilt. That's when Ann asks if it's really just a fear of heights. You're confused as to why she'd even ask, then she brings up your palace and you freeze. Then you realize everyone looking at you with some form of guilt are the ones that explored your palace ages ago.
They explain the only way to defeat your shadow without killing it was to use your fear of heights against it. It screamed a lot and they felt terrible for doing it, and one of the many things it ended up shout at them was "Please, I'll do whatever you want, just don't push me."
You're horrified that they've known this the whole time and they feel bad for forgetting to ask. Now everyone is staring at you waiting for you to say literally anything in response, but you have no idea how to tell them. You still don't even want to think about it.
Before you can say anything and therefore can keep delaying processing all of that, the TV cuts to a broadcast. Unfortunately, it'd the SIU Director.
Everyone in the room glances to Akechi for answers, but he's unfortunately just as confused as everyone else. That in itself is terrible news.
He proceeds to go on and on about how the Phantom Thieves are an egregious danger to this society, how outside of hacking their ways of "changing hearts" are completely unknown. Are they getting blackmail? Are they threatening them in person? Could they possibly be staging every ordeal? Or is it something even more sinister? Then he blames the death of principal Kobayakawa on them, how there was a calling card found in his office yet statements on it were kept quiet, and suggests that something similar might've happened to Okumura. He states these "Phantom Thieves of Hearts" to be public enemy number one and offers a fifty million yen reward for any information useful to the investigation.
Everyone is shocked and outraged, but falls silent when Akechi's phone rings. He answers the call in another room while the rest of you sit in tense silence.
When he comes back he reveals he's been given a deadline. Find and kill the Phantom Thieves before the end of November. Shido didn't say what would happen if he didn't, but it's not hard to piece together what the consequences are.
Everyone takes a moment to calm down while waiting for Sae and Makoto to come back and tell them what just happened. Sae promises that she won't sell you out and suggests that you all should go home so you can think things through with a clear head tomorrow.
The next day when you all come together you get to planning. It's clear Shido and the Director are trying to goad you into delving into the palace of someone on the investigation team. That would severely lower the number of people Akechi has to look into. You can't go after the Director since that would still be falling into his trap yet again. It seems the only way to stop this is and save yourselves + Akechi at the same time is to go after the man himself to expose the conspiracy.
So now you have to switch gears and deal with Shido before Akechi’s deadline. The only problem is you still have Okumura tucked away in your palace. You don't know how much time you'll have after you beat Shido before the Metaverse takeover, so you're going to have to complete two palaces at the same time. Knowing how each palace has gone up to this point, both are going to be extremely hard as well.
Everyone is stressed and already exhausted, so you all decide to go home and rest for tomorrow. Before you get too far away though Ren pulls you aside and asks you to follow him. He brings you into Mementos telling you he has a persona for you. You're excited for about two seconds until he tells you it's Hell Biker.
"Are you being serious right now?"
"He has fifty in magic and sixty in agility."
"I'm listening."
Ren tells you he's been working on Hell Biker alongside Arsène since he learned he could give you personas. Now seemed like a good time to give him to you since you'll need all the coverage and firepower your team can get. Also because he's worried. He's worked on this forever (3 months) he needs you to have him.
You're overjoyed you get to have one of the skeletons on your team and at how much work Ren put into him.
When you accept him into your heart you're expecting the serene experience with slight hints to their element thrown in that the other personas given to you had. What you were not expecting was for a burn so intense to bring you to your knees and adrenaline to start pumping through your veins. It's even more surprising to watch his form morph into something else. Not by much, but noticeable enough to question why anything about it was changing in the first place. Then he speaks,
"So you are the one that changes fate? Very well. I am Ghost Rider, and together we will be the saviours of the innocent! Let us show those sinners the true meaning of Hell!"
Half of his moves also mutate into better versions of themselves, before the burn fades away and your body releases its tension.
Ren helps you up as you both watch the newly formed Ghost Rider hitch up his monster of a motorcycle in one of the side areas and everything around it change to match. Switching from looking at him to his stats you find they've all increased.
"… This is the best thing you could have ever given to me."
Ren, after getting over his shock, of course acts cocky about it before you check him in the arm. He laughs it off, then sincerely tells you he's happy it got stronger for you. He still needs to figure out what the best persona would be for your last slot, so the sudden mutation was beneficial in the meantime.
The next day you all meetup again to decide what to do. You only have around a month, given the deadline Shido's set for Akechi, but who knows if he'd pull the trigger earlier then that. That makes Shido top priority, but you can’t ignore the possibility of that being the catalyst of the Metaverse takeover. If that happens then you can't do anything to Okumura. Seeing as it'd be too inefficient to do one before the other, it comes to the terrible conclusion to do them at the same time. If you split into to teams, one to work on Okumura’s palace and one to do Shido’s, then the problems they could potentially face down the line don't apply.
No one really wants to, either because they know the next palaces are going to be extremely hard or because the thought of going in with a small group in itself is difficult, but you all know you can pull it off. You have to.
After some deliberation, you all manage to decide who's going to be on what team.
On operation Shido there's Joker, Crow, Mona, Panther, and Fox, while on operation Okumura has You, Skull, Queen, Oracle, and Noir.
It felt wrong to move either Ren or Akechi to do Okumura’s Palace since they both have a personal stake in Shido's. You, obviously, were sent to Okumura’s as the only other person with multiple personas and knowledge of his palace. As much as you'd love to help them deal with that piece of shit, the firepower is needed on Okumura’s side.
That does leave both wildcard's in the other palace, so you can't help but ask who's supposed to be the leader on your team. Everyone gives you various looks, from surprised, to disbelief, and amusement. It takes you a moment to understand why.
