Independent RP, Askblog, and drabble factory for female P5 protagonist: Akira Kurusu. Blacklist the tag 'P5 spoilers' if you'd like to avoid them. Blacklist 'wayward rp' if you're just here for asks and drabbles.
While Akira and Ryuji had been dashing madly through the dungeon, scrabbling over and through whatever small exits they could find—over the broken bridge, crawling through literal holes in the walls as if they were beetles—she felt an indescribable chill. A fear unlike any she had ever known that burned at her nerves and surged through her veins. From where did danger pursue them? To where could they escape to safety? Why was this happening?
…There was a boy…
He was lofted over the river in a cage, screaming and thrashing—tearing at the metal helmet, some kind of… god… torture device over his face. His voice sounded ravaged, raw, like a beast ready to be taken to the world beyond. He wasn’t the only one. Others were trapped in lofted cages, or kept in dirty cells staring hopelessly into the abyss, shackles rusting on the wall, like the one she had woken up in.
If they didn’t escape, was this going to happen to her too?
And yet, somehow, even these atrocities were mere details.
Her other, deeper, and much darker fear was directed inwards. She thought that, extraordinary circumstances aside, she was more frightened of herself right now. What did she just do? What had she—? What happened back there?
From somewhere inside her, this…. thing… had appeared. She could still feel it—him—her—her other self—on the edges of her mind. She had commanded… magic…? Magic that tore at her enemies and broke them down into nothing but blackened ash and whirling, bloodless dust. What terrible power was this? What was this almost ruinous desire she had awakened?
Somehow, she felt both sickened and exhilarated at the same time.
And yet still terribly, terribly human.
More screams, and Ryuji grabs her elbow and has her duck down behind some boxes before they can be seen by the pursuing guards. Akira feels almost ashamed. At least one of them had their head in the game.
When they moved on, Akira nods to herself, making an unspoken promise to herself and Ryuji to bring the two of them home alive.
Soon after, they meet Morgana who is… who was…
…There was no getting around it. Morgana was a talking cat. At least, in appearance. Not-cat, according to Morgana himself. At this point, Akira didn’t think it was her place to correct him. Who was she to tell him what was or wasn’t the truth of the world when she had just been baptized by fire and summoned a monster from inside her head.
He also held the only real chance at escape, provided what he said could be trusted. With no other options, together with Ryuji, Akira easily decided to release Morgana.
When they find themselves in trouble again, cornered by more enemies and her clothes transform once more like she was a character in a bizarre magical girl show, she chooses to fight. What other option was there? Run away? Ryuji was powerless, and judging by the way he was panting when they climbed those spiral stairs earlier, she wasn’t so sure running would do any good. She had to protect him. She had to protect herself.
Akira finds herself feeling relieved, despite everything, when Morgana summoned his own… what had he called it? Persona? This power was a weapon then. A tool. It was up to her how she used it.
She could live with that.
“Fight like your life depends on it,” Morgana told her when the monsters closed in, readying his slingshot. Akira closes her eyes briefly and takes a deep, steadying breath. When she finishes, she dashes forward into battle once again, bringing her blade down upon the enemy without any sign of hesitation. The enemies fall into nothingness before her, and subsequently Morgana lectures her about being an amateur, tells her how to look for the strengths and weaknesses of her opponent, teaches her how to survive.
(“Just like a tutorial in a video game,” Ryuji would tell her when they were together later, but Akira would have to take his word on it. She didn’t play a whole lot of games. Personally, she thought it was just like the master of a dojo speaking to a student.)
After pausing to decide what to do with the still-imprisoned victims and yet another heart-pounding fight to the death, Morgana leads them to the exit where Ryuji , with his bare hands, practically tears off the metal window screen that led to their coveted freedom. She thanks Morgana sincerely and without reservation, because they owed him their lives. There was no mistaking that fact.
…
…But, on the way back to reality, she understood why Ryuji’s nickname was Blondie, but just why was hers Haircut?
Sae was gracious enough to allow the pack of criminals squabble about among themselves. Not a single one of them was exempt from this harsh judgement of hers, even those that she knew more personally than the rest of the bunch. Of course she heard every word, though that wouldn’t change even if her proximity did.
All of the Casino was under her vigilant watch- nothing happened here that she was unaware of. The Thieves had only made it as far as they did because she allowed them to do so. Believing otherwise would have her illusions of control crumbling before her very eyes.
Just when her patience was going to boil over, the girl she sought council with finally approached. She shook her head slowly, urging away the annoyance she felt at being made to wait. When Akira was of close enough proximity the Shadow raised a gloved hand and snapped her fingers, the motion triggering a bright flash of white. The Palace displaced them at her whim and when the light dissipated they would find themselves in a small, lounge-like room.
There was a relaxed atmosphere, for the Ruler, at least. Eyes peered from beneath masks as the lesser shadows in the area turned their attention towards the Phantom Thief that had suddenly appeared. However they took their cues from the Manager, who waved a hand at them dismissively. “Have a seat if you’d like.” Sae hummed, flicking her gaze towards a rather plush sofa situated in their immediate area. Regardless of what the Thief chose, she’d indulge in such comforts herself.
“If you’re worried about an ambush, don’t bother.” If that had been her intention, she’d never have approached them so directly in the first place. Of course, knowing your own intentions didn’t mean they were so easily read by others. She’d been equal parts honest and deceptive thus far. “I only have a couple of questions, all of which pertain to your fellow Thieves.”
The mention of the Phantom Thieves, even in part, was made with palpable disdain. In reality she loathed them. In her Palace the feeling carried over, but to a lesser extent. They were more annoying than anything to her, here where she was as successful as she ever needed to be. Were they truly foolish enough to think they could jeopardize her position here? If anything, it might prove amusing.
“Tell me. Why is Goro Akechi working with you?” Her yellow gaze honed in upon Akira’s face, ready to discern if she was being fed any misinformation. Perhaps there was someone else she should have asked about first, but the detective’s rather negative stance on the Thieves elevated him into a higher priority. If only she sharing of information between here and reality was a two-way deal. She’d be able to set herself up for success in an instant.
