Chapter Text
Akira didn’t call and Goro didn’t check. Some of the others tried to contact him, but Goro ignored them. He ignored everyone, took the week off work and school and media presence, simply sitting in his darkened apartment and stewing. Shido would survive a week without him (unfortunately).
His dreams were a mess. Nothing made sense, everything seemed to mix in confusion and darkness. His glove, thrown but on his hand. His glove, with Akira, but Goro wasn’t. His mask, shattered. Loki by his side, bleeding out along with him. Akira’s head on the table, brains splattered on the wall behind him, bleeding tears of blood, Goro’s gun in his hand.
Okumura, drowning in his own blood.
And then he woke up and was simply trapped in another layer of the same old nightmare that was his life. Staring at the ceiling, missing Akira and knowing that he shouldn’t.
How could he? How could he use Goro like Shido had? Hadn’t he sworn him to be better than that? Hadn’t he proven to be better than that? Hadn’t he trusted him? Hadn’t he given his life for him? Had he? Had he? Goro didn’t remember, but did. Somewhere, in the back of his mind, the betrayal stung twice, and he wasn’t sure why. As if he could take any more of it.
Wasn’t it ironic that the one person he wanted to talk to was the person who’d done this to him?
He sighed and rubbed his face, having enough.
Goro had to do something. If he kept sitting here he’d go crazy. Nothing made sense anymore. Nothing.
As if he was led by a red string, he followed the pull out of his apartment, knowing exactly where to go.
“This is idiotic.”
Loki didn’t talk but he did let out a growl that sounded scarily like agreement.
Urgh .
“We don’t even know if it works. Maybe Akira lied.”
He didn’t expect an answer this time. Goro knew Akira hadn’t lied, not about this one thing, felt the truth of it in his bones. So naturally Loki had to know it as well.
Again, Goro found himself at a loss for why he was doing this. It would be easier to just kill Sae. To end this grotesque disregard of humanity he had planted into her himself the old-fashioned, violent way. It would be so easy to tear through this palace with Loki and destroy everything coming his way.
But something in Goro had hesitated for long enough for doubt to creep in. Something inside of him seemed adamant, determined to prove to himself that he was more than a ruthless weapon pointed at whoever someone wanted dead.
And so Goro, with a heavy heart, called for that something and found Loki disappearing, found Robin Hood breaking out of him for the first time since he’d made his contract with Loki.
Ever imposing, in his silly superhero outfit, his chest out, his chin held high and his bow ready to aim.
“ It is about time you call on me, ” he told Goro earnestly. “ I shall aid you on your quest to save young Sae-san’s heart. ”
“I have to do this with you,” Goro said, because he felt that it was true as much as Loki did, as much as Robin did. “This is our battle now. Don’t disappoint me.”
And Robin gave him a wry smile.
“ I wouldn’t dream of it, little Crow. ”
Goro had seen a lot of disturbing palaces in his time but this one felt personal. This one he had actively fed, this one was the result of poking Sae in her weak spot again and again, until it finally grew sore enough to get infested.
And now he was standing in the ugly truth of it, watched it all unfold in front of his eyes - the skewed cognition he created.
What got him in the end was the arena. Everything else he and Robin could handle. Tricking the system designed to trick him and win the card games. Earn enough coins again and again to progress further into the palace. Rewiring the slot machine. Even rushing through the dark labyrinth set up to entrap him wasn’t much of a problem, thanks to Goro’s natural navigation skills.
The shadows were strong, but nothing he couldn’t handle, even with Robin by his side instead of Loki. It felt different, yes, to tactically weaken and defeat them the slow, patient way, rather than tear through them like Loki would, it felt deliberate.
Personal.
But the moment Goro stepped into that arena, he’d known he’d be in trouble. The promised one on one fight was just another cheat, of course, and soon enough he found himself crowded by shadows out for his blood, the crowds cheering for his downfall.
He’d known it was a trap, but he’d also known there was no way but through. And that stubborn, determined part of him that still refused to call Loki to his aid ended up being his downfall.
Well that, and Thor’s intensely strong attack, hitting him so hard, he stumbled backwards, dizzied, and fell to the ground. The crowds went wild. The shadow lifted his massive arm to attack again. And somewhere in the back of his mind, Loki growled, clearly not impressed by Thor - of all shadows - bringing the fatal blow.
Before Goro knew what was happening, strong, familiar arms pulled him out of the way and roughly carried him out of the arena. Shadows were coming after them but Robin stood between them, catching their blows for him. Goro’s head was swimming, his vision blurring. Never before had he needed a health spell but right now he sure wished one of his Personas knew how to do one.
Loki carried him to the edge of the arena, then built himself up in front of him, guarding him while Robin fought. Goro thought his head might split into two. Having two Personas by his side at the same time was something he had never tried before, and it was quickly zapping what little strength he had left. But he hadn’t called Loki, he had simply come to help him. And he wasn’t sure he could be called back right now.
He had to get out of here.
With tears stuck in the corners of his eyes, Goro fumbled for his pockets, for once glad he wasn’t wearing his usual claws, and threw a GoHo-M.
“Fuck,” Goro coughed in the smoke, doubling over as he felt his entire body burn from the shift through the Metaverse. “Fuck, fuck, fuck!” Loki and Robin were by his side in an instant but the closer they got, the more Goro felt like his head was exploding. He grasped for his phone with trembling fingers and swiftly teleported himself back to the real world.
The first thing he noticed was crippling exhaustion. Through the fog in his head, the pain barely registered. When he finally managed to move his head, he realised he was lying on the ground in front of the court building, and there was blood pouring onto the asphalt.
Aw. Fuck.
Goro rolled himself to his side, bones feeling heavy, and looked down at himself.
Yeah okay. This sucked. Thor simply had to have had a hammer with a spike as big as his lower arm, didn’t he? That was just his luck.
He could die here. Worse, he could be found here. The press would be all over that one. He’d have so much explaining to do. The ground was so cold. His body felt so heavy. There was really nothing he could do. With effort, he raised the hand that was still clasping his phone and hit the speed dial, relieved when he heard Akira’s voice answer almost immediately.
“Goro?”
“Akira… Court building… hurt.”
“What did you- never mind. I’m on my way. Hold on, yeah?”
He wanted to answer, he really did, but he was having trouble moving his lips. He simply rested his head down on the asphalt again, hoping that Akira would hurry up, while the world around him faded into black.
The ground was surprisingly soft beneath him.
Goro’s hip hurt. He could’ve shot him through his heart or head, there was no doubt in his mind that even Shido’s cognition of him would have excellent aim, but he hadn’t. That sadistic fuck probably had enjoyed the thought of Goro bleeding out slowly on the floor, alone with his failed plans and dreams.
It had stopped hurting a while ago. Now he just felt numb. That part of him that could still think figured that he had to be close to the end.
All in all, dying wasn’t too bad. Leaving Shido in the hands of the Phantom Thieves was… regrettable. But he knew Joker would keep his promise to him.
It was crazy. After everything that happened, it was crazy that he was so sure about them. But he knew he could count on the Phantom Thieves to take down Shido, fulfil his legacy.
Could count on Joker.
Joker…
If he had any regrets at all, then he’d really wished… that just that once… maybe if things had gone differently… if they’ve met earlier, under different circumstances…
But they hadn’t.
They hadn’t.
“Please, I need him to be okay.”
“He’s going to be fine, kid.”
“There was just… so much blood. I have never seen so much blood.”
Goro’s head swam. He tried to open his eyes, then shut them tighter, the tiny speck of light enough to make the spinning worse. Somewhere in the darkness, there were steps walking up and down, up and down, driving him slowly nuts, with Akira’s trembling voice going lighter and louder along with them.
“I stopped the bleeding and stitched the wound. He’ll have a light scar, that’s all.”
That voice he didn’t know but from the sounds of it, it was probably a doctor. One with the patience of a saint, considering Akira’s behaviour.