"… Wait it's me!? I don't know the first thing about leading a team!"
"Haven't you technically already lead our team to victory multiple times?"
"Yeah, in the game! This is completely different I don't know the first thing about—"
Ren places a hand on your shoulder to stop you before you ramble yourself into a panic. He only had one thing to say,
"You'll be fine."
You don't know if you should be embarrassed that was all it took for you to calm down.
Once you discuss a little more on how each team is going to operate you split off. Each group going towards their respective targets location to start their palaces. Ren does make sure to give you half of the coffee and curry supply to hopefully make up for the half of the team your missing. He also tries to shove a majority of his healing items and smoke bombs onto you since your team doesn't have a backup member. It takes a while before you get on the train to head towards Okumura foods.
You arrive with your members and find an alleyway nearby to go over his palace in more detail. When you're about to head inside so you can use the war table in your palace to help with descriptors, you get a message from Ren. He's telling you to hold on for a moment and saying he's leaving the final decision to you. You would've asked him what he meant if the answer didn't come barreling into you at top speed.
It's Yoshizawa. She wants to help.
You want to deny her help since this has nothing to do with her at all and the stakes have gotten extremely dire, but she's still insistent. Especially since she figured out you're going in with such a small group. You can't deny that you know she's good and having an extra person would only be beneficial, so after talking it over with the others, you acquiesce and let her on the team as Violet. Though, you make her promise that this is going to be the only palace she helps you with.
Now that your team has a party of 5 attackers, 3 of which can also heal (that's including you), and a navigator, it makes you feel a little better about diving into Okumura’s palace.
You head into your palace first to get Yoshizawa up to speed and describe the layout of Okumura’s palace (at least the games layout. You don't know if it's changed or not). Once everyone's got everything down you head into his palace proper.
You find Okumura’s palace has altered in ways that makes it all the more irritating to get through. He is simultaneously, more confident in his position, yet more terrified of getting taken down one way or another. The shaky agreement you currently have with him saves him from Shido, but now he also knows Shido wants him dead. Sure you've lent out your hand to help him, but the Phantom Thieves are still a rouge vigilante group that change the hearts of the corrupt, and the Black Mask is an assassin working for Shido. Even if siding with you guys is a safer bet, to him every side is a loss.
His shadow is… without a better way to put it, completely delusional because of this. He never physically shows himself, but he's constantly heard over the speakers and occasional TV broadcast. It drives all of you insane, though it does lead you to learning how to navigate the area faster.
On one of your runs through and quickly getting tired of hearing Okumura’s shadow mouthing off, you remark how nice it would be if Prometheus could carry you all. Futaba tells you she could fit one extra person in there at most. Ryuji then says it would be nice if they could all just ride their personas, before summoning Seiten Taisei and attempting to jump onto his cloud.
It works.
That in turn makes you summon Ghost Rider to try and get on his bike. After he scoots back a bit you perfectly fit on the seat infront of him.
Makoto gets on Anat in motorcycle form, Haru is able to join behind her, and Futaba lets Yoshizawa into Prometheus.
With this revelation the palace exploration goes by much quicker. You're even able to skip a couple of the puzzles thanks to both yours and Ryuji's lack of self preservation (you both mostly just want to reach the end to make Okumura shut up).
"I bet I could make that jump."
"I could just fly over."
"How about that's a long fall with spinning gears at the bottom so neither of you should do anything!"
In about a week, your team reaches the end of Okumura’s palace and secures the route to his treasure. When you reach the rendezvous point excited to tell the others about the news, it's dampened when you notice the other team hasn't arrived yet. Makoto then notes you've arrived a little early and to give them a bit more time to show up.
Over ten minutes past the meetup time and they still haven't shown up. Futaba checks to see if their phones are even getting service. They aren't, so they must still be in the Metaverse.
Worried for their safety, you all agree to go to Shido's palace. Though you make sure Yoshizawa gets on the train home first and promise to text her when you're out. None of you want her anywhere near the politician.
As soon as you enter, Futaba tracks their location and you all set off. It's when she notices there's a powerful signature in the area with them you get her to patch you all into coms.
"Joker! What's going on over there? Are you guys okay??"
"What the— What are you guys doing here!?"
"You were late!"
You're all speeding towards the location Futaba gave you when an explosion suddenly shakes the yacht. The others are frantic on the other side of coms and when you reach the side of the boat they're on you can see why.
They're fighting way off the side of the boat on pillars of ice. The side of the ship where you vaguely remember the IT President's room is lit ablaze. Almost like a meteor struck that exact spot. You assume that was the cause of the explosion earlier.
The others are trying to ask what the hell happened here. Key word trying, since they're frantic themselves and trying to figure out a way up that won't have everyone slip and fall into the water below. Eventually Ren breaks away for a moment to give you answers.
This is the IT Director. He was just some nerd in a suit, but then they accidentally pissed him off. He proceeded to turn into Oberon, shock everyone in the room, take the letter and fly off the side of the ship. They've been trying to get him back on the ship, but he's as fast as a bullet, and anytime they get close he summons a Titania to protect him. Titania also keeps breaking the pillars and it's taking a toll on Yusuke. Akechi then interrupts to ask if you're going to stand around and watch, or get up there and help.
Ryuji and Futaba fly up to get to the fight faster while you, Makoto, and Haru have to climb up the side of the yacht to jump over. It takes all of you to enact a plan to get the IT Director back on the ship, and when he is, you and Ren waste no time trapping him there. Surrounded by a wall of fire, he has no where to go as you both pummel him into the ground and take the letter from him. At that Ren calls it a day and you all head back.