Akira’s words come out clear and curt, “I’ll stand, thank you.”
The fact of the matter was that the Shadow couldn’t be trusted. Whether or not there would be an attack or an ambush really only depended on if the Shadow felt like she was still in control of the situation, of her. After all, everything else in the casino was under her control, and from what Akira had seen, Shadows seemed to represent the worst part of a person’s bloated ego. If things didn’t go the Shadow’s way then confrontation was almost inevitable. In her own Palace, as its ruler, if Sae willed it, then anything she desired was already hers and anyone who stood in her way would be struck down without mercy.
And… Akira knew herself well enough to know that she wasn’t an agreeable girl. She didn’t fit into other people’s ideas of how she should be. She was too tall, too quiet, too sure of herself. She wasn’t cute enough, wasn’t compliant enough, wasn’t fearful enough. She didn’t go through life feeling compelled to give in to the wants and desires of others if it went against her own even if it was easier or more socially acceptable to do so.
Even in the metaverse Akira knew these things applied, even without her acting as the leader of the Phantom Thieves. If she didn’t give in, then she was in the Shadow’s way. The only way to avoid such a fate in this personal encounter was to, somehow, figure out how to tip the scales.
When Sae drops his name, Akira almost felt embarrassed for Akechi. What was the point of code names and masks if your target recognizes you anyway? She would sigh if it weren’t for the thought that Morgana might think it was beneath her nature as a gentleman thief.
“Do you feel betrayed?” Akira asks, adopting an insolent smile upon her lips with ease. She shifts her weight from one leg to the other as she leaned very slightly against the wall of the lounge, hands in her pockets. Her rebellious, belligerent gaze never breaks eye contact with Sae’s Shadow.
She shouldn’t provoke the Shadow, but telling the truth was not an option. If the Shadow’s intentions really were to dig up information on her teammates, then she refused on principle. Who knew what a Shadow could do armed with information about its Palace’s infiltrators?
And if she wanted to know Akechi’s intentions well… even though Akira knew the grisly details… revealing them could not only put herself in a precarious position, but Sae and the rest of the Thieves as well. She had to protect the team, she had to protect Sae, she had to protect herself. She couldn’t be sure that revealing Akechi’s true goals in this world might not somehow change Sae’s cognition of him—both in the real world or in the current version of her Palace.
And if such a thing occurred, if Akechi knew they were onto him, then their gamble was lost.
“He’s been with us for some time now,” she adds provocatively, for good measure.
If anything, she hoped such provocation could be used to her advantage, that Sae’s Shadow would let slip something she could use. Akira didn’t like to lie or provoke others, but it remained a necessary skill in order to survive.
Besides, it was in the nature of a King of Thieves, a Thief of Hearts… to act a little bit like this, now wasn’t it?
Things were progressing far too quickly for the Shadow’s tastes. Why did she have to sit idly by while these Phantom Thieves ran amok in her world? And just who were they, anyway? It was hit or miss on whether she recognized them or not. Even with their masks, some faces couldn’t elude her discerning eye: her sister, her pain of a coworker… the girl from the cafe she frequented?
Sae was less certain of that last one, but she had to trust her well-honed instincts. That one seemed to be the acting leader. Whether that changed between their missions or not had yet to be seen. For now, it was enough. She had a target to set her focus on, someone she decided would have the appropriate answers she sought. In a flash of white she appeared before the group of Thieves, flanked by two guards to dissuade any action from them.
“I have some questions for you and only you.” Her yellow eyes flicked towards the other Thieves. She had no need of them at the moment. “Should you decide to come along and indulge me, I’ll make it worth your while.”
Out of thin air a handful of poker chips tumbled down to the ground below, clattering together before disappearing. They needed all they could get their hands on if they wanted any hope of having a true encounter with her.
Akira ignored the shower of poker chips and twirls the knife in her restless hands. She enjoyed the glimpse of nightlife she found in the Newcomer bar but she wasn’t so certain she liked whatever this was. Rife with vim and vice and ruthless gambles that could cost your life. Blade over handle, she considers.
Akira felt certain that if Sae’s Shadow should pull anyone aside, it should be Makoto—and if the way Makoto clenched her fists by her sides was any indication, so did the student council president—but she kept that to herself. Seeing Sae’s Shadow and the way she interacted with Makoto lent Akira a small, uncomfortable insight into why Makoto was the way she was, all ramrod straight and willing to sacrifice herself to the will and authority of the adults above her.
Well… at least, until Makoto became a Phantom Thief, until she heard the powerful voice of her own Persona… until she met them. Akira gave a very small razor thin smile.
Ryuji is the first to comment.
“Well, we sure as hell ain’t letting that happen... Right?”
He looks to her for confirmation. This whole thing, the Phantom Thieves, had grown bigger than the two of them and Ann together, but they had a bond that nothing in this world or the next could shatter. Ryuji had been with her since the beginning, and she knew in her bones, her heart, her soul, that he would be there until the very end. The trust between them was implicit, and profound.
Akira rotates her wrist, frowning thoughtfully. The tip of her blade dipped down before a deft finger brought it rocketing back, point up.
Yusuke agreed, it could be a trap. But Akechi—because of course it was—put forth the notion that refusing to play Sae’s game, whatever her angle, might impede their progress. With stakes this high, they couldn’t exactly refuse or waste their time at such a crucial juncture. Not to mention, the Shadow’s penchant for games and gamboling notwithstanding, given Sae’s remarkable perception, that she would focus on Akira could be a worrying change in cognition and had to be investigated if the rest of the Palace were to be explored without incident.
There was no arguing with that, either. It was a good point. Even Morgana agreed.
It was Ann who added that Sae had mentioned that she said she’d make it worth the while. Which meant chips, right? Well, they needed more of those to progress further anyway.
