pancakeboy | [ic] so choose the colour you will fly

Current Location: the ship (mid-starboard hallway)

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[ic] so choose the colour you will fly

For all the talk of blowing up the Diet Building, and his little rampage through Shido's office the day he arrived, Akechi doesn't try his father's keywords until the day after he learns everything. Or at least... some things. The shadow of how things might, or might not be.

The ship is right there, no different to how he remembers. He moves through it uncostumed, unmasked, just as he always has, in that mossy green jacket that's slightly less tailored than his shirt and pants; he belongs. The guests titter and giggle about their privilege; the cognitions look through him as if he isn't real. Sometimes he feels eyes on him and looks up, only to realise he's looking into a mirror.

Eventually, far inside the ship, in the balconied chamber with the plants that the Shadows patrol, he drops down into a chair. Could call Loki and run rampage here, if he wanted. Could pull his gun and put a bullet through each of those patrolling Shadows, one, two, three. Could use his claws, tear those plants from their holders for a start. Shred the velvet, punch through the walls. Scream and scream and scream. Beat the palace hollow till whatever's lurking in its deepest depths shows up to finish him.

But he doesn't. One mustn't, after all—heh—rock the boat. Even if you want nothing more than to tear a hole in the hull and go down with it. Even if you've been running, and running, and someone's dropped a brick wall into your path.

Abruptly, his head snaps up, eyes sharpening. Someone's here.

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There sure is.

Haru, for her part, is testing something. Mementos is available here, but Mementos is always available. She wanted to know if the same applied to Palaces, without the proper Shadows here to prop them up - when various people know of their destruction - and rather than dig up one of her old targets, she's starting with something more or less everyone here knows to exist or have existed at one point. She and Goro haven't done anything with his father's Palace other than look around (nor her own father's, for that matter), but they've had the keywords for some time.

Mission success. Mission's unexpected benefit: plants. She didn't expect it to be this easy to start properly rebuilding her garden.

So yes, there's someone here. Someone who might be familiar - or might not, given the overall darker tones of her outfit. Or the unrestrained fury she unleashes on the few Shadows unlucky enough to cross her path.

Once they're out of the way, she turns her attention to the planters. Sure, they're ornamental plants, but the results when she plants them outside of the cognitive world are bound to be fascinating.

Okay, he's only been to Sae's Palace with the clown squad once, but he's pretty sure Okumura's outfit didn't look that... dark. And something tells him that won't be how Okumura fights—with that ferocity, that passion, that explosion of need that lurks in his own veins like lead.

It's compelling, actually; it's hard to take his eyes from the way she moves. But he's also not an idiot. With an effort of will, he pulls his own cognitive gear around him—the red mask, the one that comes easier at this moment, and is less incriminating—and watches as she turns to the plants.

He clears his throat.

Haru startles at the noise - but relaxes a little when she sees who it is. Only a little; her Goro isn't here, as far as she knows, and probably wouldn't hide behind Robin if he were. But if this Goro is here, and capable of pulling up any cognitive outfit at all, he's not the weird broken one, so this is already off to a better start.

"I suppose I should have expected to see at least one of you here, shouldn't I?"

"You certainly have the advantage of me, Noir—if that's your codename." It's the only one he knows, and his experience here so far has taught him "Crow" is startlingly universal.

He gets up from his chair, prowls closer to her. She seems less and less like the one he's familiar with, the one he's begun to know, the one he did a favour, as he'll tell her should she ask.

"Playing Phantom Thief? Something tells me those plants won't sell." She did have a garden, didn't she?—that one he found on the rooftop at Shujin, after that fucking takoyaki?

"It isn't. A little on the nose, don't you think?" Damn. She's not surprised, but: damn.

"Who said anything about selling them? I have a garden to get restarted. Even if they're only decoration, Metaverse plants do interesting things in the real world."

Or... whatever this space they're all stuck in is, anyway. She imagines the principle will hold.

"It's your codename, not mine. Or rather, your alternate's." Since it doesn't seem she's planning to turn that power on him just yet, he comes closer, curiosity itching like an old scar.

"Is that right, though? They transform when you bring them out?" The plants, that is. He takes a look at the silk greenery she's detached from its home. So strange to have her turn anything other than that wide-eyed uncertainty on him.

"I suppose it might have suited, in another life. But not this one." It would be too much of a reminder, all things considered.