(Of course you inform Yoshizawa about what happened and it takes a long time to calm her of her guilt and to stop worrying about you all)
The next day you're debating whether you should steal Okumura's treasure now or closer to Shido's. There's good points for both, waiting mostly in favour of his safety, but Akechi brings up how useful Okumura could be if done now. He could be an immense boon once they plan to write and send out Shido's calling card since he was deep into the conspiracy. While true, Futaba does clap back that they'd still have to wait for the change of heart to fully come into affect. Who knows how long that'd take or if it'd even get done in time. Then there's the obvious problem if Shido finds out he's back he'd just try to kill him.
It's Haru that steps up next, saying she could keep his return a secret from everyone. That way there'd be little risk in taking his treasure now. Even if the change isn't finished in time, they'll at least won't have to worry about it later. When everyone asks if she's okay with the possibilities of it going wrong, she solidifies her stance. She wants her father to get better, but she also wants to make sure Shido gets convicted for as much of his crimes as possible. So she'll make sure both succeed.
The only problem with the plan is the public's opinion since they wouldn't be able to make a grand gesture of Okumura's calling card, but at this point no one cares that much. If anything they're irritated that public opinion matters that much at all. There isn't anyone with a better plan that appeases the public while also dealing with both of their targets in a better manner so it has to do anyway.
Later on, you have Sae deliver the calling card to Okumura, feigning that it was left at the door and interrogating him over it. When she tells you he read it and looked manic your previous team absolutely dreads the fight. The others that have yet to experience his palace worry for the state of it at your reactions.
Okumura's fight, for better or for worse, has barely seen any changes. The only difference is him being more frantic in his decisions and overall being more unpredictable. Which sucks since all the shadows and cognitions have more nullifications and repels that always comes back to bite you. He's also yapping the whole fight, and while your team was used to his nonsense (unfortunately), the other team was not. You're pretty sure Akechi would've shot him if he wasn't trying to be as careful as possible.
When you finally win the fight and take his treasure, you're now waiting for it to take effect and acting as normal as possible.
During the waiting game, Akechi is almost never around since he still has to act like he's searching for the Phantom Thieves, but there is one day where he asks to meet you in your palace. When you arrive he's already there, and he doesn't wait long before he's
He tells you he's giving you Loki.
You think he's insane.
Then he starts to go off on how he doesn't really need Loki, Hereward and him are basically the same. Hereward is just stronger in every way and knows Rebellion Blade. He also doesn't even need Loki's ability anymore and Hereward has a more useful ability anyway. And he's not annoying like Loki is so—
Akechi's basically giving you the worst sales pitch in the world, but you start to figure out where this decision is really coming from. Without another moment of hesitation you stop him from further making a fool of himself to give your answer.
"Sounds like a pain. I'd be more than happy to take him off your hands."
After he collects himself, Akechi begins the transfer and Loki slowly comes into your view. The feeling is just as intense as it was with Ghost Rider, but instead of the feeling of fire coursing through your veins, it's a bone chilling freeze creeping up your spine. Though this time you're prepared and continue to stand tall. You don't want to collapse encase Loki would see that as a weakness and somehow reject you, but he breaks that train of thought quickly.
"YOU ALREADY KNOW OF ME, AND I OF YOU. YOU HAVE PROVED YOUR WORTH LONG AGO. WE SHALL CLAIM VICTORY OVER ALL AND LET NOTHING STAND IN OUR WAY. MAY THE GODS FALL BENEATH OUR FEET."
When Loki's fully accepted into your heart and the pain subsides, you watch as the last room in your Thieves Den morph into one perfectly fitting for him. Then you go to check his stats and can't believe what you're looking at. His move pool is so much larger than any of your other personas. You have to do a double take and count everything just to make sure you're not making things up.
You have access to everything.
Every move or ability Loki has ever used is available to you.
Including Call of Chaos.
You're staring at the list in shock while Loki is laughing somewhere in the room. If he's laughing at you, at the mayhem he thinks/hopes you'll get up to, or just at the situation you don't know. Akechi walks next to you looking more smug than he was before.
"I hope he does you well."
You're overwhelmed. So overwhelmed that you don't think twice before you're pulling him into a hug. He's stiff for a moment, then relaxes and just lets it happen.
"Thank you Akechi."
"… It's Goro."
While you're stunned at the next emotional bomb he just dropped on you, Akechi successfully pushes you away and promptly speed walks over to the exit. He informs you he's stayed around for too long and has to get back to looking like he's doing work, then makes his leave.
A couple days later with no sign of Okumura getting out of his slump or Shido making any sort of moves, you all head back into Shido's palace. Everyone's relieved to finally have the full party back together again. Especially knowing that this last letter will probably have them run into cognitive Akechi. A fight that sounds like it's going to be extremely taxing since they're expecting The Cleaner to be hard enough.
Once you take out his goons and follow him into the Engine Room, you're unfortunately proven right. He has no weaknesses, something you were expecting since the original is the same, but he's also immune to your strongest fighters. It's completely irritating, but more doable than the last guy was and you beat him without too much issue. The real problem comes after.
Everyone heals up and replenishes their energy before leaving the Engine Room, to unfortunately be greeted by cognitive Akechi waiting on the other side.
He spouts a lot of nonsense similar to what he originally said in the game, everyone disputes him, Goro tells him to fuck off and die, and the fight commences.
This world's Shido must've thought he was some unkillable god of some kind in the Metaverse 'cause the fight is utterly ridiculous. It doesn't help that he keeps summoning shadows to his side, making the fight more cluttered than it needed to be. You all know Shido's faith in Goro has waned though, so everyone tries to figure out where to poke to get the cognition to slip.
When everyone is on that, Goro slips over to you to ask if you know how to use Loki. When you reply that of course you do, he's your persona now, Goro just says that's great and to get ready. As soon as the others find cognitive Akechi’s breaking point, you and Goro strike. The look on the cognitions face when he realizes the real Goro’s no longer the one in control of Loki is absolutely priceless.