Her teammates clamored around her and argued over what to do. Letting Akira meet with Sae’s Shadow alone was risky and dangerous. But, Akira thought, everything they did was risky and dangerous, wasn’t it? Akira smiled to herself. In this situation, it felt somehow inappropriate, but she felt so proud of them, of what they managed to accomplish together—what they would accomplish together. They wanted to keep her safe no matter what, even if the parts she played grew riskier and riskier.
But they also knew how important their mission was, how they needed their plan to fall into place exactly as they wanted it to. And in order to make that happen, then she would need to—
One last twirl and Akira quietly pockets her knife, her mind made up.
“I accept,” she announces to the Shadow who was undoubtedly listening in.
Before anyone could protest, and with a gesture she hopes is placating, she reaches over and very gently touches Futaba’s shoulder in front of the others.
Her voice grows soft when she speaks again, quiet, but unyielding.
“And I am never truly alone.”
After that, she turns on her heel and heads off to meet with the Shadow.
You had questions for her, Sae? Well then, just maybe she had answers.
-So my Akira is kind of based off a few ideas, but what predominantly comes to mind is a conversation I had with a friend of mine a few years ago about things she suffered in middle school. Or a certain part of that conversation. My friend had difficulty communicating with others due to various factors, but middle schoolers can be mean, and sometimes girls can be mean in ways that don’t involve physical altercations. And my friend, who didn’t understand how to resolve her trouble any other way, lashed out and she was punished severely for it.
My friend said, "For some reason, it's perceived that boys can lash out and they're not as badly reprimanded for it because that's what boys do. A girl who lashes out though, well, something’s wrong with her."
So it made me think of how a female Akira in her first interaction with drunk asshole would go. I felt, personally, it might be a little hard even for drunk asshole to sell to two cops that, him being blatantly drunk, was assaulted by a teenage girl. Not because it doesn't happen, but because culturally and sociologically people don't expect these things. A drunk man flanked by two women and he wants to say that one of them hurt him when he’s the one being loud and aggressive? Hmm... regardless of his connections, that doesn't sell quite as well as Young Brash Youth running up to him and just assaulting him.
I felt that in order for her to get the same treatment that Original Flavor protag gets, then she'd have to act a little more aggressive for her to fully experience what original Akira did. ...So I decided my Akira does Mixed Martial Arts hah hah hah so she just kinda tries to arm bar the guy, but he makes her flub it due to uncoordinated balance and he nails the sidewalk of his own power. But it’s that confidence and self-reliance in her physical abilities that lend her an aura of aggression that makes her translate as a Bad/Delinquent Girl to the court/cops/classmates instead of Good Samaritan.
-(Also, if you make the protag work out at the gym enough, the trainer turns him onto the wooden dummy and he just already knows how to perform various kata, so I assume it’s not too much of a stretch to think the protag has prior martial arts experience.)
-Ideally, gender shouldn't really have anything to do with the story at all, because I think anyone of any gender (no gender, fluid genders etc) are perfectly capable of being the protagonist. And Hashino?? The director's reason for not including a female protag in the game (and the previous one) being that "boys are more equipped for moving to the country/moving to the city/doing these activities" is bogus?? Although there are factors that change based on how your gender is perceived by others or how you express your gender, etc, etc So I felt like... tackling the idea of a girl who everyone perceived as "aggressive delinquent girl.”
-And I also feel that whatever Akira was before that trial had to be traumatic. And like silent protags are silent protags because that makes it easier for character immersion but I also feel like if you went through what Akira did and at that trial no one listened to your side of the story and your parents sent you away and so on and so forth... well maybe you wouldn't want to share a lot of yourself with other people after. Hence the short and few dialogue options. If no one listened to you, then if you had something to say, then it should be short and to the point.
So she's a direct girl, my Akira, but quiet and reliable. Maybe just a little bit mysterious...?
“Are you sure about this?” Morgana was asking her from inside her schoolbag.
Akira doesn’t say anything but gives a decisive nod in response. If she wasn’t certain, then she wouldn’t be doing this at all. She moved through the crowd in the subway with a single purpose.
Usually it was Akechi who spotted her at the train station and stopped to chat, but this time she was the one who had business with him. Ever since the others had casually commented that her experience with that asshole who took her to court under false charges was the perfect example of the kind of rotten adult they should target, she couldn’t stop thinking about finding out who he was.
...Akechi also happened to be the only detective she knew and her attempted searches on the Internet had proved fruitless, so...
Ryuji wouldn’t like that she was attempting to consult Akechi about it, but while they were waiting on information and opportunity regarding their next target it couldn’t hurt to scope out a potential scumbag they could take down later. Not to mention, as a detective with close ties to the police, Akechi would certainly have access to resources she didn’t. If he agreed to help her, she hoped an investigation could at least yield his name. The only problem she saw was figuring out how she would play it off and avoid suspicion if the Phantom Thieves did send that man a calling card and Akechi decided the coincidence between his investigations was a little too peculiar.
It was dangerous to get involved with him—a charismatic, influential detective with corny jokes and who always seemed to hint he knew more than what he let on—she could put herself and the others at incredible risk… but on the other hand, was she really prepared to go through life pretending the incident that ruined her life never happened? Was this something she could allow herself to look away from? No. Unjust actions must have just consequences and she wanted a name.
The detective was checking his phone when she approached him.
“Excuse me, Akechi?”
He looked up, recognizing her.
“I hope your investigations have been going well,” she told him, giving him a small smile. But she moved on quickly enough to business, “I don’t want to waste your time, you must be busy, so I’ll be brief. I was hoping you could help me with an investigation of my own.”
She felt the best way to appeal to him would be without pretense. In their small conversations before now, he had been pleasant enough and she didn’t feel the animosity towards him that Ryuji apparently did. She wasn’t as attached to proving to others that herself and the Phantom Thieves’ actions were just moreso than she cared about doing what was just. Let the world and Akechi talk, she knew where she stood.
...She knew she was being very forward, so she added, “I’ll understand if you’ll have to decline. I can’t offer much in the way of compensation.”
Characters: (Female) Akira Kurusu, Goro Akechi
Pairings: None
Word count: 2,823
Summary: Stop Giving Children Weapons 2017. Akira and Akechi have themselves a little violent sparring match.