“He can’t die. I can’t lose him. I can’t do it again. He can’t die , Takemi.”
“He is not going to.”
“I can’t believe this is happening. I did everything so this wouldn’t-”
“Pretty sure it’s been established that I’m not dying,” Goro grumbled under great effort and immediately heard steps rush towards him, clammy hands grabbing his, and it should be unwelcome, but it really wasn’t.
Instinctively, Goro curled his fingers around Akira’s, keeping his eyes closed, and felt at peace, for a moment.
“Goro. Fuck. Are you okay? How do you feel? Are you in pain?”
“I highly doubt that,” the Doctor - Takemi, probably - said with a tone in her voice that Goro registered as smug amusement. “I gave him enough painkillers to numb an elephant.”
Well, that certainly explained why Goro felt like he had gotten run over by seven trucks.
“That hardly seems legal,” he muttered.
“You’re not here legally, little detective prince,” the doctor responded, her tone unbothered. “In fact, I was begged to keep this off the record. You’re lucky I owe this kid a favour.”
Ah, right. Akira had mentioned her, now that he thought about it. One of his several odd, shady connections he’s made since coming to Tokyo. The doctor testing her medication on him to help some little girl. He’d judged him for becoming her guinea pig without any concerns for his own safety and now here he was - becoming one himself, against his will.
Well. He didn’t feel his wound, so at least the painkillers seemed to work.
“Are you okay?” Akira asked again, with a ridiculous degree of frantic urgency in his voice. Goro felt the hand in his own trembling slightly.
Cool, collected Akira, cocky Akira, confident Akira, completely losing his cool.
He’d laugh, if he wasn’t so out of it.
“Ask me again once the drugs stop working,” he told him, finally opening his eyes to find Akira’s pale face hanging over him, grey eyes full with worry. Looking into his eyes, he suddenly found himself compelled to be serious.
“I’m fine. Probably. Painkillers are doing their magic. And the doctor stopped the bleeding, right?”
“Right,” Takemi threw in from where she was sitting, behind her desk, not even looking at him. “I keep telling him you’re going to be fine, but does he believe me? No.”
Goro let his eyes flicker from her back to Akira. It was peculiar to see him this distressed, if he was being honest. Not unpleasant, though. His one and only thought had been to call Akira the moment he’d fallen out of that palace, but now that he thought about it, after the discussion they’d had on the festival, it was a miracle he had shown up.
But not only was he here, not only had he saved his life, he also seemed to genuinely care .
And suddenly, Goro just really wanted to talk to him.
“Can I… can I go home?” he asked Takemi, who finally raised her head to look him up and down once.
“Depends. Your wound is properly stitched up and bandaged, but you can’t move too much, otherwise it’ll tear open again. You’re free to carefully try to get up, though.”
Goro shifted on the sick bed and found Akira’s hands guiding him the moment he moved, gently helping him to get up on wobbly knees. It didn’t hurt but he definitely felt exhausted and weak, glad for Akira’s reassuring strength helping him stay upright.
“Should be fine,” he told Takemi, who was watching them with a somewhat amused expression on her face.
“I hope you two know what you’re doing,” Takemi said after a momentary pause, sounding more serious than she had all day. “That wound didn’t kill you, but it could have. I’m not going to ask any questions I know I won’t get the answers for, but I hope you’ll be more careful next time and not get into too much trouble. Or drag him into it,” she nodded towards Akira. “Because that kid is completely gone for you.”
“Maybe he’s the one dragging me into trouble, ever thought about that?” Goro asked, barely able to smirk but still attempting it and Takemi snorted.
“The thought did occur to me,” she assured him. “And then I met you. Now. Off you go, before someone spots the famous detective prince in my praxis. That can’t be good for either of us.”
She had a point there.
With Akira’s aid, Goro slowly made his way out of the doctor’s office into the quiet backstreets of Yongen.
“Come with me to Leblanc?” Akira asked him quietly. “We can talk there.”
And several minutes later, Goro found himself walking through that door he had sworn himself he’d never walk through again, found himself making his way up the stairs to a dusty old attic he thought he’d never see again, and passed out on a bed that wasn’t a bed, that he had quite frankly looked forward to never resting on again.
Fucking Kurusu.
When Goro woke up again, Akira was sitting on his dusty old sofa with his legs crossed, watching him.
“What?” he asked him out of pure instinct and Akira shrugged.
“I’m just glad you’re still breathing,” he said, which Goro could easily identify as code for “I was checking if you’re still breathing”. A little excessive, maybe.
“I’m fine,” he assured Akira. He thought back to all the things Akira had rambled at Takemi while he had been semi-conscious. Something about not being able to lose someone again. Made sense that there was some unprocessed trauma at play here.
Akira still looked at him like a terrified doe in the headlights, so Goro carefully sat up, patted the empty spot next to him and watched him move towards it faster than light, watched him slide down in the bed next to him, his hands still shaky as he pulled the blanket over both of them.
“Who’d you lose?” he asked and Akira, actually, visibly, flinched.
“Huh?”
“You lost someone. It’s not hard to tell, even if you hadn’t told Takemi in there. Who?”
Akira opened his mouth. Closed it again and then, with a heavy voice said, “someone really important to me.”
It stung more than it should. Goro knew he shouldn’t be jealous of whoever had been in Akira’s past, but the irrational, childish, weak part of him still was. It burned and ached more than his wound, it was raw and vulnerable and it didn’t appreciate that little jab one bit. That little reminder that he was not special. Was one of at least two, of probably many.
But he didn’t say any of that, he didn’t let it show, he simply rested his head on Akira’s shoulder and said, “I’m fine” again, hoping it would stick this time. And the touch seemed to do the trick at least partially, because Akira relaxed a little beneath him, the tension falling from his muscles.
“Yeah,” he said. “Yeah. You’re fine.”
And then, apparently determined to ruin the peaceful moment when Goro had done his best not to, he added, “so, what the hell were you doing alone in Sae’s palace?”
For a moment, the silence between them grew tense, while Goro thought about how to respond. He didn’t need to ask Akira how he knew, because of course he would. Some part of him had known he would before he had even entered the palace.
“Trying to steal her treasure.”
They’d lied to each other for so long now, Goro was beginning to grow tired of it. What was a little truth between them, really? If he was lucky, Akira wouldn’t even recognise it.
No such luck.
Akira led a shaking hand to his forehead, a finger twirling a dark lock around itself, a familiar gesture he did when he was nervous.
“Goro, if this is about what I said- I didn’t- I didn’t mean it like that.”
He had. He had.
“You sent me to murder a man.”
“No. No. I knew you were going to anyway. I just didn’t stop you. I just- I just wanted you to understand that I was okay with it.”
“How can you be-”
“Listen. It’s complicated. I know it is. And it’s messy and it’s fucked up, but you have to believe me that I want nothing but the best for you. I can’t have you storm into palaces alone and get yourself killed, okay? That’s the one thing I can’t take. Hate me, cut me off, kill me personally, I don’t care, but please, take me with you when you…-”
Akira bit his lip, looking down.
“When I what?” Goro asked quietly.
Akira looked at him for a long time and apparently he had come to the same decision Goro had, because suddenly there was the truth, and it was hitting Goro worse than Thor’s fucking hammer.
“When you go into Shido’s palace.”
For a moment, it was like he couldn’t breathe, like Akira had stolen all air from his lungs in a blow so painful, it reversed his recovery. Finally, when he had regained his wits again, Goro thought about all the things he should say, all the things he should ask, and threw them all out of the window.
Akira knew. He wasn’t sure how but he somehow always knew.
And Goro should be horrified but in all the time they’d spent together, he’d never really been horrified because some part of him, some deeply buried, oddly instinctive part of him knew too.
So it really wasn’t all that weird, was it?