It's a thrill moving in tandem with Goro. There's a level of sheer violence that no one else has that's so invigorating all you can do is laugh alongside him. You don't bat an eye when he shoots his doppelganger in the face. If anything you feel lighter than you did before.
That's one fate you've finally managed to change for good. Even though you still have a ways to go before you're out of the absolute worst of it, it still feels like your efforts are finally bearing fruit. The cognition you just watched Goro wipe being the proof.
Now with all the letters in your possession, you're able to open the door and secure the route to Shido's treasure. Now all that's left is to see if Okumura will change in time, or if you have to continue without his additions.
A few days after, Haru informs everyone Okumura's change of heart has finally gone through. She had to do a lot of convincing to get her father to stay put and not make any sudden announcements, but he did eventually concede. With a little bit of negotiating with Sae and a few scant sightings of Black Mask, Okumura agrees to help the Phantom Thieves take down Shido (not that he needed much convincing, but some definitely needed to be made when it came to what information needs to shared to the public and what can wait for trial).
It takes a couple more days to get the footage, but when you do
It goes over about the same as it did in the game. The Phantom Thieves hacking multiple news stations to send out their video calling card to Shido. With the addition of you of course, but Goro refused to make an appearance. Despite everything he still doesn't want to openly associate with the Phantom Thieves, and says it's beneficial for it to stay that way.
One major change does happen at the end, which makes the public go wild (and you can only hope it drives Shido mad). Okumura makes his appearance at the end, openly apologizing for everything he's done and lifting the veil on the conspiracy. Shido is a maniac, and has an assassin he only knows as the Black Mask under his belt. He is responsible for all of the mental shutdowns and psychotic breakdowns happening around Japan. All he can do now is apologize profusely for his appalling behaviour in taking apart of this and turn himself into the police.
When his section cuts off and the declaration to steal Shido's heart has been made you all jump in.
The talk with Shido's shadow at the start is… rough to say the least, but it's not like you weren't expecting that. It was already charged when it was just the Phantom Thieves with Ren. Now that Goro's here too it makes listening to him so much more infuriating.
The fight is also more or less what you expected. The horrendous fusion of Shido's ego and the bonus difficulty increase was comically easy to guess and plan around. Granted it doesn't make the battle any easier to actually fight against, but you're as prepared as you possibly could. Especially Ren, who's somehow managed to become over prepared, but at this point you can't even blame him.
When you get separated from the battle with the other Phantom Thieves, it leaves the only ones left facing Shido to be Ren Amamiya and Goro Akechi.
In any other instance you'd be worried, every fight up to this point has been made so much harder, but you already know they'd never let him get the upper hand again. No matter how much harder he may be, he's going down now, and you get front row seats for such a spectacle.
There is a moment where you're worried Goro may actually go through with his original convictions and kill Shido, but Ren manages to talk him down from that. Goro also doesn't want to squander their chances of getting the other criminal convicted and killing a god, so instead he says he hopes Shido rots in prison and dies at somebody else's hand.
That's when the palace starts to collapse.
Without another moment to spare, Morgana transforms into his bus form for everyone to hop on, while those that can ride their own personas take the lead.
It's anxiety inducing dodging all the falling rubble and trying to pick paths that whoever is driving Morgana is able to follow through. A few times you've had to go a different way or just blast your way through the falling ship, but you quickly make your way to the start of the yacht.
Not wanting to even attempt getting the lifeboat (even though your memory of the game has slowly faded with time, you will never forget the Ryuji scare) you have everyone drive immediately into your palace. You get stuck there for a bit while it's deciding where it should spit you out now that the original exit is gone, but no one cares. You've all finally accomplished one of the biggest hurdles in your way.
With both Okumura and Shido having a change of heart, the public and the police force are frantic. Sae outright tells you your group is highly suspected to be the Phantom Thieves at this point, but they don't have any evidence to make an arrest. You're forced to lay low and not draw more suspicion towards yourselves unless you want to tempt the police to take action against you anyway.
This still isn't ideal. Even though nothing happened immediately after Shido's change, Yaldabaoth could still make his move at any moment. You can't do anything if you get arrested though, so you all pick one day to celebrate your victory over Okumura and Shido to get your minds off of everything.
After waiting a few days, the police only seem to get busier and busier. Dealing with two high level people, to them, basically confessing to a heinous conspiracy at the same time, public pressure forcing them to comb through every other candidate, needing to take in the SIU Director into custody, and having the Phantom Thieves still be at large on top of all that. They are stretched thin and barely holding on, but it does let them move a little more freely than earlier.
At some point when trying to studying for final exams with Yoshizawa, you accidentally let it slip that Maruki may be your next target. This obviously concerns her, and after a bit of convincing on her end and not wanting to sit around waiting for the world to end on yours, you agree to search through the palace with her.
You don't think you'd get into any fights since you're only scouting, but just in case you inform Ren where you're going and who you're with. Ren tells you it's a bad idea and informs you Morgana will be very disappointed if you go in. You reassure them that you plan on staying outside and at the entrance, only enough for Yoshizawa to get the picture. He relents, but if you're not back in less than an hour he's going in for you.
When you and Yoshizawa get in, you walk around the perimeter with her, trying to explain why his ideals—even though are done with good intentions—aren't exactly great. You wouldn't even be here discussing this if his desires weren't distorted in some way.
You think she's starting to understand why his mentality isn't necessarily a good one, but when you open the front door to show her some of the things inside things start to go horribly wrong. Beyond the door lies bright flashing lights, accompanied by the sound of slot machines and people chattering.