Warnings: Good God Are There Spoilers
Written for Quire of @askgoroakechi
- - -
Akira wanted to know. It wasn’t personal, not… really.
What happened with Haru’s father, Futaba’s mother… Now, that was personal, although not for her. But this? No, no… that’s not what this was.
She just wanted to see his face. Confirm it herself. If he was her would-be executioner, then she wanted to see his worst before he was ready. It wasn’t about her, no, but she wanted to see if she could slip in under that mask Akechi showed the world and pry off a piece of who he was without it.
(The true culprit, she would later tell Sae Niijima. He had to be, if what he’d said on the phone with his collaborator was accurate. His task to kill her and make it look like a suicide. It wasn’t that far of a stretch to assume Akechi was also the one responsible for the mental shut downs and mysterious deaths.)
She took him out to the abandoned underground parking lot that nature was beginning to reclaim. She found it thanks to the homeless man she met during one of Iwai’s errands. No one would find them here.
“A sparring match?” Akechi asks, sounding a little uncertain. But was he? The sword in his hand glinted.
She nods, and twirls the knife in her hand with practiced ease.
“I want to believe in you,” she tells him. It’s not true, but she almost wishes she wanted it to be.
She could pretend this was a friendly sparring match between the girl leader of the Phantom Thieves and their newest but incredibly gifted member. A way to assess his competence in battle, a trust exercise. He had threatened to expose them, after all, if they hadn’t conceded to his deal. He had considerable power over them even if they had believed everything he said. If they were to make it through the new palace alive and unharmed they would have to, to some extent, trust Akechi with their lives. No palace was predictable, even if what happened there wasn’t going to go according to the usual script. But Akechi didn’t know that.
Akechi laughs, like he expected something like this. And why wouldn’t he? It was a reasonable course of action to take.
“Ah, gauging my abilities. I understand. Very well, I’ll do my best… Leader.”
She hates the way he says it. The others trusted her with their lives, in battle and out! They let her determine their schedules, they let her call the shots, they let her decide when to strike. They held onto their anger and let her decide when to send the calling card. They trusted where she led them. Their overwhelming faith in her would break her if it didn’t burn within every fiber of her being and lift her.
Akechi… didn’t trust anyone. He called her Leader like it was a joke, like he was humoring her.
“Let’s get started,” she said simply, getting into her fighting stance, knife extending before her. She warns him, “No fatal blows.”
Akechi makes an expression as if to say ‘of course, that much was obvious.’ He isn’t afraid to show initiative, but he starts off slowly, as if he’s not sure of himself or what he should be doing. The sword seems almost worthless in his hands. He takes a wide, slow swing at her.
In contrast, Akira is absolutely sure of herself. She has to be. She easily dodges the strike, as he’d probably intended her to do, and slaps one hand down on his wrist with her knife still held between thumb and index finger, while the other pushes down just below the hilt of his sword. Without waiting for his surprise, she steps closer to him, repositions the sword, and jams the hilt back and up into his chest, causing him to lose his balance.
Akechi goes down.
He doesn’t let go of the sword. But it’s not a problem because she hasn’t either. She uses the hand just below the hilt to exert enough force to get him to lower the blade into the position she wanted, down and across the ground. With her hand still pressing down on the hilt to keep him from raising it, she digs her knee into his side and expertly drives his raised elbow higher until the pain forces him to submit and he drops the blade.
She lightly taps the flat side of the knife she was still holding against his ribs.
“We have to trust you with our lives, Akechi,” she tells him gravely.
“Alright, alright, I understand,” Akechi pants. “In order for our deal to work… in order to truly work together, you need to know if I can make a reliable partner.”
His words are humble, except there’s still something in them that feels somehow hollow, like he’s still putting on a show. But when she lets him get to his feet and he takes up his sword again, she can see he’s serious this time. Whether it was to gain her trust, to show his competence, or just get back at her, he was willing to come at her.
Good. That’s what she wanted. No good game, no good-spirited competition. She wanted to see how Akechi was willing to fight when he wanted to win. He didn’t want to be beaten down and disarmed so easily by some girl, she thought, even if she was the leader of the Phantom Thieves. Or if he had to be beaten down, then he’d want it to be some grand finale. He didn’t want to be disarmed and shoved in the dirt on his first swing.
It ruined his image. Unforgivable.
But she was a delinquent, they said at school. She wouldn’t give him what he wanted. It was against her nature. And now he knew she wasn’t going easy on him. He knew she’d seen the way he fought in their first exploration of the new Palace. It was carefully planned to make him seem trustworthy and competent. But such a display backfired on him now. They both knew he could fight better than this.
So that’s what she tells him.
His sword strike was swifter the second time. Enough to remind Akira that they were fighting with real weapons.
She doesn’t dwell on it. That was the point.
She moves in quickly to stomp down on the backside of Akechi’s knee while he was still bent forward in his swing. He goes down again. Hard. The sword clatters out of his hand.
As he falls, she folds her arms over his neck and pulls him close to her body, right leg pushing down on his horizontal shoulder when he hits the ground. It wasn’t a gesture meant to steady him, and he finds that out when his hand reaches out for the sword and her arms fan out, knocking it from his grasp before she takes it for herself and points it at his chest.
(“Where did your knife go?” Akechi asks her later, but she only smiles in response.)
Wordlessly, she gets to her feet and offers her hand to help him up, briefly wondering if he’ll take it.
He hesitates—a second, two seconds—before he takes it. His charming, affable and carefully crafted TV persona would want to show camaraderie. Akira smiles. Not necessarily at Akechi, but maybe more at the appearance of good sportsmanship he pretended to value. She wondered if some small part of him really believed in it, if he was proud some small part of him still held onto that.
She wondered if he felt proud killing Futaba’s mother.
With a small flourish, Akira handed him back his sword. Hilt first.
He thanked her, but he really was serious now. She could see it in his eyes.