“I’ve been in his palace a million times,” he told Akira instead of all the things he should say. “I’m recognised in there. The shadows don’t even attack me. It’s fine.”
“There’s a cognition of you in there, you know that, yeah?” asked Akira with clear desperation in his voice. “A cognition of you, created to tie up loose ends. Do you really think you won’t, eventually, become one of those just like the people he sent you to kill?”
“That’s different,” Goro spat. “I’m different. He needs me.”
“He needs you now !” Akira almost yelled. “But what once he doesn’t anymore? What once he’s got everything he wanted out of you?”
“I’ll be done with him first!” Goro responded in a sharp tone. “I’ll end him before he even knows what’s-”
“Are you sure about that?” Akira asked him. “Because I can tell you for sure, that cognition of you won’t have any qualms with killing you. I can guarantee that.”
A cognition of Goro? In Shido’s palace? Was that it? Was that why Akira knew all his secrets? Had he sat in there and squeezed them out of a fake Goro? But that couldn’t be. Shido didn’t know that Goro was…-
Did he?
Terror gripped him, cold and overpowering. Goro’s head shot up, away from Akira’s shoulder, and he ignored the tug of his wound at the sudden movement to stare at him with wide eyes.
“Does he… does Shido know that I’m-”
He couldn’t find it in him to finish the sentence but naturally, he didn’t have to.
Akira closed his eyes as if in pain and then nodded.
“He doesn’t- he didn’t bother confirming it, as far as I know, but he… he kind of knows. I don’t think- I just don’t think he cares , Goro. I’m sorry. I just don’t think he’s capable of feeling anything but greed.”
“But how can he… but he… but that’s… my plans…” Goro’s head was swimming again, this time not because of the drugs that he was sure were wearing off now. His wound stung. His eyes felt heavy and wet.
Wet?
Fuck, he couldn’t cry now. He definitely couldn’t cry now. He shouldn’t-
“He said you looked like your mum,” Akira said quietly. “His shadow did. And that- Goro, I’m sorry, I just- no matter what you do to him, I don’t think it’s going to make him care or regret or feel actual remorse. We can change his heart but-”
“No,” Goro said, voice trembling. “No, I don’t want to change his heart, I don’t want his false regrets. I want to hear him say it with his own voice and then I want to drive a bullet through his eyes and watch the fucking light go out of his eyes.”
Goro thought he should be shaken up more. If he had learned about this months ago, maybe he’d have gone on a murder spree, had lost his mind, had gone to Mementos and slayed, slayed, slayed until there was nothing left. Had burned what was left of him down to become nothing but a raging fire, destructive, deadly, until the world was nothing but a wasteland in his wake.
Maybe it was the drugs. Maybe it was Akira’s trembling arms around him. Maybe some part of him had given up on this plan another lifetime ago already. Maybe the other part had let go of it over his last couple of months with the other thieves- with the what?
He blinked, feeling like something was in the palm of his hand, but whenever he closed his fingers around it, it flew off.
“Who- who are you?” he finally asked Akira and Akira smiled at him sadly, kissed his temple with unrivalled gentleness.
“I’m never going to leave you alone, Goro.”
“That’s not an answer,” he pointed out, the world slipping from his grip like the thought he was so desperately trying to latch onto. Thieves? Why had he thought of their friends as Thieves just now?
“Who are you?” he asked again and then, “who are you to me?”
“I’m just keeping my promise,” Akira responded, his tone more urgent now. “I’m just making sure you’re keeping yours.”
“You knew Shido was my father,” muttered Goro, feeling pain and confusion and drugs tug at him, pull him back under, felt his eyes flutter shut and his mind grow dimmer. “Is that why you told me about your false assault charge? Is there anything you don’t know about me?”
And he really couldn’t be sure, with the dreams and darkness overwhelming him, but Goro thought he’d heard a quietly, pleadingly whispered, “how to keep you alive.”
Goro liked to think that in another life, he had made better life decisions.
Looking back, he realised he had been a bit of a fool. Looking at Shido’s palace now, he should’ve just killed him immediately. It had festered over time, grown. There were more shadows now, ugly things with even uglier imagery, a wide, vast web of people he used in order to use even more.
And Goro had helped him create the web, had let people get caught up in it, had led them into it, had desperately tried to claw his own friends out of the sticky threads he’d connected himself and felt like a hero, the absolute fool that he was.
“It’s so bright that it hurts my eyes,” Akira - Joker - said with open disgust in his voice.
Goro, finally allowed to look at him in his metaverse outfit freely, just stared. Stared at the curled lower lip, at the tip of his nose being covered by the elegant mask. The way Joker’s entire being seemed to gain confidence, the way he fit that dark coat like he was born with it. The role of Joker came to the boy so naturally, Goro had no idea how he hadn’t seen it sooner.
His stomach did a silly little loop. He should be focused on his father, should be focused on ending this whole affair, but instead he was too busy acting like a hormone-driven teenager in love.
Which, technically, he supposed he was.
Which, technically, was a nice change from being a lonely assassin.
If it wasn’t for where they were and what they had come to do.
“Are you sure about this?” Goro asked with a low voice and Joker turned to him with a grim smile.
“I don’t think I’ve ever been more sure about anything in my life,” said Joker. “You don’t even know what he took from me.”
Goro felt like he did. Goro felt like something big, something painful had been clawed from both of them by the hands of his father but he couldn’t say. Couldn’t tell for certain. It was the same surreal feeling, the same underlying knowing without actually knowing anything that he had felt when he’d found the glove.
“Okay then. You better not let me down then,” Goro told him sharply and Joker gave him a sharp grin.
“Don’t you worry, Crow. I’m planning on exceeding your expectations.”
And Goro couldn’t help but grin back because that felt familiar, that felt safe, that felt good . Being here with Joker, hearing the nickname he had never been called before but still knew instinctively to be his.
Whatever was going on - he was just going with it now. Because it felt the rightest he had felt in a while. Maybe forever.
He’d decided to trust Joker.
So fuck it. He would.
Despite Joker attracting plenty of shadows with his presence that Goro could usually just walk past, they made it through the palace effortlessly. Not only did Goro know exactly who to talk to to get the recommendations no - so did Joker. And he knew where to find them, too, walking confidently through the bowels of the ship, never stopping, never hesitating.
Until it was time to confront the cleaner, that was.
“How about you wait here,” Joker suggested, his voice almost pleading. “And I go in alone?”
“Alone? Are you crazy? We make a better team together.”
They were standing in front of the vent that would lead them straight towards the engine room, and suddenly Joker was fidgeting, standing in his way, hands in his pocket the way they always were, but his shoulders were tense.
“I’m just saying,” said Joker. “We don’t really need the both of us to go in. It’s an easy thing. I’ll only need a minute.”
“Joker. What the hell is this about?”
They’d agreed to do this together. Goro had to promise him not only to not go in the palace alone, but to also let Sae’s palace be, to give her a chance to figure things out on her own. He’d promised him and now Joker stood here, unironically suggesting to take on the Cleaner on his own?
“I just…” Joker ran his hands through his hair, looking openly nervous now, which was something that really scared Goro. Normally, Joker was confident, never taken off guard, always prepared, always knowing what to do. “Okay. Okay fine. But you- you stay close to me, alright?” he asked him in that same pleading tone from earlier and Goro didn’t know what to do. Normally he’d give him a dirty look and do whatever he wanted but he’d never seen Joker like this and it threw him off.
“Alright,” he simply told him. “Then let’s go get this over with.”
Joker went through the vent first - Goro didn’t exactly mind the view, so he let him - then climbed out on the other side, still looking incredibly tense. Goro stood up next to him, wondering, for the first time, how the Cleaner would react to him.
He’d- well, he’d know of him, of course, but he’d never actually met him. People who did, usually didn’t live to tell the tale. He was Shido’s other, not quite that otherworldly hitman. The one picking up the slack Goro left. An odd feeling, to finally face the man - or his shadow, at the very least.