This is clearly not Maruki's palace.
You ask Yoshizawa to stay by the door and go further in to see if what you think is happening really is happening. Walking around you only find more and more slot machines, until you come across a shadow at a desk. She's selling membership cards for fifty-thousand coins. You think you're going to scream.
On the way back towards Yoshizawa you notice a shadow behind her charging up some sort of attack.
Without thinking you pull her out of harms way, which unfortunately meant you pulled her away from the door. The explosion caused by that shadow was enough to close it behind you. It doesn't open again.
You both try everything you can think of to get it to open again, even just a crack, but it doesn't budge a bit. You actually do scream this time.
Knowing Ren will show up at some point to save you and to say "I told you so" has you stay put for as long as possible. You don't want to run off and make it harder for the rest of the Thieves to find you guys, but you eventually do have to move when what looks like security starts scoping out the floor. You don't know how strong they could be, so starting a fight with only two of you is asking to die.
The more doors you open the more you realize something's not right. Sometimes when you open a door you'll find yourself in a castle or a bank, but most of the time it's still the casino. Though not one of the doors has lead you back to the Science Centre. You thought the one time you were messing with a randomizer mod had somehow injected itself into Maruki's palace, but this is clearly more selective then that.
After speed walking past the fifth ass you and Yoshizawa had the displeasure of looking at, you end up in a different section of the Sae-but-not-Sae's palace. That's when you get patched through to coms and--
"Hey Glitch, we're here! Care to tell us what the heck is going on??"
"Why hello Oracle it's so nice to hear from you! I was just thinking about you. I managed to find a copy of Zephyrman earlier that we could watch—"
"Answer the question!"
While you're telling them what happened, you eventually get cut off by shouting in the distance. Looking around you realize it's coming from their side, and after they calm down they inform you they were separated. Now you all have to take part in this randomized maze of a palace.
Along the way you and Yoshizawa manage to group up with Ren and Goro, before finding yourselves in Maruki's palace again. You don't know whether to consider it good or bad that you end up in the room with the projection of Kasumi. Then her headaches start. You would tell her what's going on, but she wants to figure it out for herself, so instead you help her navigate through the areas.
After some time you finally come across a room filled with Maruki's research. It's in there Yoshizawa figures out what happened to her.
It takes a lot of reassurance, but she eventually calms down enough to continue moving. Ren and Goro lead while you stay behind with her to make sure she doesn't fall behind or get ambushed. When you make it back to the entrance of Maruki's palace, you find Futaba and Makoto are already there. Everyone else is still somewhere inside.
You lead Yoshizawa to sit on the side of the building and let her cry. Soon everyone's come over to offer their condolences, while Futaba and Makoto are able to offer more in the form of experience. When the others arrive they also go over their own false realities Maruki had them stuck in for a time, and how they pushed through it.
Yoshizawa thanks everyone and says she just needs a moment before they can move on, which everyone readily gives her. It shouldn't have been a surprise that when you were all distracted talking about what was wrong with this palace, Yoshizawa gets taken away by Azathoth.
You're all chasing after him, threatening the persona to give her back while he berates you for undoing Maruki's work.
"She was doing well under our guidance until you dismantled our hard work."
"Are you—look at where that's gotten her!" "Like she needs his shitty fucking therapy!"
With him holding Yoshizawa so close none of you can really get any good hits in that won't harm her in the process. So you're exhilarated when she starts to fight back herself. She's still distraught, but she wants to try and face herself and asks you all to call her Sumire.
Now that she's freed herself from Azathoth's grasp, you all get ready to fight him head on. Azathoth clearly didn't want to though, so in order to make sure more of Maruki's efforts to go to waste, he makes haste to eject you all from his palace. Trying to go back in leads to you getting an error message.
When you finally leave you offer to walk Sumire home before heading home yourself. You feel terrible for what you put her through, but she doesn't regret asking you to take her into Maruki's palace. She feels awful right now, but she wants to push forward like all of you can.
The next day you learn through Goro that Maruki's palace has been completely locked off. After much deliberating and learning most of the Thieves apps aren't even working properly anymore, the only thing that comes to mind is Yaldabaoth getting tired of things not going his way. This literally leaves you to sit around and wait for the apocalypse to happen.
You do as much as you can before exams start. Help Sumire get more comfortable with herself, finishing of the last of the requests that you had no time to do before, and of course studying for the actual exams.
When exam days finally roll around you're on autopilot. You're physically doing the tests, but in your mind you can only think about the upcoming fight. The others aren't doing much better than you, but you all always come together to try and do something other than worry. It's one of those times when the sky turns red and the pillars of bone start to protrude from the ground. Knowing what comes next, you all descend to the depths of Mementos to confront the false god.
The journey through Qliphoth World is surprisingly mostly normal. Sure the shadows in the area are still stronger than normal, but it's nowhere near as agonizing as the last couple palaces have been. Morgana thinks since this area is the depths of Japan's psyche, you would have much less of an effect on it. Probably the reason why the shadows are even stronger is because they all were expecting it at this point.
You reach the bottom and are greeted to the cup of giant proportions. His monologue is about the same as it was, with the addition of him openly hating on Ren and Goro for veering off the guided course of the world, and you for daring to interfere in the first place.
This fight is much harder than any of you were expecting. You let the rest of the area lower your guard and paid the price for that. Though whether fortunate or unfortunate, the rhythm of the fight is still the same. After making enough progress, the masses simply heal him to full again and eject all of you back to the real world where you begin to disappear.
Another wrench is thrown to your expectations again when you find yourself floating somewhere in the void, instead of the Velvet Room. You're wandering around completely confused, hoping to find something—anything to help you figure out where you are when you see a sliver of blue. You rush to it hoping to find a possible entrance to the Velvet Room, but when you reach it you're only left more confused. You found the Velvet Room, it's just below you.