If anything, she's acting like this conversation is pretty normal. (And it is - reassuringly so, after having to deal with Broken Goro. He's not hers but he's much closer. That, she can work with.)

"They have before. I didn't know there were plants here to pilfer, but I see no reason why the trend wouldn't hold up."

He drops into a crouch, long red beak poking into her business—though not too close. It's as if she isn't afraid of him at all. Okumura—the one he knows, the Phantom Thief—is always watching him, doubting him, asking careful little questions...

It would make sense of a lot, already, if she somehow knew all along. He pushes it from his mind. "The ruler of this palace doesn't take kindly to thieves. I'd say you might need backup, if I hadn't seen you fight."

Flattery? Sure. But it was impressive—the speed, the strength. He suspects he's a bit more constrained.

"Well, if you're in need of an outlet yourself, I wouldn't turn you down. This does go much more efficiently with two."

She's not against a little flattery when it's properly applied - not is she surprised he knows how to properly apply it. There may only be room in her heart for one boy, but sincere compliments are still nice to hear.

... okay, what the hell. His eyes widen behind his mask. What in the world is going on here?

Carefully, he reaches out one white-gloved hand, turning the long silk leaves over. He may not know his Okumura, but he can theorise. A rich girl, locked up tight, likely forced into marriage—something he's not unsympathetic about—it could be an innocent statement. But the way she says it....

"You aren't wrong about that." It's almost bright, as the chains of company fix around him; he starts to smile, like there's vaseline on his teeth. "Do you ever get the feeling the multiverse is playing tricks on you?"

...He doesn't expect this from her. Interesting. What does he expect?

But at the question, she snorts. "There's, what, at least four of you here? None of whom are quite as I know you, and one of whom is - fucking broken. And hardly anyone else here is real to begin with." Which is not necessarily the greatest thing for her 'I'm the only player character in a world of NPCs' complex.

"All the time."

He tilts his head, watching her; it makes him look quite birdlike, behind that mask. Did she really just say that? "Five of me. Myself, another my age, the idiot you mention, and two children. Also the various versions of—" Joker—"Ren Amamiya, who more usually goes by Akira Kurusu, one Morgana, a version of Dr. Takuto Maruki—and another of you."

And while he's curious how she'll react to hearing she has a copy here, it's her reaction to Maruki that he's really watching for. Because he's heard from his counterpart, the halo-clad Shujin attendee, that the one who seemed so familiar didn't know Maruki at all....

Edited 2023-09-12 23:01 (UTC)

"Me?" Haru considers that for a moment before a thundercloud passes over her expression. "For her sake, I hope her father didn't throw her to the wolves, then."

But there are other things to consider, so she lets that fall by the wayside for now. "I don't know anyone named Morgana, or Maruki. I barely know of the transfer student, which genuinely distressed the broken Goro until I said I was at least aware of his existence."

I hope her father didn't throw her to the wolves....

It's like a flensing knife beneath his skin. He draws back, silent, forcing the details in his head to tick into place. It wasn't until September that Okumura took up with the Phantom Thieves, around the time they entered the palace in broad daylight like a pack of morons. That would explain Morgana. But this Okumura has a Persona, and refers to Ren as the "transfer student"...

He doesn't want to think about idiot-him too much; he has his own Ren trauma to worry about. And yet he asks, sounding subdued. "You managed to upset him? That must have taken a little work." Which, considering the things that seem to come from her mouth, must have been right up her alley.

With some effort, he stops fiddling with the plants. No Maruki, though. That narrows things down.

"Not really. Mostly I was trying to figure out what the hell is wrong with him - it's like someone scooped out everything that makes him him and filled in the gaps with the TV persona." And she knows a thing or two about how malleable the human mind is, but even she has standards.

"He's the one who casually mentioned 'Ren' and then got very upset until I had enough description to know he meant Kurusu."

"... That is what it's like, isn't it? Do you know he let me throw him out of his own apartment? Technically speaking, at any rate." No, it is his apartment, and he was there first.

But this Okumura definitely knows him—or a version of him. Not even "your TV persona", which anyone should be able to figure out, but "the TV persona", as if its rigours are shared knowledge between them.

That again makes him want to place her later in the year, after his rise to fame. And yet she doesn't know Maruki. Is he elsewhere for her, like the other Okumura?—or is he not yet started at Shujin? "So if you don't know Kurusu-kun, is it fair to say you're from near the start of the year? April, perhaps?"

