Can you write akeshu where during the end of the game when you're saving your team mates from the velvet room Akira finds akechi in a cell too
The door refuses to open. “You don’t have everyone yet,” Morgana insists, but he refuses to speak anymore on the subject. He’s always stubborn but this is the worst time for it; they may be safe here but Akira keeps thinking of after, of what lies beyond that door.
He keeps looking. He checks the cells again, running past his friends who stand uncharacteristically solemn and still outside the doors; unsurprisingly, he finds nothing, and there’s an added frustration of not knowing who he’s supposed to be looking for on top of where he’s supposed to be looking. Is Mishima in a cell somewhere? Sojiro? It’s a long shot, but maybe it’s Sae?
He’s in the main hall when he realizes the area where his “rehabilitation” occurred had more cells than just his. He spins around and heads back to the main room and checks the cell- empty, empty, and then-
Goro Akechi sits against the wall, his legs drawn to his chest. His head is bowed, fingers interlaced over his head and weaved between strands of hair. No wonder Akira had missed him the first time. For someone who made such a big entrance into his life, and had such a dramatic exit, Akechi is oddly small here.
Akechi is also oddly alive. But then, so Akira, and the others, and he knows better than anyone that dying in the Metaverse does not necessarily mean one dies in real life.
He looks up when Akira approaches, his hands slowly sliding down and folding neatly in his lap instead, his legs straightening into something of a forced casualness. He attempts a smile but this, too, is forced. He looks tired.
“Joker.” There’s a weary amusement here. “I should have known.”
“You’re alive,” Akira responds.
Akechi looks down at his hands. The smile is more present now, as sad as it is small. “Am I? I suppose there’s some truth to that.”
Akira waits, as he did with the others. Despite the urgency of the situation he knows not to push Akechi to talk, instinctively knowing he’ll express his apprehensions and doubts.
“Do you think the Phantom Thieves made a difference?” Akechi asks, and it could be taken as a taunt were it not for how tired he sounds, as though he may fade away the same way the rest of the Phantom Thieves had. “A group of high schoolers, going up against the world. And for what? Do you think society can be so easily swayed by a few confessions of wrong-doing? The system is in place for a reason, is it not?”
“Are you giving up?” Akira asks.
“I’m just trying to figure you out,” Akechi explains. “We all fit into our roles. It seems I was always meant to be used for an adult’s convenience and thrown away when I am no longer of assistance. That’s what happened to you, is it not? You were handed off to a stranger the first time you got in trouble. Your own parents abandoned you.”
Akira breathes and shoves the thought down.
“There’s no room in society for troublemakers,” Akechi continues. “Society craves compliance and order. Do you truly think you made a difference?”
“Why were you fighting?” Akira asks.
Akechi’s eyes widen at that. “I…” He laughs quietly. “That’s right. I was fighting for one person to acknowledge me. I didn’t care about the others so long as Shido recognized me as his son. And you didn’t care about the others- not directly, anyway. It’s like the story of the starfish, isn’t it? Saving one person may not make much of a difference to society at large, but saving one at a time can incite a change.” He pauses, looking down at his hands. “You’ve saved me as well, haven’t you? Indirectly and inadvertently, you opened my eyes to other possibilities. For once, I yearned for something other than revenge…”
He stands, dusting his palms on his pants. “I’d like to return the favor. Let me expose you to other possibilities as well. Let me be there for you, as you have been for me.”
There’s a flash of light. When it fades, Akechi is in his Phantom outfit. The bars around the cell glow blue and disappear, allowing Akechi to step out into the main room.
“Let me help you,” he says, “as you’ve helped me. Allow me to stand at your side.”
Akira nods, not speaking so he can prolong this moment. Just this brief period of respite. He nods again.
“We should get moving,” he says. He knows now the door is open.
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