Odd feeling to do so with Robin Hood.
Goro glanced at Joker and found Joker staring right through him with a somewhat worried expression.
He could tell him about Loki, of course, but something told him he wouldn’t have to.
“Do you mind if I change outfits for this one?” he asked both Akira and Robin and while Robin rolled his eyes, Akira flinched out of what seemed to be rather gloomy thoughts and finally focused those pretty silver eyes on him.
“Oh, no, yeah, you do that,” he finally said. “Just remember to keep your guard up, you tend to be a bit too careless with Loki.”
Goro blinked at him.
“What are you, my manager?”
“Your lead-” Joker started, then cut himself off with a sheepish expression. “Sorry. I’m just- I just don’t want anything to happen to you. You only recently got injured and those fights- sorry this fight might be tough. I just-”
His leader? Had he just meant to say that he was Goro’s ‘leader’? Someone had to get this man’s illusions of grandeur under control. Apparently the stupid sexy red gloves were going straight to his head.
“Joker. We’ve made it through the entire palace without a problem and I haven’t seen you worry like this once. What do you know?”
At that, Akira actually shuffled his feet like a fucking cartoon character.
What an absolute moron.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean that I’ve made my peace with you knowing impossible shit about me - like how I fight with Loki - so you might as well tell me about whatever else you know you’re trying to keep a secret very poorly right now.”
“Oh,” said Akira. “That.”
For a moment, there was tense silence between them. Then Akira opened his mouth and his entire world crashed down around him.
“Well, I- you could die. Here.”
Goro frowned deeply.
“That’s… vague. How do you… how seriously do we have to take your odd premonitions?”
Akira looked at him with nothing short of desperation.
“There’s some factors. Mostly, it’s an entirely different- I mean, the circumstances are different. But you’re somewhat unpredictable and there’s no telling whether you’d make the same stupid fucking move twice.”
“I’ll choose to overhear that critique on my competence for your sake,” Goro replied quietly but changed to Loki nonetheless, let the dark claws grow, let his red eyes glow through the helmet, just to intimidate him a little, remind him who he was talking to.
It didn’t work. In fact, Joker’s face actually lit up a little as he gave Loki a friendly little wave.
(What. The. Fuck.)
(Loki waved back. The absolute traitor.)
“Twice. So we’ve what? Been here before? Then why can’t I remember?”
Joker was shuffling his foot again. Good God.
“Just tell me, you fucking moron. How am I supposed to not repeat my mistakes if you’re still keeping secrets from me?”
“It was another timeline,” Akira finally burst out. “I was here before, with the others and you attacked us and we fought, because you wanted to kill Shido and we wanted to change his heart and you thought we were standing in your way, that we had to be enemies, and you were really fucking exhausted and this cognition of you came and-”
Joker was actually trembling now and when Goro finally recovered enough to realise, he saw tears running down his pale cheeks.
“It’s not easy for me to be here, okay? I know, technically, you’re standing here, next to me and we’re in a whole other place, but I also know you died here. I remember you dying here. I watched you die here.”
That was… a lot to unpack. Under any other circumstances, Goro would’ve declared the man a case for the psych ward, but by now he knew better than that. Joker had known too much. Had played him way too easily. Joker knew this palace too well. Joker had his glove under his pillow.
“Okay. Okay. You’re not off the hook. We’ll talk about this later.” He raised one of his claws to point at Joker. “But right now, let’s take on the Cleaner first so we can secure the route. I won’t die. Okay?”
“You better not,” Joker muttered. “If I have to do all of this a third time, I might go crazy.”
“We’ll definitely talk about this later,” Goro said with more emphasis.
Joker gave him a crooked smile.
“The first few meetings were hell, you know? When you didn’t know me at all? Everything we went through just erased?”
“I knew you, though,” Goro told him quietly. “I didn’t know how or why but I did.”
Joker’s eyes widened but before they could go into detail, they heard a door open and out stepped the Cleaner.
“I thought I heard someone,” he said, his eyes focused entirely on Goro. “You must be the kid. He told me about you.”
Goro straightened his chin, stepping forwards.
“Oh? Did he inform you that someone else was doing your job better than you?” he asked, forcing his tone to turn the familiar cadence of confidence and smugness he used to establish dominance in his field, surrounded by adults.
But the Cleaner just gave him a dirty grin.
“No, he informed me of who I’d have to kill soon.”
Goro flinched. He hadn’t meant to, not in front of Joker and certainly not in front of this shadow, but he still felt his reaction in his entire body, as if Shido had personally punched him in the guts.
So it was true, then. Shido had been planning to get rid of him all along. And Goro had been too naive, too foolish to even consider it. Goro had yet again been the little boy clinging to his father, being abandoned and betrayed.
Except, this time he had Akira. Akira who had seen through it and had decided to protect him without judgement, without pity.
This time, he was loved and supported by someone so much better than Shido could ever be.
This time, it didn’t fucking matter anymore so he’d be an absolute fucking idiot to ruin his life over Shido ever again.
“Not if I kill him first,” he told the Cleaner with one of his sweetest smiles. “And I will. So don’t mind us - we’ll be taking your letter of recommendation.”
“No you will not, you little shit!” said the Cleaner, standing a little more upright before finally his shadow form broke out of him, making all further conversation unnecessary.
Goro had never been one to fight in a team - a team held him back, a team was unnecessarily drawing attention to them, a team couldn’t match his strength and unpredictability during fights.
Akira was different. Akira knew what he was going to do before Goro did. He had his back when he needed him, he attacked when Goro left an opening, he possessed healing spells neither Robin nor Loki knew and he was using them generously.
And somehow Goro found himself wondering how he ever fought alone before.
Somehow, Goro found himself fighting more defensively than ever - instead of covering himself, he also covered Joker now. Buffed him when he knew he was getting ready to strike. And when they decided to struck their foe together, they did so without a word needed - suddenly Joker and his silly grappling hook were setting up the perfect opportunity for them to slice and shoot through the shadow together and it was a little overkill, maybe, but oh God, if Goro didn’t love it.
Far too soon, the remnants of the Cleaner lay before them on the ground, twitching and disappearing into wherever shadows went when they died.
Goro felt exhilarated. His entire being seemed to hum, Loki contently flowing through his bloodstream, no longer hungry for destruction - well, for today.
“You okay?” Joker asked but even he couldn’t quite wipe away the little grin of thrill that had appeared on his face.
“Of course,” Goro told him breezily. “Let’s keep going.”
Joker hesitated only for the slightest of moments, to his credit.
“Okay. Okay.”
They walked quietly, for a moment. Goro could tell Joker’s steps got slower the closer they got to the engine room, but he didn’t stop. His gloved hand, usually so steady, was shaking and Goro reached for it mindlessly, wanted to reassure him that he was there, then saw his own claws and drew back again.
“Urgh,” he muttered.
Joker, who had apparently caught his movement, couldn’t help a little chuckle.
“Nice image of rebellion you got there, shame that it leaves you untouchable.”
“Nice image of rebellion you got there, shame it makes you look like a fool,” Goro countered with no real bite.
In truth, Joker looked good and regardless, something in his stomach was tying itself into painful twists at the size of the large waterproof engine room door hanging right above them.
Joker followed his gaze.
“Let’s… we could just go outside, you know? We got all the recommendation letters. We know our route.”
“I know… it’s just…”
He trailed off, unsure how to wrap the feeling he was currently going through into words. The thrill from earlier had worn off, leaving him nervous and fidgety. He hadn’t been in this part of the ship before - but it felt like he had. It felt succinctly like he’d watched that door crash down a billion times. Had watched it separate him from Joker forever. Had watched it like a man to be executed watched a guillotine fall, like a final curtain.
“Goro…”
This time, Joker was reaching out to him, red fingers tightening around his wrist, but Goro ignored him, taking tentative steps closer.