Edited 2023-09-13 00:01 (UTC)

She can't help but giggle at the absurdity of it - and yet, as placid as that particular Goro is, she has no trouble picturing it. "I suppose it's just as well I was in no mood to seek out my father's house."

(It's okay, Haru, neither was your counterpart.)

"Golden Week starts tomorrow. Or something." Who knows how that's going to work out now. "Shortly before I got here, the volleyball coach regaled a student assembly with the details of his misdeeds. I'd show you the video, but my phone has been uncooperative for the most part."

"Suguru Kamoshida." Yes, talk about someone who'd deserved everything Ren and the rest could heap upon him. He rises to his feet, folding his arms. "Who abused the students in his care in more or less unpleasant ways, and drove a girl to attempt suicide. And whose misdeeds were covered up by the school administration, as well as the parents of the students involved. I'm familiar with the case—at least, that's how I remember it."

So Maruki wouldn't be at Shujin yet. It proves nothing—and yet she has a Persona, and is more than capable with it. That knife beneath his skin, again. My father threw me to the wolves.

"May I ask you a question, if it isn't too personal?" He sits on the edge of the planter. "What did your father do to you?"

"Exactly." If anything, it might stand out that Haru had the presence of mind to record the confession at all. Not many people did, at least not until he was well into it.

But then, not many people had the presence of mind to save one of the calling cards, either.

She's silent for several moments, weighing whether she wants to get into it. This isn't her Goro, and she knows that - but he's near enough, and if it helps make some kind of sense out of whatever's going on here, it'll be helpful in the long run.

"He promised he wouldn't arrange a marriage for me if I helped some of his associates with 'research.' I didn't ask any questions, and they didn't explain it, and then I had to claw my way out of the Metaverse on my own. That was a few months before you turned up. And then he went back on his promise, because of course he did."

This Haru, he's probably noticing, has much less complicated feelings about her father.

Oh, you can believe that he's noticed that. His hand goes to his face—a finger curls over his mouth, rather than resting on his chin. Again, he sees Okumura's eyes on him in Leblanc, the week he arrived; sees Sae's laptop, the explosion of black across her father's face; again, he takes a moment to push it all down. It just feels—wrong.

But there's another point; a much more serious one. Because how much does she know, and... does it even matter any more?

"So we're friends where you come from. That must be nice." Nice, sure, as only he can say it. It's light as a feather tied to a gold brick.

"You've been doing this all alone, haven't you?"

It's not pity; she doesn't really have any of that left. (She used to care about other people, all the time, to a fault really. That was burned away in the face of what she had to do a long time ago.) But it is sympathy - she can usually dredge that up for Goro, if not for anyone else - from someone who has a very good idea of what he's been up to and why, and knows, even if not quite as intimately, how much it sucks to be a teenager alone with that kind of life.

"I would've lost what was left of my sanity years ago."

All that tension he's been shoving down out of sight floods back at once. Who the fuck does she think she is, walking in here, forcing him into this ridiculous mask, on his own f—

He swallows, trying not to be too obvious about it, not to clench his fists, not to throw back his head and scream bloody murder. "Let's just keep this polite, shall we? Don't think you can take liberties with me. You don't know anything about me."

Not being seen, but being exposed; a cockroach in the dark, secure in all its secrets, scuttering for the corner when the lights come up. His sanity is just fine.

She didn't force him into anything. He could've brought out the Black Mask attire and she would've been equally unfazed.

"Perhaps not. But I do know how lonely it is, when the adults who are supposed to be helping you are making you do their dirty work. I know how easy it is to stop thinking of ordinary people as consequential. I know I would've broken under the strain alone, sooner or later, but presumably you still came into this with a goal in mind, so maybe that helped."

(She doubts it, but she's trying to meet him halfway here.)

... and that's when his hands fold in his lap, in their white gloves. As neatly and primly as if he really was in that TV studio. I had to claw my way out of the Metaverse on my own. That was a few months before you came along.

Had his alternate, then, met this Okumura in the Metaverse? And felt sorry for her?—as he's never been able to eradicate? You turned up, and then he went back on his promise....