The first time was excusable. He hadn’t been serious, or he was warming up, or he wasn’t sure about fighting a girl. But going down so quickly on the second time? No, no, the detective prince had to do better than that, right? He couldn’t just sputter out like a dying flame. If he snuck through other people’s Palaces like she did, fighting off Shadows, and killing people, then getting kicked around by a girl who acted like he was in the palm of her hand had to be embarrassing. Who was she? This girl who thought she could get the better of him?
Akira couldn’t be certain these were his real thoughts, but she imagined they were. She’d faced a number of male opponents in her home dojo and even the ones who started out pleasant still sometimes didn’t like losing to her. And they weren’t even the ambitious type.
“It seems I’ve underestimated you,” Akechi tells her, honestly enough. But he still sounds like he does when he’s on TV. Pleasant, even-tempered, considerate. He even smiles.
He wants to pretend they’re rivals. Two people opposed in thought and deed but who decide to work together to achieve a greater goal. She doesn’t engage. She doesn’t give him what he wants. If he wanted her to engage with him, then he would have to treat her and the others like real people. Stop trying to charm her, and start trying to keep up.
“Stop holding back,” she replies. “The Shadows won’t. This isn’t one of your foolish TV interviews. Show me what you can really do.”
That gets his attention. Like she knew it would.
He’s focused now. She’s taken him down twice and he’s realized that just because she has a knife, it’s not the only thing she relies on. On his next swing, he is sure and swift and doesn’t allow her time to disarm him. If she hadn’t already been prepared, then that blade would have been destined to taste her flesh. She can almost see it on his face, ‘this is what you wanted, isn’t it?’ But she manages to step outside the path of the blade, and then advances, very quickly, on the inside of his swing and finally brings her knife into play. From there it’s a simple matter to flick the knife from a standard position in her palm, to one where the blade was oriented edge up for optimal upward cutting.
She smiles absently.
Akechi can see what she intends to do, the anticipated arc, the dark purpose, of her blade—either across his chest or into his ribs—and the surprise is clear on his face. Just barely, he manages to reposition his blade—fist up, blade down—and angle his body, so that his sword intercepts her. His right hand had been used to steady his weapon.
His smile was strained. Was that sweat? Was he taking this seriously now?
Good.
But with that sword over his shoulder like that, and his other arm steadying the blade against her strike, his side was wide open. Come on, Akechi! Give her your worst! She woke up in prison in her dreams! Somewhere between dream and reality, she had a guillotine in her head!
She pushes off him, intending to target the back of his ribs, but this time he’s faster. He’s realized that without her working to disarm him, then he has better range and the sword whips after her.
“Too slow!” he calls out.
She rolls to the ground and the blade goes slicing through the air just above her. She’s not one to tarry, however, and from her position on the ground, kicks at his leg. His leg goes down and so does his sword arm… but not in defeat.
His blade drives downward in a powerful stroke meant to take her whole.
Much of this could be excused later. She didn’t need them, but she could even use the same excuses. The adrenaline got to me, or you surprised me, or I hadn’t meant to get that serious. But that was the point. She wanted to see Akechi when he wanted to win. What did he justify when he felt cornered? Without an audience, without a camera, without some clickbait dialogue about true justice to push, who was Goro Akechi when no one was watching?
She twists her body as best she can, but the blade still bites deep just above her elbow and thuds into the earth below. Akira can’t stop herself from crying out. It hurt!
Akechi’s hands… his grip on the blade… weakens…
His expression…
Well, Akira never wavered. And she would fight to her last no matter how hated she became or how ugly she might look doing it. She wasn’t a Phantom Thief to pursue fame or fortune. She was a Phantom Thief because she couldn’t ignore suffering! She was a Phantom Thief, because if she didn’t do anything, then who would!
She clenched her fist.
Akechi looked up from his sword to her. It was impossible to tell what he was thinking in that moment, but it seemed there was something he saw in her that caused him to tighten his grip on the hilt. His expression darkened and he bared his teeth. Akira didn’t waste any time. She rolled onto the balls of her feet and threw herself at Akechi, headbutting him. While he gripped his head in pain, she got behind him, her knees on either side of him, and slipped one arm under his and over his shoulder. She now controlled the position of his head.
Because of this, he couldn’t see it when she placed her knife to his neck, but he certainly knew it was there. It was only a rational deduction. She can hear his ragged breath. And, this close to him, she could almost feel his heartbeat.
“You’re mine,” she tells him, like she’s told any number of Shadows before she takes them.
Something in Akechi panics. Something in Akechi fights.
His free hand reaches for his gun. He’s desperate. She lets his fingers brush the grip and that’s when Akira lets him go, all smiles.
Akechi immediately puts some distance between the two of them. He scrambles closer to his sword.
“Were you seriously—?”
Akira holds up her hands, her knife in the exact same orientation it had been when she’d pressed it to his neck… With the butt of the handle. She’d held it in a reverse grip.
“Welcome to the team,” she tells him slyly.
Akechi stares at her like he’s just been swindled. The blood from her wound was dark on his jacket where she’d held him close.
“…Before…”
“Oh,” she says slowly, as if she had to remember, “…the rib thrust? Watch closely. I can do this during pretty much any jab or sweep regardless of angle.”
Akira rocks the blade, using her fingers as a fulcrum when it reached each one in turn, up her knuckles until the blade is in position. Then, in one fluid motion, she snaps it, reversing its position and then grips it properly, blade extended out. She then flicks it quickly right back into a reverse grip. With a few more tricks and twists, she shows Akechi how she switches from one modified grip to another. She knows she’s fast, and it’s enough to satisfy that when he thought her blade was aiming for his life, she was really going to punch him with the handle.
Even if he deserved more than that.
But that wasn’t her call. This wasn’t about that.
“Like I said before: No fatal blows. You were never in any danger,” Akira tells him levelly and pockets the knife. She’d seen everything she wanted to see.
She starts to get to her feet. Akechi does the same.
“I would never hurt you like that, Akechi,” she reassures him, stuffing her hands in the pockets of her skirt. She expects to experience some discord in her heart when she says this, but to her surprise, and a touch of growing horror… she realizes that it’s true. She was telling the truth.
