Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Minato is… quiet.

Not the kind of quiet that makes you a good listener—the kind that makes you seem like you’re not all there. Like even when he’s standing right beside you, he’s really somewhere else, listening to something else. Buried so deep inside himself that not even sound can reach him. Somewhere that light has never touched.

It should make him bad company, but it doesn’t. Minato is exceptional company. Transfixing, even. And it’s not just Ryoji who thinks so. He’s seen Minato’s phone. It’s an endless stream of inbound texts, a hundred colorful characters vying for his attention. Most of which are left unread.

Which should be rude! Shouldn’t it? But when Minato doesn’t text back, it doesn’t feel like an insult. You just sort of assume he had something more important to do.

Maybe it helps that Ryoji is so different. ‘Opposites attract,’ and all that. Minato’s silence gestures at hidden depths, abyssal-dark and ocean-deep. And Ryoji is all surface.

“Something about him just feels so… free,” Ryoji says dreamily. “Do you know what I mean? Like nothing he says is ever forced. Like he’s achieved, oh, I don’t know, nirvana, or something; only he doesn’t have to tell anyone, because he doesn’t have anything to prove.”

“Uh huh,” Yukari says, stifling a yawn.

She’s sitting across the table from him, twirling her straw in her iced latte and trying to look like she’s not bored out of her mind. In her defense, Ryoji is kind of a broken record. It’s all, ‘blah blah blah, Minato, blah blah blah, mirrored souls, compliments and complements and Minato Minato Minato.’ Like, seriously, get a hobby.

When she looks up, Ryoji’s eyes are shining, his hands clasped earnestly. “Don’t you think so, Takeba-san?”

“For sure. Totally.”

She only agreed to go on this stupid date to annoy Minato into actually doing something, instead of just staring holes in the back of Ryoji’s head and brooding at him. But she hadn’t expected to spend the entire date talking about her housemate. Wasn’t Ryoji supposed to be popular with girls?

“…so mysterious!” Ryoji is gushing now. “You get the sense that he’s always thinking about something important, something real.”

“Mhmm.” A few tables over, there’s a girl wearing the cutest little cropped halter, hemmed with lace and embroidered with tiny purple roses. If Ryoji were just a little less attentive—if he’d go to the bathroom, at least—Yukari could probably sneak away for long enough to ask where she bought it. But he hasn’t.

The shirt isn’t really in her palette. That girl has the hair for it, long and dark and silky-straight, but Yukari is a summer; jewel tones wash her out. Maybe it comes in pink?

“…do you do, anyway?”

Yukari looks up to find Ryoji smiling at her, clearly waiting for an answer. Oops. She was totally not listening. “Sorry, what?”

“In your club! The Specialized Extracurriculur…” He frowns thoughtfully. “You know, I’m not sure I’ve ever heard the full name! Just the acronym. You have to admit, it’s a little mysterious.”

Oh. Oh. Unfortunately, Mitsuru explained their cover story back when Yukari was busy hating her. And now it’s way too late to ask. “Oh, um… our senpais would be better at explaining…”

“I don’t think Kirijo-san likes me very much,” Ryoji says morosely.

“What,” Yukari snickers. “Did you make a pass at her or something?”

“I only said that, with that hair and those boots, she’d—”

“No, stop, I literally don’t want to know. You didn’t hit on Sanada-senpai too, did you?”

“Well…”

Hah!! “You didn’t.”

“If it’s any comfort, I don’t think he noticed.”

She can’t help snorting a laugh. “Ryoji-kun! You are relentless!”

“People like it!” he protests, but he’s grinning, too. “It makes them laugh!!”

“Some people. If you try that stuff on the wrong person, you’re gonna get your butt kicked, you know.”

“Well…”

“Oh my god. Please tell me this story.”

To her relief, Ryoji seems to forget about SEES after his second story makes her laugh so hard that coffee shoots out her nose. And good riddance. Girl talk is way more fun than prying into her supernatural extracurriculars.

* *

* * *

* *

Minato and Ryoji are a weird combo. It feels like they shouldn’t get along—like Ryoji’s charm-offensive should bounce off the brick wall of Minato’s total disinterest in everything that isn’t music. But every morning before class, Junpei finds Ryoji sitting on the edge of Minato’s desk, chatting or gossipping or just going over last night’s homework. And Minato doesn’t even shove him off.

“You guys are a weird combo,” Junpei tells them, settling backwards into his seat. “You know that, right?”

“What!!” Ryoji gasps. “No way!! Minato and I are made for each other! We’re like rice and curry! Peanut butter and jelly! We even finish each other’s…” He looks hopefully at Minato.

“Homework,” Minato mumbles, swapping the papers in front of them.

“Minato is better at math, but I’m better at classic literature!”

“He’s not. I just think it’s boring.”

Ryoji flings a wrist over his brow. “Minato-kun! Is there no poetry in your soul? Where’s your passion?”

“Lost it.”

“I can help you look for it!! Maybe you left it at, hm… Mandragora?”

Minato snorts. “I can’t today.”

“…Would you rather do Wuck?”

Minato shakes his head. “I’ve got plans tonight. For my club.”