Again, everyone here knows who he is, what he's done—or they will; that cockroach on the floor, with all its secrets scattered. He's starting to peek back at what he's done himself, too—and so he sighs. "You know, there's another of us here. Neither me nor you, if that makes sense." He doesn't identify the other as one of the Kurusus. "He's a lot less talkative than you. Less friendly, too."

"It does." Well, and it doesn't, because in what world where he wasn't rescued does Goro not pursue his half-baked plan for vengeance? (If Haru loves anyone, it's her Goro, but... the plan is half-baked. They're disposable. She's been working on getting him to a more fully-baked plan since she learned it.

Both of their worthless fathers deserve to be destroyed; it's just a question of how and when.)

"As for the rest... I guess by now I'm predisposed to open up to you, even if you're not exactly who I'm used to. Comes of having only known one other real person for so long."

"Real people. They're all real." He almost chuckles under his breath. Vile, cowardly, prosaic, sluggish, stupid, boring, ugly, repellent, enchained, overwhelmingly deserving of whatever he may mete out to them—he'd insist on that, still—but not real? No, those wouldn't be the words he'd pick.

The flaws in his plan—or in his heart, and in his mind where he was blinded—are also just beginning to quiver in his awareness.

"You think that's wise, do you? You see a face you think you know, and offer it your trust?" And he sees them, as if side by side—this one, and the other one here, who spoke the words that have damned him. And his own Okumura-san, the distant one with her probing questions, who he's increasingly convinced must know, if he was to be defeated. Why do you seek justice, Akechi-kun?

He continues, sounding brittle. "Because I'll tell you this for free: my world's version of you has no cause to love me. But I suppose you'll thank me for that as well." Actually... considering all she's said, maybe she will.

Are they real, though? Ordinary people are so easily led. So easily manipulated. So easy to fuck with. Haru didn't develop this complex because they're vile. Something about Personas is more substantial.

But that's her poor coping mechanism, and him convincing himself he's in too deep to quit now is his.

"Wisdom doesn't apply as often as we think it should." Besides, at least this isn't Broken Goro. (Or, well. He's broken in ways Haru understands. He's himself.)

She considers that statement for a moment. "Someone decided Father had outlived his usefulness, I take it?"

Like the mass of humanity that he condemns, Akechi himself is far from wise; wouldn't claim to be. Wisdom wouldn't have sought out his father at fifteen. Sometimes you just have to do something, and damn the consequences; he just nods in understanding. "It sounds as if you already know how it was. Not a lack of usefulness, so much as an excess of ambition—and yes, he was far more useful dead." Black ichor, running down his face like blood; what would even cause that?

He tilts his head a little more, studying her; purses his lips as he thinks of the putative ruler of the ship they're both on. Shido plans to dispose of you once he becomes prime minister. The thought alone makes him want to melt through the floor like a ruptured Shadow.

"Are you telling me that doesn't anger you at all?" Because some of the ways people propose dealing with Shido almost make him scream.

"Only in that he doesn't deserve the relative mercy of death." Some decisions get a lot easier when your own father throws you to the wolves. But Haru still had to sit with that for a while before she fully made up her mind.

(There are plenty of other ways she can repay him. He wants to go to space so badly? That can be arranged.)

"But if I wasn't doing anything about him, I suppose someone was going to sooner or later."

... so they understand each other in that way. Though that this Palace, out of all of them, is the one he chose to lurk in—he'd prefer not to draw attention to that fact. "I'm starting to see why he likes you—if—" he quickly clarifies—"he likes you. Your me, I mean."

It's a diversion, but like so much of what he says, it also happens to be true; he's starting to see her with a clearer eye. "They say everyone has a point past which they won't be pushed. When they'll turn around and fight. From what I see, most adults never notice their indignities. And if—" He cuts himself off, before he can go too far: the ones that do don't fight, they die. "—well, that doesn't matter at all.

"I suppose, if he'd been stupid enough to prove your limits, he'd never have been left to me." And Ren and the rest would have been left to entrap a different patsy; it would have made no difference. Except perhaps to Okumura-san.

"We've come to understand each other pretty well by now." It happens, when there's really only one person you can talk to about - well. Anything. Dead mothers, terrible fathers, the life of a hired gun. Half-baked revenge plans and their better-baked alternatives.

They probably wouldn't have chosen to work together (Haru wouldn't have chosen this life at all, if she'd truly had a choice), but she wouldn't choose anything but her partner in crime, at this point.