“I don’t… understand…,” he said even though, technically, he did.
He had been here before.
In another life.
A life only Joker remembered.
He’d dreamed of this place.
How often had Joker seen this curtain fall down between them in his nightmares? How often had Goro, without realising it? Had he been here? No, he was a whole different version of that boy, wasn’t he? That boy had died.
Was dead.
But then why had Goro loved Akira before he had ever even met him? Because that’s what had stunned Akira earlier, hadn’t it? The realisation that some part of Goro’s soul had recognised Akira.
“I… I’ve been here before,” he told Akira.
“Impossible,” he responded, immediately. “That wasn’t you, that was a whole other timeline.”
“The door fell,” Goro told him. “The door fell and you were on the other side. You were screaming my name. You hammered against the door. I wanted to come to you but I couldn’t. And you told me… you told me…”
He closed his eyes, shutting out Joker’s shocked expression. Pinched them close together to summon the memories that weren’t his but were.
“And you told me you’d keep me to my promise. That we’d have the rematch I challenged you to. With- with the glove.”
Goro’s eyes snapped open just as Joker’s hand fell from his arm.
He gave him a crooked grin.
“I guess we could call this a rematch, then.”
Goro would never grow tired of it. The thrill that ran through him when he caught Akira off guard, said something he didn’t expect. He had the advantage, but that didn’t mean Goro couldn’t once in a while make that entire, pretty face come undone, watch that cool, confident facade fall apart in front of his eyes.
“How can you remember? How can that- but that’s-”
“You remember too,” Goro told him quietly.
“Because I am the one who jumped into the other timeline,” Akira said. “Unless…-”
“Unless there’s only these versions of us, sent back in time to try and make different choices for ourselves. How poetic,” Goro sneered, finding words coming to him before he could think of them, words he didn’t know what they meant until he spoke them, “how fitting for the sentimentality of the Phantom Thieves, though.”
Joker’s mouth fell open, but this time, Goro could barely savour it, because there they were: An influx of images and memories rushing down on him backwards. Death by Shido’s puppet, a puppet he had almost become. Blood rushing out of his wounds, leaving him weakened. Joker’s heavy voice. The door slamming shut between them. The Phantom Thieves, all seven of them, offering him to join them. His own overwhelmed mix of hope and frustration and humiliation, all mixed into one explosive cocktail of words. A speech that he wasn’t sure he would ever live down, actually. Losing to the Phantom Thieves. Joker giving his final blow. Confronting the Phantom Thieves. Seeing the Phantom Thieves. Seeing Joker. Alive. Alive. Alive.
Alive despite…
Goro jumped back, stumbled over his own feet and fell to the ground, his iron claws clattering against the metal ground of the ship, echoing uncomfortably from the container they were trapped in. He’d lain on this spot of floor before.
“Goro?” Joker asked, and was by his side within a second, looking worried for him.
Always worried for him.
How could he be worried for him?
“I- I shot you,” Goro breathed and watched those silver eyes widen behind the mask. He took his helmet off and watched Joker do the same, watched that pale face appear from behind the mask and remembered what it looked like with blood running down its sides.
“Well, not really me ,” Akira offered him almost shyly. “Not like I was there.”
“I shot you,” Goro said again and he felt dizzy. There had been a hole, right there, in that head he loved so much. Bleeding out Akira’s brain. He’d taken the gun while it was still warm and placed it in his fingers to run cold along with the metal.
He’d seen these eyes lose their light. He’d- he’d-
“It’s okay,” Akira told him quietly. “It wasn’t real.”
It had been real for Goro. There was no reason to say it, they both knew it. Akira was here despite knowing it. Akira had thrown himself into the past to save his worthless, pathetic fucking soul despite knowing that Goro had stood in front of him, pressing that trigger without a care in the world.
“How can you- how can you-”
“Because it could’ve been me,” Akira told him quietly. “Because it always was me.”
“What?”
He knelt down to him then, knees hitting the metal and Goro saw tears shining in his eyes as he grasped both of Goro’s wrists, holding them tightly as he spoke.
“When I lost you in my reality, I wanted nothing more but to end Shido. I wanted to kill him so badly. I wanted to watch that arrogant asshole grovel for forgiveness and not get it. I wanted to see the realisation in his eyes, wanted him to know the way he treated you was his downfall, before I snuffed it out. My entire being was itching for it. And that was me. I wasn’t an eight year old child, I haven’t watched my mother slowly drive herself into ruin over him, I didn’t grow up an orphan, I was just a guy who lost the love of his life.” He gave Goro a wry smile. “A guy with a little too much power and no one to stop me.”
“But you didn’t do it?” Goro asked, voice hoarse.
Akira shrugged.
“I made you a promise, that day. That I would change his heart. So that’s what I did. Killing him… I don’t know. Somehow I still expected you to come out of it alive. To come back and do it yourself. I didn’t want to take that from you. I think maybe that was the only thing stopping me.”
Goro felt hot tears run over his cheeks, while he tried to unite this version of himself with the one he’d been before. They both lived in his chest now, raging a battle. One half of him had sneered at Joker, had looked down at him as trash, had felt offended at the notion that someone so common could be superior to him in every aspect.
This new version of him could finally, for the first time, look at both of them for what they were.
Two hurt children who had found each other.
He leaned against Joker’s chest, allowed the child to cry and allowed the child to be held. Felt Akira’s tears mixing with his. And thought that maybe, just maybe, things would finally be okay.
As it turned out, sleeping on a mattress propped up on milk crates wasn’t all too bad - in fact, he barely noticed it anymore. Though, to be fair, he was really lying more on Akira than on the mattress itself. And on top of him, curled up comfortably, rested Akira’s creepy ass cat Morgana, that Goro now remembered as one of the most annoying creatures of the planet and the bringer of the great pancake disaster - along with his new-found knowledge that he loved to be scratched behind his ears.
It should be complicated, but it wasn’t. His memories had risen like dough in the oven and then settled comfortably into the rest, like they had always been there. In a way, they probably had. Buried deep until he and Akira were ready to get out the shovel.
He could lie here forever. Feel Akira’s soft breath beneath him, the rise and fall of his chest. Could enjoy the warmth of a cat that loved him, stretching in his lap and then purring as it re-positioned itself on top of him. Feel the cool air of the winter mixed with weak rays of sunlights making its way through the attic window. Smell the slightly musty air of the attic that reminded him of home, by now.
Shido didn’t matter here. Nothing did, just he and Akira. He wasn’t a killer here, not a weapon drawn. He wasn’t Akechi-kun here, no smile needed to be on his lips at all times. He wasn’t even an orphan here, wounded in places he hadn’t known existed, but was painfully reminded every time he breathed. He was no one but Goro, Akira’s boyfriend, comfortable in his arms.
So he stayed lying here until Akira woke up, stayed lying when warm lips brushed over the tender skin right beneath his ears, giggling and pulling Akira tighter against him now that he had enough consciousness to possibly want to move away. Morgana made exaggerated gagging noises and jumped off, but they barely noticed.
Happy. He was happy. This had to be what happy felt like.
He’d been a bit of an idiot, to not have always chased after this instead.
“Are you ever going to tell the others?”
Akira shrugged as he put down his cup.
“I thought about it a lot, but I think they might be better off not knowing. It’s fucked up, what went down in these people’s hearts.”
“Maybe so,” Goro admitted after a while. “But then aren’t you taking their power from them? The things they discovered about themselves weren’t for nothing, were they? Their spirit of rebellion?”
“Morgana remembers. Ann still got justice for Shiho,” Akira started slowly. “Yusuke found it in him to leave Madarame behind. Makoto learned that she’s more than a robot trying to please her sister. Futaba - well, that’s cheating, I actually did tell her, I’m not a therapist, I couldn’t fix that without the meta-”
“Too soon to mention therapists,” Goro interrupted him with a dark expression and was surprised to hear Akira laugh loudly in response.