“I’ll come too!! I could help you carry the… art supplies?”

“Nope.”

“The clipboards?”

“Nice try.”

“Minatooooo,” Ryoji whines. “Tell me what you do at your club!!”

“Not gonna happen.”

Ryoji throws his hands up. “Do you hate me? Do you like seeing me suffer?”

Minato shrugs.

“It’s the I Hate Ryoji Club, isn’t it.”

Minato very nearly smiles. “I dunno. Yeah. Could be.”

Before Ryoji can argue, Ms. Toriumi sweeps in. “Iori! Sit properly! And Mochizuki, sit at your own desk, please. In a chair. And open your books to page 146. We’ve got to get through all of these conjugative particles before lunch.”

* * *

When the last bell rings, Ryoji slams both hands on Junpei’s desk with a startling slap. “Junpei! I’m investigating a mystery! Do you want to come?”

Oh, boy. “What kind of mystery?”

“It’s about Minato,” Ryoji says seriously, to Junpei’s total lack of surprise. “He’s being mysterious. And he’s busy a lot, and he still won’t tell me why! Do you know, the other day, he told me he couldn’t go to the mall, because he had plans? So I went on my own, obviously.”

“Obviously.”

“And do you know who I saw?”

Junpei could take a guess, yeah.

“I saw Minato!! At the police station! Talking to the police!”

Yeah, that sounds like his leader, alright. “So…”

“So I want to know why! I want to know what he gets up to when no one’s looking!” Ryoji’s eyes light up. “Maybe he’s a superhero!”

Yikes. That’s… sort of scarily close to the truth. “Dream on, dude. Just ‘cause you’re obsessed with the guy doesn’t mean he’s got superpowers.”

“Well, I’m going,” Ryoji pouts. All the girls think that Ryoji’s so cute, even though really he’s a sulky little brat. “Are you coming or not?”

Junpei considers his options. He could A. let Ryoji run around unsupervised (and potentially reveal the secret purpose of SEES); B. try to stop Ryoji (and inevitably make him even more curious); or C. go along for the ride and run interference.

“Fiiine,” Junpei sighs. “But we gotta get ramen after. And you’re buying.”

“Deal!!!”

* * *

Sure enough, as soon as they get to Paulonia Mall, they spot Minato.

Junpei has to admit: out-of-context, Minato’s SEES errands do look pretty mysterious. Minato stops by the police station to buy a bunch of weird jewelry from a cop. He heads to the convenience store to stock up on sodas and salves and a whole freakin’ sleeveful of skill cards. He wanders down an alley and then just stands there, zoned out, while the crowd churns past.

“See?” Ryoji gasps. “See? Look! That’s weird, isn’t it?”

Junpei looks. His leader is just idling in an alley, blank-faced and utterly still. “I dunno, dude. I think he always looks like that.”

“But I’ve never noticed that door before!! Have you?”

“…Huh?”

“What?”

“What door?” Junpei asks impatiently. “What are you even talking about?”

“The door! The door he just went through!”

Junpai squints at him. Ryoji is always weird, but he’s not usually hallucinations-weird. “What is that, a metaphor or something? He’s just spacing out. He does that all the time.”

“Hm,” Ryoji says. “Hm. Are you quite sure?”

“Yyyyes?”

“Right,” Ryoji mutters. “Right, of course. Yes, of course.” All at once, his furrowed brow smooths into a smile. “I’m probably just hungry! Did you want to get that ramen?”

“You read my mind,” Junpei laughs, and leads the way.

* * *

Ryoji has a nice meal. He laughs and jokes and flirts with the girls at the neighboring table until Junpei threatens to finish his bowl for him. He walks Junpei to the station and waves at the train till it leaves the station.

And then, of course, he goes back.

* *

* * *

* *

Elizabeth loves her job. She loves learning new things about humans! She loves learning new things, in general. She loves seeing the world through her guest’s eyes; laughing and loving and—well. Not living, exactly. But definitely laughing and loving.

When the Velvet Door opens, she feels a little thrill. “Oh! Hello! And welcome! To the—”

—and then she stops. Because. That isn’t her guest.

“Oh,” she says. “Hm.” In the whole span of her existence, she’s never seen anyone turn up uninvited. “Well… hello, anyway.” She isn’t sure yet if they’re welcome.

“Hello!” the stranger—the not-guest—greets her, smiling. “It’s nice to meet you! What sort of a shop is this?”

Elizabeth looks uncertainly toward her master. He meets her with a Mona Lisa smile that says, I’m not going to help you, either because I can't or because I don’t feel like it.

“Well!” she says, closing the Registry with a brisk snap. “This is, of course, a very normal shop!”

The stranger nods obligingly. “I can see that!”

“So of course, like any other normal shop, we sell… goods? Or… services?”

“Some shops sell both,” the stranger confides.

This is new information. Elizabeth leans forward, intrigued. “Then we certainly offer the same!”

“Oh, good! Great! How fun! So what sort of goods and services do you offer?”

Ah. Another challenging question. “Well…”

“Well?”

“It’s only that—” She hesitates. “Well. I… suspect that you’re not supposed to be here? But, on the other hand, you couldn’t be here if you weren’t.”