You stand there and watch as Ren frees everyone from the cages they were locked in while Goro and Morgana wait with Igor and Lavenza. Even after everyone enters the main area, Ren continues to run around. It takes you a moment to realize he's probably looking for you. The goal to find the exit becomes more urgent since you don't want to leave them to freak out, but you still don't know where to even start. When you turn around to continue looking, you're surprised when you bump into someone.
You jump back and begin to profusely apologize, afraid whoever you ran into could be a different Velvet Room attendant (god you hope it's not Elizabeth that would be a terrible first impression), but the laugh that you hear makes you pause. It's not one of the female attendants, but it doesn't sound like Theodore either. You look up to see who could possibly be talking to you and nearly blank.
It's Philemon.
Philemon is standing in front of you and he's laughing.
You think you're about to short circuit. Never in your life—even once you got transported here—did you ever think you'd be meeting one of the Gods of this world (by your heart of hearts Yaldaboath doesn't count), it wasn't even a thought that crossed your mind, yet here you are.
He starts to talk in what you think is a teasing way, but you're still struggling to process that he's standing right there. When you're brain's finally caught up, you accidentally cut him off to ask why he's here and why he's talking to you.
He wanted to converse with you since he finds you "interesting". Of course that tells you nothing so you ask him to clarify. Then he brings up your status as an outworlder. You're just about to roll your eyes when he continues speaking. It's much more than just you being from another world. He's the one that brought you here.
He's the one who gave you a second chance at life. He grew interested in your universe when he noticed a copy of his had been made in the form of a game. He wanted to know how pulling someone who already knows of this worlds future events would affect how things change. Since he was still recovering from his last major hurdle, he couldn't simply pluck someone from your world and bring them to his. Especially with all the barriers already surrounding it. Though when he saw you fall off that roof he couldn't help but to try and at least pull your soul over. Now here you are.
You honestly can't believe anything that just came out of his mouth. He summoned you over because you happened to be at the wrong place at the right time? Truly you can't believe it. You don't want to.
God was actually just fucking with you.
You can't entirely hate him for pulling you from your original universe. If he didn't you would've died and never had gotten to meet any of the Phantom Thieves you now hold even closer to your heart. You got to improve the lives for people you care about and for that you'll forever be grateful. But none of that changes the fact he did all of this on a whim.
He continues to go on about the changes you've made to fit your perception of a happier ending. He applauds you for your commitment and ability to preserver through strife despite this being completely unthinkable territory for you barely a year ago.
You stop him for a moment to collect yourself. You have a ton of questions you could be asking, but only one rests at the forefront of your mind. Why is he telling you this now?
His gaze almost turns somber in the way he looks at you. It makes you dread his response.
"You're being has become intrinsically tied to the Metaverse. There was no other way for me to tether you to this reality whilst lacking my full capabilities. What do you think will happen once it's gone?"
It barely takes you a moment to think of the answer, and it makes your blood freeze. Philemon can only look sorry for you (as much as he's willing to allow himself). He says that's all he had to impart onto you, and that he prays you find some way around it. With that being the last thing he had to say, he teleports you into one of the many back areas of the Velvet Room.
You sit there for a moment, needing to process this alone before you run into the main room where all your friends are waiting. The thought of Thieves nearly makes you cry.
A glowing butterfly makes itself known in the corner of your vision. It reminds you of what you're currently fighting for, so you pull yourself together. There's currently a god whose ass you have to help kick, you can feel sorry for yourself and your friends later.
As soon as you walk into the room your friends are immediately on you. They're completely panicked when they ask what happened to you, and you have no idea how to tell them the news. They still don't know you're from a different universe entirely, so you'd have a lot to explain. Time you don't really have. You guess you faltered for long enough for Igor to step in your place. He doesn't explain your predicament though and only brings the conversation back to Yaldobaoth. You feel guilty and you're sure some of the others notice, but you delude yourself into thinking it's fine and that you'll have time to tell them later.
Everything from then plays out like in the game. The climb up the tower of bones, fighting the archangels, and then Yaldabaoth himself. He still hates you all for steering everything off course and making this more complicated then it needed to be. He thanks you though for the new status ailments to use and you can only flip him off. He knocks you all down, Morgana makes his big speech and you earn the belief of all Japan. Ren summons Satanael and shoots the false god in the face.
It's when the Metaverse starts crumbling away and everyone is saying their 'goodbye's and 'see you later's to Morgana that you start to disappear.
You're freaking out. Some of them are freaking out, but a few are also mad at you. You don't get to explain yourself before you're dragged away by what's left of the Metaverse.
It's dark for a while. You don't know what you were expecting when you died, but it wasn't sitting in the void for an eternity. Soon you see a butterfly flying towards you from somewhere beyond the darkness, it's glow being the only thing eye-catching in this place. It comes close enough to land on you, but when it does a shock is sent throughout your entire system. Then something you aren't able to decipher starts to pull you out of what feels like the bottom of an ocean of oil. As soon as you breach the surface—
You wake up.
You take in your surroundings, groggily, but still with rapt attention. You don't even know why you're looking around in such a fervor, your room is exactly how you left it. Though the Persona merch does make you pause. It makes you uneasy, but you can't understand why for the life of you.
Then someone barges into your room and it's… Ren? Foggy memories start to come back to you and you're starting to freak out. Then the Ren look-alike re-introduces himself as Akira Kurusu and says you must've had some lucid dream to confuse his name with Ren again.
Apparently everyone's been waiting for you to come to Leblanc to study. When you never showed up he was sent to come looking for you at your house.