He beamed at him.
“Sorry. I’m- it’s nice that you remember now, that’s all.”
“Less to carry on your own?” Goro asked.
“No, yes. Not just that. You were very you before but now you’re- more you. We have the same memories. The things we went through together are things that are… ours again. It’s… it’s nice. Bit fucked, because they were traumatic as shit, you know, but… nice.”
Goro nodded.
“I get it. But that’s just it - Without my memories back, I wouldn’t be able to know just how much has changed. My decisions might be looking a whole lot different. I learned from these things, you know? I imagine so did they.”
“Maybe. I don’t have all the answers. I don’t even like having the control. I just know they’re better off not knowing that their detective friend killed some of their parents. That he’s an assassin. That he and I are about to kill his abusive father. That there’s a whole world out there, that lets you see fucked up adult’s deepest secrets, that almost swallowed us all alive. I’d rather they be normal and learn that they can solve every problem with a bit of determination and good friends.”
He nudged Goro playfully.
“That’s rich from the person about to solve their problems by killing Shido.”
“Yeah well. We can’t all be the leader.” He gave Goro a crooked smile. “Sometimes I just have to carry the burden.”
“Oh, such a heavy burden,” Goro grinned and cracked his knuckles as he felt the sweet itch of determination urge them to move.
“Didn’t I tell you to take care of the Niijima affair?” Shido asked him with a bored tone in his voice, not even looking up as he scolded Goro. “You haven’t grown attached, have you?”
Goro allowed himself a wistful little smile as he looked down at the back of his father’s bald head. He hated every little bit of him, but this one he had seen so many times by now, he might just hate it most.
“I’m not one to grow attached,” he told Shido calmly. “You should know that by now.”
“I thought I knew that,” Shido said thoughtfully and finally looked up, his sharp eyes piercing through Goro as if he had drawn his secret weapon. Goro remained unfazed. “But like the rest of the world, I keep hearing about you being seen with a bunch of teenage delinquents. Made some friends, did you?”
Goro cocked his head, a little smirk tugging at his lips.
“Would you prefer it if you were the only person I talk to, Shido-san? I do have a life outside of you, you know?”
And what a lovely thing it was to be able to say that.
Shido’s eyebrows knitted together to a look of disapproval.
“Don’t get cocky with me, Akechi.”
“I wouldn’t dream of it, sir,” Goro replied.
That much was true. In his dreams, he was very much too busy with skinning the man alive to bother about talking back.
“I’m surprised, that’s all. You say you don’t grow attached, yet here you are, suddenly sporting friends. One of which is Sae Niijima’s little sister, I’ve been told. She’s apparently been heavily involved in the arrest of Kaneshiro.”
“So she is.”
“One of them is that child who was involved in the Madarame take-down,” Shido mused with that fake thoughtful tone of his again.
“That certainly seems to be the case.”
“And that Sakura child - it’s funny. The last I heard was that she was a shut-in, suffering from the death of her mother.”
“She recovered,” Goro told him gingerly.
“Clearly,” Shido replied, his eyebrow raised. “Funny, how these things work, isn’t it?”
“Hilarious,” Goro responded, not laughing at all. “Coincidentally, you forgot my newest friend Haru Okumura.”
“Oh, I assure you I haven’t forgotten about her.” Shido’s expression turned sour now that it became apparent that Goro wasn’t trying to cover up his betrayal. “I only wonder where some of your new friends had the relevant information and help from to take down connections I have carefully built and curated over years.”
“Oh, from me,” Goro offered him airily. “That’s what you want to hear, is it?”
“I imagined that might be the response, though I really wish it wasn’t.”
Goro snorted at that.
“Oh? Would you have pushed off your order to have me killed by the Cleaner if it wasn’t? I hardly think it makes a difference to you at this stage of your plan.”
Shido said nothing, merely allowed his eyebrows to raise even further.
Goro mimicked him in a quiet challenge.
Finally, it was Shido who broke the silence.
“So this is where your insolence comes from. You’re finally rebelling? And I thought you were past puberty.”
“Oh, I have been for a while,” Goro responded, his voice sugary-sweet. “I can’t blame you for having missed it. You’d have to have looked at me for longer than a couple seconds to notice.”
“I’m not your babysitter, am I?” Shido asked with a roll of his eyes.
“No, you’re just my father,” Goro spat back. “We both know that requires no degree of care. However, that will be your downfall.”
Shido looked stunned for a moment, wordlessly staring at Goro, who glared back.
“My downfall?” he finally laughed. “Brought by my bastard son? Is that the justice you are looking for, Goro Akechi? Then you’re going to have to move faster than the Cleaner.”
“Don’t be a fool,” Goro said, all pretence of amiability falling off his voice, leaving it cold and strained. “You’re already a dead man walking.” He smirked. “Or sitting, since that is all you’re doing while us competent people actually do the work for you. Since that’s all it takes for you to ruin lives like you ruined my mother’s.”
“Are you sure it wasn’t your existence that ruined her?” Shido asked with the same sweet tone Goro had used against him earlier, and it felt like a gut-punch, like something that would leave a bruise or two, like the last desperate flail of a cornered, dying animal.
Goro forced himself to keep his own smirk upright, even if it felt shaky now.
“Maybe so. But the one who created me was you. As you have created all your enemies. Now you’ll pay for it.”
And with that, he turned around and left Shido’s office without another word.
“Crow! I need you to focus.”
“I am focused,” Goro hissed. “Don’t tell me how to fight. You’re not my leader in here.”
“I am your partner, am I not?” Joker asked. “I am fighting by your side, aren’t I? This is the third time I had to drag you out of the way of an almost fatal blow. We want this done today, don’t we?”
“I am fine,” Goro insisted. “I don’t need you to save me.”
“Okay, enough!” Joker pulled him to the side of the crowded main room of the ship, pinning him to one of the walls with glowing eyes. “You’re obviously not fine, you’re angry. I can understand if- if you have doubts, but we have to do this today or you’ll be put in danger in the real world. So tell me - what is wrong?”
“I don’t have any doubts,” Goro all but spat. “I want him dead and I want him dead now. I don’t understand why we’re wasting our time with the small shadows.”
“So they don’t get in our way when we fight,” Akira told him. “We agreed on that. Together.”
Goro crossed his arms in front of his chest, having nothing to answer with but spite and anger.
“Well, I changed my mind,” he finally said, though his voice was quieter now. “It was a stupid idea.”
“No, it wasn’t. It was sensible. Whenever you get angry and upset, you let your guard down. Please tell me what he said to you.”
Goro felt his own claws dig into his other hand, felt grounded by the pangs of pain.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Don’t be like that. Don’t shut me out. I know he’s the only one to get under your skin like that.” Joker gave him a crooked grin. “Apart from me. So what did the asshole say?”
He couldn’t help his eyes lowering immediately, the shame still whirling in the pits of his stomach, making his skin crawl. Shame that he had let Shido get to him, shame at being a curse to his mother and now to Akira, too.
Akira had been nothing but worried for him, to the extent where he’d given up his reality to go back and save Goro’s life, and here he was, putting himself at risk again, making him worry again.
Always a burden. Always a curse.
“Hey.”
Even with his red gloves on, Akira’s hands were still warm, as he carefully intertwined his fingers with Goro’s claws, let them slot in between them like he wasn’t afraid of their sting, smiling bravely at him. “I’m by your side. I always will be. You can tell me everything, you know that, right? I already know half of it, anyway.”
“She left me,” Goro finally blurted out, unable to hold it in any longer. “She was supposed to be by my side but she left me. Nothing we do in here is going to change that. I made her leave me. I was a burden, I was her shame, her curse. She had me and she abandoned me, died rather than…-”
Joker’s arms were warm around him. He leaned into them without fully understanding what he was doing.