Suddenly, she remembers her injury and when she touches the bleeding wound above her elbow, her would-be murderer’s eyes are drawn to the drops of red that spill from her jacket. He looked conflicted. She wonders if he feels guilt. She wonders if he let Okumura or Wakaba fight back. She wonders if he gave them a chance, if he felt guilty for their deaths.
She wonders if he ever told his collaborator no.
“It’s nothing,” she brushes him off preemptively. “I’ve had worse in the Metaverse.”
She wonders if he’d feel guilty for assassinating her.
“Do you need—” he starts to offer, his pleasant, charismatic, considerate TV personality back in place now that he knew she hadn’t been trying to kill him, now that he felt uncomfortable because he didn’t have any tricks to show her that he hadn’t planned to run her through earlier.
“You’re sweet,” she cuts him off, “But I know a doctor. Don’t worry, accidents happen. I won’t let this compromise our operation at the casino. And now I know you’re a worthy teammate.”
He wasn’t. But she had to tell him that, because it’s what she needed him, needed his collaborator, to believe. She imagines, like her, some part of his TV personality—the mask he faced the world with—and some part of what she’d just seen were both him.
[Doodles of my P5 girl protagonist based off the concept art in the Design and Settings book Atlus released. Also I just wanted to give her my punk jacket in one of these. Thank you for your time. ~<3]
Her persona comes to her like a painful memory, willful, unyielding, uninvited. Arsene speaks to her as if he knows her, as if he knows regret. And if what Morgana tells her later is true, then he is a part of her. A chatty, masculine, romantic part of her that she hadn’t realized existed.
“What’s the matter?” He says to her after she stops struggling against the knights. She can’t tell if he’s a part of this hellish castle prison nightmare or something else entirely. A mental breakdown maybe. Some kind of auditory hallucination.
He continues to urge her, fiercely, “Are you simply going to watch? Are you forsaking him to save yourself?”
…At first, it was a lot like having someone who knew exactly how to press the right buttons to make her angry. He made it sound so easy, so simple, as if fighting back was a matter of deciding to, never mind the fact she didn’t even have the means.
“Death awaits him if you do nothing.”
She knew that! But what could she do, pinned here like this? She wasn’t a small girl, and she knew her way around a fight, but these men—…creatures?—were far stronger than her. There was no saving Ryuji if she couldn’t even save herself. She was going to die.
“Was your previous decision a mistake then?” the voice in her head persists, as if to ignore her excuses, her perfectly reasonable justifications. And that was it, the last straw. Pinned to the wall, she grinds her teeth.
Ridiculous. Of course it wasn’t. She’d had enough. Release her from this mockery.
It’s not fear that moves her but righteous fury. How dare he? This voice in her head? What did he know if he wouldn’t even listen? And how dare these knights, this bully king? Imprison her? Kill Ryuji? Repugnant.
Ryuji who didn’t even know her and who had told her to run? Who would sacrifice himself so she could live? No. He didn’t deserve this.
The knight raises Ryuji up by his neck, sword poised. She remembers the woman from before. Should she have done nothing? No. She regretted the way it turned out, but damn the courts, it was the right thing to do. Brand her a criminal! Call her a villain! She no longer cared! The beseeching voice was right, doing nothing was spineless. It was unworthy of her. She wasn’t wrong and she would stand up to abuse and cruelty wherever and whenever she saw it. Let those who dare come after her for it.
The knight’s grip on his sword tightens. NononoNO! She struggled against the knights. She bared her teeth, kicked her feet. Damn it all, let her do something! Give her the means then, and when faced with the armies of her enemies, she will come for them all! Each and every one! Just let her do something to save him! Anything!
“Very well,” says the voice in her head and immediately something burned within her. “I have heeded your resolve. Vow to me. I am thou, thou art I…”
When her persona comes to her, she feels exhilarated. She feels powerful… and terrible. Her senses are eclipsed by an otherworldly strength from inside her and her heart pounds violently against her ribs. Ryuji backs up against the wall. The king falls to his backside, the cowering rat. Blue flames consume her whole but she lets it happen, lets it overcome her. She lets the ashes take it all away, everything she had ever been. Gone is the bubbling shame and throbbing guilt from before, gone is the sorrow from who she could have been untouched by trial. When the flames pass, she stands forged anew.
For the first time since that incident, she smiles.
Somehow, in that moment, she knows Arsene’s name before he even speaks it aloud. She knows, she understands. She is him, he is her, they are one. Gentleman thief and delinquent high school girl. Two sides, one coin. She never felt more alive.
A sword—no, a knife—materializes in her hand and she doesn’t even question it. Did it matter? No. Again, she knows what to do before Arsene even tells her. Her enemies stood before her, she held a knife in hands that did not tremble, she had Arsene, dark and without compromise, at her back. What more did she need? They came to claim her life! They came to claim Ryuji’s!
Well, let them try!
The knights transform into monsters and she strikes them down with ruthless efficiency, Arsene’s voice ringing in her ears.
She and Ryuji escape, locking the king inside the prison cell, before her persona leaves her and she feels mortal and human and terrified again.
It was his day off, and he decided to spend it strolling through the hustle and bustle of Central Street.
He still felt out of place in Tokyo, a rock tossed from one river to another. He thought he knew the currents, but the turns always surprised him. Jungo tried to fall in with a small crowd so he could get to where he was going. Still, the locals of Shibuya seemed disrupted by his presence, as if they could sense something about the man. He was too tall, he dressed darkly, and he had a cat on his shoulder.
Jungo glanced from left to right, right to left, taking in sights he thought he knew. An alleyway here, a convenience store there, an arcade, a gym…
“Seriously, the breakdowns are so freaky. Nothing online matches up, it’s like they haven’t figured anything out…”
“What have they been doing all this time? Shouldn’t they know what’s causing the breakdowns? We don’t want another subway accident, ugh–”
Keep reading
It was the day Soujiro had trusted her to mind the shop while he was gone dealing with his mysterious phone call. She didn’t ask too many questions. Far be it from her to pry into someone else’s double life. The old couple in the booth chatted about the Phantom Thieves as they listened to a TV broadcast about them. Akira felt a touch of pride at being able to lead the others to take down Kaneshiro and somehow earn Soujiro’s trust to be put in charge of the store,.