You're getting a headache listening to him. Memories start to clash against each other trying to take up the dominate space in your mind. Though when Ren—Akira leaves to allow you to change, you can't find any scars on your body. At least none that would look like battle wounds, so you'll take his word for it.
When you finish getting dressed, he Akira leads you to where everyone else supposedly is. You don't know why, but you're actually surprised to find everyone actually is waiting for you.
Ryuji, Ann, Yusuke, Makoto, Futaba, Haru, Goro, Akira's (lovingly) annoying ass cat, and your old friends. You don't know why, but you cry upon seeing them again.
The next few days are fairly normal to you. You go to school, hangout and play games with all your friends, and study. Despite everything proceeding as normal, you can't stop this nagging feeling that something is horribly wrong here. It all comes to a head when Akira visits you out of the blue.
He's acting a little off. He's much more silly and charming than he usually is, but there's also a sadness—a yearning in his eyes when he looks at you. Every one of his actions and every word he says also seems to be meticulously chosen in a way. Almost like one wrong move and he'd mess everything up. You can't figure out what he's so scared of getting wrong, he's only visiting you. You don't know what's gotten into him, but you're still finding it a nice change of pace from the laid back dude he usually is.
Once he's finished looking over your room with an attention to detail you didn't know he had, he confuses you with what he says next.
"This is a nice dream, but when are you going to wake up?"
You don't even know what to say to that. You're already awake. It's not like you could talk to him without being awake?
Akira leaves shortly after, but when he does you find a figure of Joker sitting on your shelf.
This repeats with all of your friends over the next few days. All of them telling you to "wake up" in various ways, either kindly, desperately, or… aggressively, and leaving behind a Persona figure eerily similar to them. Now you're having a hard time remembering what the Phantom Thieves actually looked like, but you can't find the game anywhere to check.
This whole thing is so confusing to you, you already woke up! Multiple times now in fact! You're starting to suspect they're talking about something else, but no matter what you can't put your finger on it.
Then everything sort of collapses in on you when you run into a new girl.
She introduces herself as Sumire, and she has the same yearning in her eyes that everyone else has had, along with their determination to confuse the fuck out of you.
"Have you even seen what's beyond this neighbourhood?"
When you tell her you've lived here all your life, she's adamant that you come with her to experience something new. You should be more weary of random people telling you to follow them, but something deep within you tells you she's trustworthy.
When you both reach the edge of your neighbourhood, you notice a line drawn in the ground to signify this is the end. You're a bit apprehensive, but Sumire is very patient and encouraging with you. Though before you can even take a step towards the line, you hear someone calling out to you.
It's some doctor. Apparently your therapist. Your instincts tell you not to trust a word he says, and the feeling is only furthered when Sumire talks back to him.
Soon the rest of your friends arrive on the scene and block your "therapist" from getting any closer to you. While he's distracted, Sumire tries to bring you across the line, but a barrier stops you from making anymore progress.
Not able to just drag you out anymore, Sumire starts talking about events that you swear never happened, but sound way too familiar. You shouldn't know this person, so your head is splitting when memories of you together crop up. She must see that what she's saying isn't helping at all, so she switches to hold your hands instead.
"You never gave up on me, so I'm not giving up on you."
Then she takes a figure of Violet out of her pocket and gives it to you, completing the set you didn't even know wasn't finished. You're trying to remember where this Thief comes from, and while staring at it your memories finally click into place.
The Thieves are extremely happy to finally have you back, while Maruki is disappointed he couldn't figure out a more surefire way to keep you affected by actualisation for longer. Your unique constitution made it incredibly difficult to figure out how to get it to work on you at all. Eventually he found if he kept you separated in your own little pocket, it'd be harder for you to tell what was real.
You're honestly appalled he put you in a bubble at all, but he promises it was only until he found a different solution, like that somehow makes it any better. Sumire starts to argue against his logic, so you go to stand next to her and give your own
"This is not the future I fought for! It's not the one we went through all that pain and suffering for! This fantasy you put me in might be happy, but it's meaningless without any of our past achievements!"
Maruki tries to argue that no hard work could get you your old friends and family back like he could, but you tell him they're just sock puppets performing on a stage. Even with all his new powers, you know those aren't and never could be your actual friends. Sumire also arguing that she wants to live her life in honour of her late sister and to make her proud through her own efforts, instead of trying to be exactly like her.
At the end of your speeches, you feel the power of your original personas combine to create something stronger, while Sumire's persona awakens into Ella. With them, together you destroy the bubble keeping you all contained.
You all head back to the real Leblanc, and the entire time their both celebrating finally getting you back, and teasing you for what they found in there. Though you can feel the underlying tension in the way they hold onto you and make sure you never leave their sight.
When you reach the cafe and the conversation goes silent, you all can no longer avoid the elephant in the room.
Goro's the one to bring up your disappearing act first, suspecting you knew that was going to happen and angrily asks why you didn't tell anybody.
Emotions are high on all sides of this conversation, but you're eventually able to get it through that yes, you had died, though technically you were already dead, your soul is tied to the Metaverse, so once it's destroyed by extension that includes you, one of the gods of this world told you so and unfortunately he's a trustworthy source.
They're not pleased in the slightest you kept this from them, but are still extremely confused as to why your life is connected to the Metaverse in the first place. There's no reason to hide anything from them, especially now, so you just come out and tell them everything.
They're wondering why you thought you had to keep this from them, and thinking about the answer it forces you to face the facts. This whole time you've been running away from your problems. You didn't want to think about dying, and you didn't ant to think about leaving your friends they way it happened, or about how guilty they must feel, or how you'll never be able to talk to them again. That life is over, but you avoided thinking about it after you got your own persona and threw yourself into this one.
