YO I JUST FUCKING GALAXY BRAINED
Futaba and Akira roleswap.
Futaba, after a year or so of living within her tomb, slowly letting despair and guilt consume her, has a dream.
She dreams of sand and sun and-
When she wakes she remembers its words, its pleas.
She opens the weird app that she’s half-convinced is a virus that won’t leave her phone.
After the shock of her life and the cat from her dreams freaking out with her, she gets the run-down of what the Metaverse is.
Some of it sounds familiar. Morgana deems it fate that they met. With Futaba already being well-versed in cognitive pscience, it seemed to make perfect sense that Morgana would be drawn to this specific palace.
Even if he felt like something was missing.
The two of them make their way through the pyramid and uncover the truth. The truth about her mother’s death.
Futaba awakens her persona and the two of them return to her room.
She manages to convince Sojiro to let Morgana stay, even while exhausted from her change of heart.
In the months that follow, she grows closer to her guardian and goes on adventures in Mementos with Morgana. After months of work and some therapy, she’s able to interact with people better. Still not comfortable with large crowds, but she can manage in smaller groups.
For a while things seem to stagnate. They can’t get deeper into Mementos no matter what they try.
Morgana is content to teach her some skills in the meantime. He finds it odd he doesn’t mind the roadblock.
It almost feels like he should be waiting for something anyways.
Sojiro gets a call one day. One of his regulars is calling in sort of a favor.
He ends up agreeing to house somebody with a criminal record who needs a place to stay while on probation.
Futaba being Futaba races to find all she can when she finally pries a name from Sojiro.
And it’s a good thing she did. She’s not an expert on legal proceedings, but everything about this seemed fishy.
Her instincts were only confirmed when they actually met the guy.
He was tall, quiet, and polite.
He seemed to go out of his way to keep his voice low and not make eye contact.
It almost hurt Futaba to see him act this way.
She was even more concerned when Sojiro confirmed his story. Being punished for doing the right thing? That was crazy!
What was even weirder was how Morgana kept silent and watched him. Not with suspicion, but with curiosity.
He stayed in their guest bedroom. It was a little dusty, but Akira took the room without complaint.
Futaba now understood what it was like to live with a ghost.
He’d come down to breakfast, eat quietly, then rush off to catch his train.
He’d come back around the same time every day. Not making any detours.
Apparently Sojiro thought it was sad too. He gave Akira a spare key that he never even used.
Futaba and Morgana decided to follow him to school a week into his stay with them. She told Sojiro she was getting Morgana a treat and left right after Akira.
She still hated the trains, but they were bearable with Morgana in her backpack.
She hadn’t thought to grab an umbrella though, so she was trying not to stand out too much as she stood under an awning near Akira.
She nearly choked on her spit when they both rounded a corner to see Akira and some blonde guy who’d been talking to him standing in front of a palace.
She and Morgana stayed hidden.
They overheard Akira arguing with the other guy about whether or not they should go in.
The stranger ended up going in on his own. Akira was frozen at the gates and seemed to be conflicted. He took a few steps forward, then grimaced and paused again.
In the end, he turned and left. Pushing his glasses up as he walked out of the palace’s bounds again and disappeared.
They couldn’t very well let somebody without a persona walk around a palace. So the two of them dove in after the blonde.
They saved him and learned his name was Ryuji. They both tried to explain palaces and the Metaverse to Ryuji, who apparently now had the app, and settled for just teaching him the basics.
When they told him about treasures and changing hearts, he told them his own story.
They decided to chaperone him through the palace another day, having him go to class late. They’d rather not take him along, but he had the app so they couldn’t stop him anyways.
Ryuji and later Ann ended up manifesting personas.
And from then on, the Phantom Thieves began to grow.
Morgana was curious about Akira.
Despite having been to the Metaverse, he still couldn’t hear him speak even when Ann and Ryuji could. Ryuji had been able to even before his persona manifested, so it wasn’t that either.
Something was off about Akira. Morgana spent some time with him, pretending to be a cat to get closer to him.
He spoke about twenty words to the others in the household, most of them pleasantries. The hope was that he’d be more open with Morgana since he wasn’t a human on the outside (he was still adamant about being a human like the others).
After getting home from school he’d recount his day. Nasty rumors and skittish classmates. Harsh teachers and a lunch break spent in a bathroom stall.
Morgana would curl up in his lap and provide comforts the only way he could in his cat form: mewing in understanding and being adorable.
Akira started being more social, if only with him. He’d chat about his day and would spoil and groom him.
One night he was sleeping in Akira’s room when he was startled awake.
Akira was sitting upright in bed, pale and shaking. His hands were clamped over his mouth. He seemed terrified.
Morgana rushed over to comfort him. To push Akira back down onto the bed and climb onto his chest. A warm, purring weight on his chest to ground him. A furry friend that nuzzled him and and voiced concerns that would fall on deaf ears.
Akira whispered between hiccups. His words quiet but impactful in the dead of night.
He dreamed of that night.
The night that ruined his life was both crystal clear and distorted. He relived the whole thing almost every night. Rushing forward to protect a woman from a blur that made his head ache whenever he tried to focus on it.
What was more concerning was how it ended.
The blur would hit the ground, then it would shoot out an arm in his direction.
The ground beneath him would crack and chains would rise and shackle him. They would wrap around him so tightly that he wouldn’t have enough air to scream.
He’d thrash and struggle with all his might, a fire rising from him that melted some of the chains to slag.
But there were always more. No matter how hard he tried he’d always get dragged to his knees. The blob and a shadow looming over him.
When the flames finally died, he’d wake up.
Morgana was horrified by the dream, more so by its implications.
Akira wouldn’t awaken a persona.
And Morgana had no idea how to fix it.
This wasn’t like Futaba’s palace. There was something twisted and wrong that went beyond that.
He stuck closer to Akira whenever he wasn’t with the Thieves.
He could feel it now. Most of the others had what almost felt like a literal fire in them.
He’d thought Akira had the potential because his matched an active persona user in intensity.
The energy within Akira was choked and warped, almost like it was being tied down.
That begged a very important question that Morgana found himself wondering as Akira hugged him close at night.
If this was what Akira felt like when he was compromised....
How strong would he be when he was finally free from his chains?
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