But she wouldn’t let it go to her head. There was a lot of work still to do in both worlds, as leader of the Phantom Thieves and as ordinary schoolgirl-turned-part-timer. She couldn’t afford to become complacent nor vainglorious in her tasks.
“Don’t you think so too, deary?” the old woman turns to ask her suddenly, “The Phantom Thieves aren’t doing anything wrong, are they?”
“Of course they’re not.”
She tries not to say it with any more conviction than a normal, unrelated fan. She didn’t think anyone suspected—well, not anymore now that Makoto was one of them—that she was a Phantom Thief, but it was safer to stay on her guard and play her role. If Mishima was anything to go by (and his passion was unparalleled) her carefully constructed façade of mildly supportive fan would hold.
Soon the old couple had gone and she was left to wash dishes and tend to the daily necessities of the restaurant, but it wasn’t long before there was another visitor. The bell on the door sounded and in walked a man with a dark jacket and a cat on his shoulder. His height would probably be intimidating if the difference between the two of them weren’t only a spare two inches.
She wipes her hands on her apron.
“Welcome to Leblanc,” she greets him. The café might do better if Soujiro had some kind of cute catch-phrase or theme to advertise the minute someone walked into the store, but he didn’t care for that. The store might also do better if she were a cute waitress who said cutesy catchphrases, but she wasn’t.
She eyes the cat. If only she could carry Morgana like that, instead of having to lug their weight around in her schoolbag everywhere. But it was less conspicuous and no one had complained about it yet. The rumors at school didn’t exactly make her approachable, after all. Tell off the tall, scary delinquent girl rumored to have gone berserk and attacked a man who just happened to meet her eye? Who, rumors went on to tell, stole and smoked and scored drugs and hooked up with all kinds of—?
...Yeah, no one had the mettle.
She gives the new customer an aloof smile and gestures toward the menu above her.
“First time here? Just tell me when you’re ready.”
This wasn’t a cat café. People weren’t supposed to bring their pets inside with them. Soujiro hadn’t wanted Morgana running around on the restaurant floor because he cared about the reputation of the store, but good customer service catered to the paying customer, didn’t it? Besides, Soujiro liked cats no matter how strict and scary he tried to pretend he was. If he was secretly disappointed he didn’t get to name Morgana then he wasn’t nearly the bad guy he wanted to make himself out to be.
This wasn’t a cat café. She wasn’t a cutesy cafe waitress. With her jeans, black tank top, and white unbuttoned collar shirt, she didn’t look the part. At least the apron helped identify her as staff.
She leaned forward a little bit, with measured intent, and addressed the cat.
“You want something too?”
She gives a small smile. If the girl’s movements and countenance weren’t so consistently disciplined, one might mistake her expression for something playful.
It almost seemed like she expected the cat to respond for himself.
[Anonymous asked: Toughest confidant to deal with?
Spoilers for Mishima’s Confidant link.]
- - -
There he was, Yuuki Mishima, standing before her in Mementos.
She didn’t want to believe it.
Mishima wasn’t a bad guy. Not really.
But, she clenched her fists, he was trying to use the Phantom Thieves, use her, for his own purposes. And that wasn’t right. Sending threats, on the website he’d created to inspire hope and courage, to people who doubted the Phantom Thieves was out of line. Maybe he didn’t understand that there is no such thing as faith without doubt, that it was part of the struggle of believing in something.
Or maybe he had gotten that taste of power he’d never had as one of Kamoshida’s countless victims, or a ‘zero’ before that. Maybe the taste and feel had soured in his stomach, turned to poison. Maybe he liked the feel of power and poison surging through his veins. By now, she’d seen it happen with a number of people, and… she’d seen even worse.
The Phantom Thieves took care of a number of what people might say were personal problems, if only because ordinary people didn’t want to deal with them and the police had difficulty intervening. Cases such as domestic abuse, cyberstalking, clingy ex-boyfriends and so on; but Mishima sending them after an actor he didn’t like, or a guy who made fun of him was somehow different.
It felt more like revenge to her and she didn’t like it. And even though he didn’t seem to think so, Mishima was as much a part of the Phantom Thieves operation as she and the others were. He was, essentially, their link to the outside world—his website a beacon of hope for desperate people with nowhere else to turn.
And because he was her ally, because he was by her side, she expected better of him.
Earlier in the year, it was Makoto who had challenged them to prove their justice, and although the student council president had presumed a lot back then, Akira had taken it to heart. She took her role as the leader of the Phantom Thieves and the justice they proposed to serve seriously. The decision to change Mishima’s heart or not wasn’t one she’d take lightly, but because she was the one who everyone had decided was the leader, she would make it if she had to.
She didn’t hesitate, because Akira had no hesitations, but she had something to consider.
Who was she if she abandoned Mishima now? Who was she if she just changed the hearts of those she happened to disagree with? Who was she to say she fought for justice if she was unwilling to put in the grueling work to make things right and in the right way?
Who was she if she gave up on Yuuki Mishima? Their first, and, quite frankly, most ardent supporter?
But the Phantom Thieves were about more than just her feelings. It was bigger than herself now. Bigger than all of them.
She listened to him when he spoke to them, because she owed him that much. She nodded and allowed the others to move away, to leave them alone as Mishima continued the discussion with her.
He thought of her as a hero (she didn’t agree, but she didn’t interrupt), he thought of himself as a zero, as useless. He wanted fame, glory. He wanted to change society, to change the world. He wanted to use the Phantom Thieves to do that.
She finally responds, her voice surprisingly level for how angry she feels, “Would that really satisfy you?”
He doesn’t know, but he doesn’t see another way. What did it matter in the long run, she was here to change his heart, wasn’t she?
Inside the pockets of her thief coat, her hands shake in almost unreal, untempered anger.