“Goro, your mother loved you. I want you to really, really know that, okay? I really think she held on as long as she could for you, but sometimes people just can’t- I mean, you saw what happened to Futaba. It wasn’t because she didn’t love Sojiro, but herself, you know? She was ill. She needed help and she got let down by society just like you. Like so many of us.”
Goro swallowed.
“What happened wasn’t your fault. You were just a kid. A society that outcasts everyone that doesn’t fit into their fucked up ideals, Shido, who just abandoned her to shame, blame them. But not yourself. She wouldn’t want that, ever.”
He was hurting. He was hurting and trapped and terrified of being weak in front of the only person he had left to leave him. So he did the only thing he knew how to do - he lashed out, determined to make him leave, to keep that little piece of faked control over his own life and feelings.
“What would you know about what she wanted?” he yelled at Akira, hating himself with every angry word falling from his lips, but never enough to stop, just enough to want to destroy the only good thing he had. “You didn’t even know her! You don’t know anything but your own privileged outlook on life, where everybody loves you and it’s all flowers and birds and disney princesses!”
It wasn’t true, wasn’t fair to Akira, Goro knew that but in that moment that was the point.
But it wasn’t Akira’s voice who tore him out of his anger and into the inevitable shame spiral he had always known would follow.
It wasn’t any voice he had ever expected to hear again.
“You should really listen to your friends, you know?” said the soft voice. “They only want the best for you.”
He didn’t turn around. Couldn’t turn around, even as every fibre of his body screamed at him, begged him to. He didn’t think he could bear the pain of turning around and not seeing who he could never be seeing again. He thought he might just shatter if he did.
She was dead. She was dead. No metaverse in the world could change that. Not even Akira and his magical time travel trip could change that. She was dead. She was so long dead, no one even remembered her voice, he was sure, no one but Goro, no one but-
But Akira was looking at a spot over Goro’s shoulder, eyes wide and soft and his mouth hanging half open.
“Oh, she’s so beautiful,” he told Goro, as if he didn’t know.
This couldn’t be happening. It wasn’t real. He couldn’t let it entrap him or he’d die, he’d simply die.
His mother would never be beautiful again. Her voice would never speak to him again, gently reprimand him, teach him anything. Her steps would never again echo behind him as she stepped closer, because a corpse couldn’t walk.
Except this one did.
This one walked straight to him and a tentative, warm hand (her hands could never be warm) reached for his hand, taking it between soft fingers, gently removing his claws and he let it. She raised their interlocked hands, her soft skin meeting his, turned it under her glance and still Goro couldn’t turn around. He imagined her behind him, looking at the hands of a killer and even if he thought turning around hadn’t killed him before, he was sure the shame of it would now.
But she - the ghost, the impossibility - she did not have any of it. She raised his hand to her lips and kissed his knuckles. He could feel the tilt of her smile against them and almost sobbed. He pinched his eyes shut tightly, unable to look at the awe on Akira’s face, unable to look at anything ever again. He could not face this, he could not-
“She looks like you,” Akira told him through the darkness.
No. He looked like her.
Goro knew. He knew .
“She’s not real,” he finally brought out and the pearly laughter behind him was his mother’s, it was his mother’s so unmistakable that it seemed to try and wrench his heart out of his chest with a spatula.
“Of course I’m not real,” she agreed with him softly. “Nothing in here is. It’s a palace built of broken promises, illusions and trickery. It’s a rotten man’s black hole, but you made him remember something that could love, untainted, and isn’t that what you wanted, my beautiful boy?”
“Come on,” Akira said, and another hand grabbed his free one, a familiar one, one that was as warm as it should be and Goro opened his eyes again, looking straight into Akira’s. “I’ll be by your side, you can do this.”
It was a little crazy, maybe, after everything they’ve been through, in this and any other reality, it was insane to think that Akira was the one who gave Goro the confidence that maybe, just maybe, he wouldn’t shatter like glass if he turned around. That there was something holding him together.
He felt himself cling to both hands in his as he turned around slowly.
It was his mother. It wasn’t even a bad copy of his mother. It was just her, like he remembered her. Her smile was warm, but a little haunted. Her eyes beautiful, but hollow. Her hair shimmered as golden as Goro’s, but was dry and lifeless. Her face carved like an angel’s, but sunken. She wasn’t some happier, rose-tinted version of herself, she was just his mum.
With a broken sob, Goro tore himself out of both their grips to fly into her arms. He buried his head in her chest, listened for the deceiving heartbeat and cried and cried and cried, let her gently hold and rock him like she had when he was a child, let himself forget that she wasn’t here, couldn’t be here and just was.
“My beautiful baby,” she muttered, lips buried in his hair. “Oh, my poor baby… You are going to be alright, you will be just fine.”
“Mama,” he croaked, sob, unable to hold back. “Mum, I missed you. How could you leave me, why did you leave me?”
“Shhh,” she told him, still rocking him in her arms and he went quiet immediately, let himself be soothed, let himself cry out his grief with salty, hot tears. “I left because I had to,” she told him with a gentle voice, gently hushed tone. “Never because I wanted to, my baby. I love you, I always will.”
He clung to her. Dug his fingers into her shirt, hands clenched into fists, couldn’t imagine a world in which he’d ever let go. But he had to. He hated that he had to.
“How can you say that?” he asked. “How can you know what I am and still love me? I’m- look at me. Look at me. I murdered people. I am covered in blood, mum. I am drowning in it.”
Goro didn’t catch the long look his mother gave Akira. Goro didn’t see Akira respond with a little nod, understanding without a word. He only saw tears and only felt his mother and nothing else mattered but her soft words full of love.
“Goro, my brilliant, brilliant Goro,” she kissed his temples tenderly. “You are not what you’ve done and what you are isn’t defined by your father. He fashioned you into a gun and he pulled the trigger.”
“I want to kill him,” Goro told her, taking a step back to look at her, properly look at her, his chin stiff and his head raised high, like it had been when he’d first told her he’d save them both, back when that had still been possible. Back when he had thought it was. “I want to kill him, mum.”
And his mother smiled, looking both sad and full of love.
“Then you do what is necessary to take back your life, my son. You do whatever you must to become the person you are supposed to be. But I need you to be happy, once all of this is over, Goro. I need you to let yourself be happy. To know that I’ll love whoever you’ll become. Always.”
She was fraying at the edges. The whine Goro let out was childish, he knew, but he didn’t care.
“Don’t leave me, mama!”
“I won’t ever,” she smiled at him, even as she faded. “You were the one who conjured me here in the first place, my little crow. As long as you carry me in your heart, I’ll be there. Right with you.”
She disappeared. Right in front of his eyes, and there was nothing he could do about it. Again. But this time there was nothing left behind, nothing he could find, hollow-eyed and cold, just him.
He’d just have to make sure not to grow cold, then.
For her.
“Goro, are you-”
He turned to Akira, having forgotten he was there, for a moment. He stood awkwardly at the side, playing with one of his red gloves, giving him space. Giving him time.
Goro raised his own gloved hand, rubbing his eyes and finding them mostly dry.
Was he? Was he alright?
“I think she likes you,” he told Akira, voice sounding far away but secure. Tight. Put-together.
He was probably alright.
Akira gave him a tentative, crooked little smile.
“I like her, too.” And then, in an obvious attempt to lighten the mood, he quipped, “I think you got your sense for dramatics from her.”
Bastard.
But Goro chuckled.
“I think I have all my good traits from her,” he told Akira with an exaggerated note of smugness in his voice, and they both laughed. A bit muted, maybe, but the feeling of it leaving him was a relief, seemed to flood out the rest of his grief. He felt lighter, somehow, now. Like something heavy had fallen off him, something he had carried around for so long, had gotten so used to its load, he hadn’t even known it was there.
He’d do what he had to. And then it’d be finally over.
He took Akira’s hand.
“I made him remember her,” he told him, quietly. “Like she really was. I did that.”