You tell everyone as much and apologize. They're all completely distraught, but no one holds it against you.
Now that everyone knows this is most likely your last month to live, when you're not exploring Maruki's palace you always have at least one person with you.
The palace is also more or less the same. There are some rooms that take the aesthetic of a different palace, but it's still the same layout as it originally is. The real kicker is the shadows, that are basically all their modded variants.
The section in Mementos is also harder than usual. Unlike the other floors, this also added more difficult shadows in. You assume its because this is Maruki's personal addition. Fighting in both areas is extremely annoying, but much more doable than before with everyone's third tier personas, Ren finally getting access to some of the broken moves, and an overall increase in skill.
After handing Maruki the calling card, the walk to the top is slow. Everyone knows what will happen to you after, and prolong the confrontation to say goodbye before getting swept up in the fight.
In many ways, Maruki and Azathoth are harder to fight than Yaldabaoth. The false god had used the aliments you ended up bringing to the world, but Maruki is trying everything at his disposal. They basically use your memory against you, going in to find what annoyed you the most and using it in the battle. It ironically gets easier when they ultimately switch to that gigantic gold monstrosity. Especially once he resorts to just trying to punch all of you. You help the others block his next punch for Ren to shoot him in the face.
The palace starts to crumble and Ren falls further down with Maruki, while the rest of you end up in the Morgana-copter. Watching Ren beat the shit out of an older man in real time is funnier than you thought it would be, but all amusement is cut off when you start to fade away again.
It's another tearful goodbye, even more so on your end since Ren's not even there, but they all promise to never forget you.
You're just glad you got to say goodbye.
┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈✁━━━━━━━━━━━
AAaaaannd that's the gist of it. This ended up taking a lot longer then I thought it would, but that's my fault for constantly switching from describing the plot to "hey this scene is important I should make it sound important". Then it started getting too long so I had to cut things down lol.
Again, I am such a slow writer and I'm still rehashing plot points that don't really work + filling in gaps. This probably won't even be one to one once I finish it. My memory is dogshit and I think it's a little obvious where I'm forgetting what happened in the game and what I might need to change after I finish my *checks notes* seventh playthrough? Idk I feel like I've played this game both 0 and 100 times lol. This did help me flesh out certain plot points that were giving me a hard time though :)
Obviously there'd be more interactions in-between with the Phantom Thieves + Akechi & Yoshizawa. This is just going over the main plot, but there's a ton of bonding. I nearly have the whole timeline of events planned out (I put it all on a fckn calendar—) and Bug's constantly juggling who to spend their time with after getting past their "these people are characters that I can’t possibly befriend or be useful to in anyway" phase.
I've put the entirety of this group and their interactions in a microwave and they've been spinning for almost a year in my head. I don't actually think I'd ever finish this—and if by some miracle I do, I don't even know if I'd post it. I just gush over this so much I needed to share something about it, so here we are!
Here's a few more bits of this fic/au/interactions in my brain that happen in my planning document:
Bug is Joker's Aeon and Akechi's Fortune confidants
Bug has a special cognition in Kamoshida’s palace his shadow labels as "Temporarily Unattainable" or "Surprisingly Entertaining." Depends on if Bug is fem or masc I'm not sure yet.
Morgana sometimes calls Bug precious. No one will explain why and they don't think they want to know anyway.
In fact everyone has a nickname for Bug:
Joker’s is "my Aeon" and every cheesy soulmate term under the sun
Ryuji's is "Frosty"
Ann's is "Peaches"
Yusuke’s is "Muse"
Makoto's is "Angel"
Futaba’s is "Player 1" (Joker’s changes to either "Player 2/3" or "Protag" (also switches to "Glitch" when she's mad at Bug))
Haru's is "Bell"
Akechi’s is "Charm[y]" or "Luck[y]" (depending on Prince or Crow, though Crow will also use "Charmy" just to piss them off)
Bug is a pretty good crafter, and after they finally join the team they start making things for Mementos trips instead of buying. If this was a game mechanic it would be like asking Bug to make the gadgets you don't have time to, or getting them to make something only they can.
After a combination of Bug talking about their experience playing the game, the insane difficulty curve Bug's modding habits added to each palace, and Akechi being way stronger than the rest of the party when he joins, has turned Joker into a min-maxer. Whatever he has must be OP, and if something he really wants isn't, then he has to force it to be. If it's unattainable then he'll cry, get over it, and move on to the next strongest persona (He is devastated that Izanagi-no-Okami isn't actually an accessible persona for him. Bug regrets telling him.)
Joker never completes Maruki’s confidant. Unfortunately, Azathoth is a snitch, so it didn't matter anyway.
Bug is petrified of heights and that never goes away. Assume they're cowering like a baby whenever they're any substantial height above the ground. Unless they're facing Yaldabaoth. Then it gets pushed aside because they hate this guy more then their fear of heights.
Bug has a different rebel outfit for each persona (may or may not keep this. It was related to a plot point I might not write about anymore. It was waay earlier in the drafts lol)
When Bug gets Loki, Joker is a little sad that they couldn't brainstorm what their last persona could be together. Akechi may or may not have been a little smug over it.
Everyone's personas talk to them occasionally. Bug's head instantly gets more lively once Loki is added and they wonder how Akechi dealt with that for so long.
Bug does end up telling Futaba about the other Persona games and she becomes as well versed in the lore of the world as Bug is.
At some point Futaba also asked Bug who their favourite character was, which was the catalyst event to everyone constantly asking. Bug avoids the question each time.
I'm not sure if I'll write full length chapters for the spin-off games (or yk… at all), but they do happen and Bug takes every opportunity to gush over the other protagonists. They like abusing the fact no one will remember (even if they are sad they technically won't either)
jacobvanloon
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