He looks at her like the decision to change his heart was a foregone conclusion. That his guilt over his actions, his feelings, was her problem to fix.
It made her more than angry, this expectation of his that he was utterly incapable of doing anything on his own and that he needed her to change his heart for him. That he couldn’t do it on his own… what nonsense! He already understood that what he was doing was wrong, already felt guilty, already knew he should take steps to stop, to think, to change. So why didn’t he just take that step forward and—
“—Do it yourself.”
The words come out hard, unyielding. Mishima’s shadow looks hurt but Akira didn’t relent. She doesn’t apologize, she doesn’t take it back. Mishima knew that just because you were hurt in the past, or you were hurting now, it didn’t justify hurting someone else in turn. And he certainly knew hurting people, using them, to reach fame or a feeling of self-worth wasn’t right.
If he needed her support, she would give it to him. If he needed her help, her time, her friendship, it was his, no question. But she wouldn’t be there to babysit his conscience or cushion his grief over what he has done or what kind of person he was turning into. No, he needed to face that himself. And if he wanted to change, himself, society, or the world, then it was something he had to do for himself. Not fame, not glory. If he wanted to, he could change his heart himself.
She wasn’t here to make it easy.
Turning her back on the shadow and leaving him there had to have been the most difficult thing she ever had to do. If she weren’t wearing gloves, she would have bloodied her palms for how deeply her nails had been digging into them.
Ryuji called out to her, and she followed, her legs and heart feeling almost too heavy to bear.
After the trial, Akira learns never to say anything more than she needs to. She learns to keep her head down and to mind her own business. She learns that other people can’t be trusted, especially adults.
…Most importantly, she learns the truth doesn’t matter if there is someone influential enough to suppress it.
She sometimes wonders who that man was, but until she moves to Yongen-jaya she is too busy ducking behind buildings or into side streets whenever she spotted old friends of hers. She buys a pair of fake glasses because the minute or two before someone recognizes her face behind the lenses is exactly the amount of time she needs to escape their soon-to-be souring glances. Her friends used to call out to her, invite her places. They used to make Akira feel like she belonged, as if she had a place in the world. Now? They visibly recoiled when they saw her. Or worse, they ignored her and talked about her like she wasn’t even there.
She felt betrayed. Hurt. Somehow, she felt like a loser for even feeling angry about it. She hadn’t expected her friends to stand by her every step of the way or to actively fight back against the lies about her, but she supposed, in some small way, she had hoped one of them would at least ask for her side of the story. That they might try to put the same faith in her that she had in them.
But they never did.
When she takes the train to Yongen-Jaya, she decides a few things. She decides the incident never happened. If she never told anyone in her new school, then they wouldn’t know. She decides she wouldn’t talk about herself. If no one got close enough to her, then they wouldn’t have a chance to figure it out. She decides that this was her decision. That she was the one who turned her back on her former friends and that she, not her parents, had chosen for her to move to Yongen-Jaya, to go to Shujin. It was a good prep school, she had good grades. It only made sense to go to a better school.
She wouldn’t stand out, she wouldn’t make trouble, and she’d keep her problems to herself.
It was only going to be a year. She could do this. She had to do this.
…
It was a shame, then, that the entire school found out about her criminal record before she’d even boarded the train. There was no amount of mental adjustment that could have prepared her for that fateful first day...
Akira was tall for a girl. She’d be tall for a boy, too. She knew that. It was something she could use. Some people didn’t like it, but that was their business. Not hers.
It had happened when she was heading home from practice, wrist guards strapped together and dangling from her fingers, her training gear shoveled unceremoniously into her shoulder bag. She heard it before she saw it.
“Just get in the car!”
“Stop it!”
“How dare you cross me!”
“Stop it! Let me go! No…!”
“Don’t give me that shit…”
She dropped her gear.
She hadn’t been thinking when she instinctively placed herself directly in front of the drunk man, giving the woman time to put some distance between them. The girl pushed his chest back firmly with the heel of her hand, and calmly warned him to stop. The man called her a brat, grabbed her wrist. Akira pulled her wrist back in a half-circle with practiced dexterity, wresting away from his grip with an easy strength a fool wouldn’t expect from a girl. When the half circle is nearly completed, the man’s fingers finally slip and her hand is in position just above her target. She clamps her hand down on his wrist. See how he liked it. She used only enough force to give her complete control of his forearm. Nothing more, nothing less. She took a step forward to get into a different position to lock his arm completely, but he moved unexpectedly, lost his balance, slipped from her clutches, hit his head on the sidewalk.
She hadn’t meant for that to happen.
…She didn’t mean...
—She had been planning to lock his arm, get behind him, bend him over, and hold him close to the ground until he tired himself out. This was all wrong.
The man got back up with a vengeance, a little blood trickling down his face.
“Damn brat, I’ll sue!”
“For what!” she fired back, through her shock. “You’re the one who was forcing yourself on someone else!”
But that wasn’t what mattered later. It wasn’t what the police heard and it wasn’t what the woman, the only witness, had said. In the police report, there was no mention of the man’s assault on the woman, only that Akira had been the aggressor, had used martial arts on a defenseless man who had done nothing wrong. The man’s name was kept out of the local news because he was the ‘victim.’ Akira’s name wasn’t. The trial went by in a half-remembered, disassociated blur. The longer it went on, the quieter she grew. All her faults were dragged out before court and soon outside of it. People who had once been friends now gossiped openly about her, as did their parents.
“…A girl who does martial arts? Please! No wonder this happened!”
“Well, I heard her parents didn’t want her to, but she was too aggressive and wouldn’t listen…!”
“You know what they say about a violent child…”
That wasn’t true!
Her parents had never said that!
And she was the one who hadn’t done anything wrong…!
…
…Right…?
Not only was Akira expelled from her school, she was expelled from her gym. The worst of it was after her probation had been decided upon. When she learned her parents planned to send her away for a year to live with someone she didn’t even know, a stranger, as if she were a burden, as if shame clung to her skin and couldn’t be scrubbed away.