“You did that,” Akira nodded, sounding oddly as proud as Goro felt.
Masayoshi Shido was a vain man. Goro had always known as much, just as much as he had known that this was one trait he had inherited from his father. He had hated to admit to that, back then, but now?
A dead man wouldn’t live to tell the tale, so he figured it was alright. No one but Akira would ever have to know.
Still.
This was a bit much even for Goro.
“Akira?”
“Yeah?”
“Is my father currently standing on a massive golden Lion, made of screaming people he fucked over?”
“Seems like it.”
“God, let’s kill that bitch.”
Yes, Masayoshi Shido was a vain man, but even in his screwed up cognition, he had to eventually realise the truth. Because when Goro sliced into him, one ragged sword slash after another, he made sure, sure that the truth sunk in along with his blade.
“All your accomplishments,” he growled. “Everything you achieved, you built on other people’s work. My work. You used people more powerful, more capable than you, and that’s all you ever did.”
“I made you who you are,” spat Shido, his ridiculous biceps tanking each slice. “You’d still be an unloved, unknown orphan without me!”
“An orphan.” Akechi laughed, loud, hysterically. “The one who made me an orphan was you, or have you forgotten already, father ?”
And this is what did it. Goro saw the momentary hesitation, saw the aborted movement of a hit, saw the way these eyes so similar to his widened, saw Joker nod at him from the side to signal he was ready. But most of all, he felt righteous anger in his chest, burning, not like Loki burned for him, not like Robin Hood burned for those like him, but a golden, powerful middleground that kept him from the extremes, that kept his head clear and his hand strong.
Like both versions of Goro’s reality had slipped into place, so had his ideals, and the burning sensation in his chest was familiar, felt like healing, like the cracks he was constantly trapped in, torn from one path to the other, were finally closing and leaving him on settled ground.
He nodded back at Joker and got ready. The power guiding him was Loki’s and Robin’s combined. The power guiding him was Hereward’s, by his side like Joker was, and then there was nothing but the swift shift of his sword, slice after slice after slice into Shido’s finally pliant flesh. In the distance, he heard the overpowering, familiar sound of gunshots, heard the sound ringing and echoing in his ears, and he knew Joker was with him, finishing whatever he started while he focused solely on ending Masayoshi Shido’s pathetic life.
“This is for my mother,” he told Shido, calm settling when the bloodthirst faded. His father’s shadow was lying on the floor, breathing heavily, bleeding, finished. “The one body you couldn’t step over. I made sure of it. You will be forgotten once you’re done, but she never will. That’s something else I’ll make sure of.”
He rammed his sword into Shido’s chest and watched it disappear along with him. And like a thorn that had been lodged into his heart, it took away some of Goro’s grief, his rage, his pain, until there was nothing left but finally - finally - peace.
Joker, bless his weak little legs, was stumbling a little when they finally left the Metaverse. Goro couldn’t help but grin at him, as he caught him, held him upright.
“You should train more,” he told him earnestly. “What sort of a Phantom Thief can’t take a bit of running?”
“I train a lot with Ryuji,” Akira muttered. “But not all of us cross Mementos on a bike, you know?”
Goro stared at him.
“I was kidding,” Akira added quickly and then, “wait, do you cross Mementos on a-”
To his endless horror, Goro felt himself blush and quickly looked away.
“Oh, shut up, Joker.”
But instead of shutting up, the endless pain in Goro’s ass giggled into his shoulder and instead of endlessly annoying him, like would be expected of the endless pain in Goro’s ass, it was actually quite endearing. Contagious even. And soon they stood in the middle of the street, in front of the Diet building, giggling like little children over nothing. Just free to. Just two unwanted boys in the night, shadows that quickly disappeared from the scene of the crime, while the world moved on, moved into the future of their next prime minister-to-be to die a painful, sudden death, completely unprepared.
Goro did like a dramatic twist in the narrative once in a while.
It kept things fresh.
“I promise you,” Goro Akechi, Detective Prince of Tokyo, told the media a couple weeks later, his gaze filled with just the right amount of righteous determination. “That I will find the person responsible and bring them to justice.”
Justice, in this case, being a lot of making out.
That was definitely what he and Akira deserved after all this.
“This crime will not go unnoticed.”
No, he had noticed it, had celebrated it even, had had the time of his life with it.
“I swear to the people of Japan, that this will be the last mental shutdown this culprit will ever have performed.”
Indeed.
People were cheering for him - it was odd. In this timeline, there were no Phantom Thieves, there was just Goro. Goro, gently steered to a helping instead of a destructive force, by Akira’s knowledge of who he could be, when he had lost his own.
Goro, who had saved a school from Kamoshida’s abuse, with the help of his friends.
Goro, who had dragged Yusuke out of Madarame’s clutches and had given him the opportunity to show the world who the man really was, to avenge his own mother.
Goro, who had brought down a famed Yakuza leader, making the streets safe for students again.
Goro, who had not been able to do much for Futaba, but who had at least been able to take down the man that had made her believe she was as cursed as Goro had thought himself to be.
Goro, who liked to believe he had saved Haru Okumura from a fate she was barely even ready to go free of yet.
Sae was standing there, at the edge of the stage, clapping with the rest of them, if a little more hesitant. She had changed. Without the constant pressure of the SIU director and Shido, it was as if her palace walls had crumbled.
Her eyes shined as warm again as he’d known them to be. He hadn’t saved Sae Niijima, but he’d at least been able to spare her life.
They didn’t have to know the ugly details of it, Akira and he had decided together. It was over. Done with. Swords laid to rest, after everything. Maybe that was a little fucked up. A tiny little bit cowardly. But they deserved a little bit of peace, didn’t they?
“Are you sure about this?” asked Sae with her tone lowered. “You’re getting into an enormous risk here.”
He’d talked to her the other day, decided to tie up the last loose ends another way than the last time. He was getting it right now. He was determined to.
And after all, the SIU director wouldn’t dare going directly against Goro - not after what had been done to Shido. No, he’d let himself be arrested nice and neatly. And he’d take the rest of Shido’s men with him. And then, when Goro would eventually “discover” the truth of Shido’s involvement in the mental shutdowns, the man would finally, finally be seen for who he really was.
“You ready, man?” asked a familiar, loud voice behind Goro.
He and Sae-san exchanged a long-suffering gaze, before Goro turned around, hands in his coat pockets, and greeted his friends.
“Absolutely,” he assured Ryuji.
He’d honestly just wanted to invite Akira, was generally a little apprehensive about - mainly Ryuji and Yusuke - at a press conference, but the rest of the thieves had simply ended up inviting themselves, cheering him on from the side of the stage as if he was giving a concert rather than a statement.
And alright.
Maybe it wasn’t too bad to have them here.
At least if his bright, beaming smile was anything to go by.
(Teammates? Friends? To hell with that. They were making him soft.)
Akira stepped forward out of the crowd of thieves, smiling at him softly and Goro’s treacherous heart skipped a beat.
Quiet. Calm. A rock, hiding his affection and admiration so close to the surface, for Goro to unpack and unravel over and over again. He held out his hand and Akira took it without hesitation, pulling him closer playfully, the smile growing into the grin he knew like coming home.
“Good job, Ace Detective,” he smirked against the shell of his ear, lips brushing him slightly, leaving the ghost trail of a kiss. Their relationship was a bit of an open secret to the rest of the world now, never talked about by them, but talked about by anyone else.
They liked it that way.
Goro had a tendency of wanting to show off what was his.
Akira wrapped his arms around him, letting his nose brush Goro’s.
And Goro soaked in it - because after everything they’d been through, the games, the betrayals, the different realities, the chess matches of several Gods bringing them together to tear them back apart, Akira tearing the timelines in two to find him again, all that was left was someone who knew him better than himself, and had, in turn, allowed Goro to get to know him just as well.
He’d read the book. Written the book. Learned it by heart. And that’s where he would forever keep it.