"Father gambled with my life, and lost. Not that he knows he's lost yet - we haven't had a good opportunity to deal with either of them yet. But he lost all the same."

"I see." And he examines her face behind its black mask, wondering how much she knows. The faceless image of his mother still hovers, as it likes to do at the worst times, pricking what's left of his conscience. "How long have you been here?"

Because he's been here a month, comparing notes. He's learned a lot about himself, and what he might have been and still could be, or not; more about Shujin's school counsellor than he ever expected to need; a startling amount about the young head of the Kirijo Group, who's approached him a couple of times at parties; and even how to summon a Persona in what passes for the real world.

But nobody—not a single soul—has suggested to him, at any point, that Haru Okumura might be complicit in his crimes....

"Only a few days. I don't know if anyone else has chosen to stay in Iwatodai, but I find it preferable to my father's house. Give or take whatever's going on with the green-moon thing, anyway."

(Haru, if anyone else has set up shop in Iwatodai, they were normal and didn't do so in the love hotel. You wouldn't have seen them regardless.)

"I haven't spent much time in Iwatodai—though obviously that door's linked to the Apathy Syndrome cases." They were big news at the time, and Akechi's taken a professional interest since; the fact of the matter is that he went in, saw a few blank-faced cognitions weeping black goo from empty eyes, and promptly left. He has not been back.

A green moon, though? "And you haven't mentioned your activities to anyone else?"

"Is it? I wonder if the green moon's connected, then." it certainly wouldn't surprise her - it has the feel of a cognitive anomaly.

"Not in any kind of detail. The twelve-year-old you knows I'm close to my Goro, and that I've been doing this for a couple of years, but... I didn't get into specifics."

"I can keep him quiet." It's unhesitating, said without so much as a blink. Can he, though?—and the older one too, who shares all his memories? In truth, Akechi thinks of other-him as a soft touch; he thinks it will be easy.

"You've noticed there are synchronicities—shared events and coincidences—between many of the worlds we come from? One of those is the fact of a criminal exploiting the Metaverse." It's careful wording; she may well recognise it from her own Goro, that removal of responsibility from himself. "Those criminals—plural, in your case—use various others to that end. And as more of us arrive here, day by day, bringing new information, and new examples of how things have gone... it's become almost impossible to conceal my true identity."

And oh, how he hates that—being stripped of his masks, exposed by others. She probably knows it. "The point is that I've yet to hear anyone so much as suggest you as a candidate." In other words—she can keep her secrets, if she so wishes. And why would he offer her this chance? Why warn her? Simply put—because he can. If she causes trouble, after all, he can always change his mind.

"So Father wasn't a complete idiot in most timelines." How nice for other versions of her - a thought Haru partly means genuinely, but has more than a little sarcasm to it. He clearly still didn't actually care about her.

She does raise an eyebrow, though. "You have no practical reason to offer me your silence. But it's appreciated. I haven't decided how I want to handle things here yet, but I imagine the truth will come out sooner or later."

He swallows the snarl that, for two pins, he'd share with every Okumura he could find. "I think you and I both know that depends on who means to expose it." After all, just how much does she know about him? About the private ironies that are strictly for himself and Loki? About just how close to his heart his constant dance with the truth is?

"And you're wrong. I do have a reason. It may be too late for my secrets, and I'm not offering you an alliance, but—I also don't need more enemies here." Like that piece of shit soiling Ren's name, the one who now brightens so many of his thoughts about the 20th. The thought lets a little of that snarl escape.

"And I'm afraid your father was still a complete idiot. Just, by the sounds of it, one too close to—" and he nods around at the splended décor, that sadly is not hanging in rags—"someone else we could name." Far be it from him to not go off on rants at the drop of a hat.

Edited 2023-09-16 02:09 (UTC)

That's fair. She knows enough about how Goro ticks that she could've really upended things, if he hadn't literally done a lot of that work himself. To himself? Not like this isn't complicated.

"Not throwing me to the wolves knocks him down to 98 percent idiocy or so. I didn't say I was giving him a free pass." The last one of those was, in fact, when he threw Haru to the wolves. Her father is nearly as worthless as his.

"Mutual non-aggression suits me fine. But if you need backup for something and don't want to ask yourself, odds are good I'll be available."

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[ic] so choose the colour you will fly

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