The intruder seems to take that in stride. He nods at her, attentive.

“So I’m unsure what exactly I can offer you!” Persona Fusion isn’t for the faint of heart, after all. “Our services are rather… specialized. And our goods are very expensive.”

“I see,” the stranger says sadly. “So I’m probably not here to buy something.”

“I don’t believe so, no.”

“Then… maybe I’m here to hang out?”

Oh! That hadn’t occurred to her! “It’s certainly a possibility!”

He grins at her. “I’m Mochizuki Ryoji. Ryoji-kun, if you like. I was looking for my friend, but I wouldn’t say no to a bit of company… Did you maybe want to do some karaoke?”

“Karaoke!” Elizabeth gasps. “A performance within a performance! A dizzying whirl of self-conception and sound! The layers of meta-artistry… like an aural croissant!”

Mochizuki Ryoji’s grin widens. “So you like karaoke?”

“I couldn’t say! I’ve never been so fortunate as to try!”

His smile goes a little sly as he offers her his elbow. “Then let me be so fortunate as to escort you. I think you’re going to like it.”

* *

* * *

* *

Ken is wandering toward the shrine, lost in thought, when Koromaru jerks the leash out of his hands and bolts.

“Koromaru!!” Ken gasps. “Y-You have to be more careful!” He tries to catch up, but he’s too slow, his legs too short to keep pace with a dog sprinting at full speed. Stupid short legs. Stupid half-grown body. If he were older, or taller or stronger, he could have kept this from happening. But he isn't. And now Koromaru might run into traffic, or pick a fight he can’t win, or—just—die, offscreen, alone, without anyone around to hold his paw.

But when Ken whips around the corner, he finds Koromaru unscathed, squaring off with some total stranger.

The stranger is tall, skinny. Dark-haired, like Minato, but with much better posture. Dressed in a Gekkoukan uniform. Holding out both hands, palms-up, to Koromaru.

“Oh!” the stranger says, presumably to Koromaru. “Oh, hello! Do I know you?”

Koromaru doesn’t wag his tail. He doesn’t tuck it between his legs, either. He holds it straight out, perfectly still, like he’s still making up his mind.

“I think I maybe do,” the stranger says thoughtfully. “Maybe we’ve met? Through a mutual friend, maybe?”

The question sounds innocent enough. That’s why Ken is so shocked when Koromaru bares his teeth and growls.

“S-Sorry!!!” Ken gasps, rushing forward to grab Koromaru’s leash. “I’m very very sorry! He’s never done anything like this, he’s usually so well-behaved!”

To his surprise, the stranger snaps his fingers and grins. “You!”

“Um. Yes?”

“You’re that grade schooler who lives with Minato!”

Ken hesitates. “You… know Arisato-san?”

“Haha! Do I!”

Oh! Well…good. Arisato-san wouldn’t go around associating with degenerates or dog-kickers. “Then it’s, um, nice to meet you. And I’m very sorry for the inconvenience.”

“Not at all!” the stranger laughs. “Your friend here just wants to protect you! I guess he doesn’t like how I smell. Sorry, Koromaru-san.”

Oh. Huh. Did Ken already say Koromaru’s name? He’s pretty sure he didn’t. But where else would this person have heard it?

“I should, um.” Ken clears his throat. “Yamagishi-san was planning to cook tonight, so she’ll need me to—” keep her from brewing nuclear waste, mostly. “—help out.”

“Oh, that’s right! You guys cook your own meals, don’t you? I used to have a kitchen. I think.” The stranger’s smile flickers, suddenly melancholic. “Not that it matters now.”

Oh, geez. What is it with Minato and attracting broken, grieving strangers? Ken doesn’t really get it, but the sadness in this high schooler’s eyes feels—familiar, somehow. Like maybe this stranger already lost his whole world.

…Ken knows how that is.

“You could,” Ken mumbles, then forces himself to stand up straighter. “You could, um, come and cook? In our kitchen? If you want.”

Arisato’s friend lights up. “Do you really mean it? I wouldn’t be in the way?”

Ken hesitates. “Um—”

—but when he looks to Koromaru, the dog has changed his tune. Now he’s wagging furiously, shoving his snout hard into the stranger’s palm.

“Yeah,” Ken decides. “It’s not a problem. The dorm gets a stipend for food.”

* *

* * *

* *

Fuuka is aware of the new transfer student. Mochizuki Ryoji, a go-with-the-flow type. Popular and even-keeled. A charmer and a flirt. And in spite of it all, a true friend of Minato’s.

(Mochizuki is friends with Iori, too. But Fuuka has a little less faith in Iori’s judgment.)

Still, she’s surprised to see Mochizuki wandering into the dorm with Koromaru and Ken, of all people.

“Amada-kun!” she greets him, smiling. “Welcome home!”

What she means is: Are you okay? Is this okay? Do you need help? But Ken doesn’t give a straight answer. He just smiles vaguely and nods.

Reluctantly, Fuuka calls on her Persona.

(There's a patter of rain, a shower of impossible assurance. He’s uneasy, Lucia whispers. But not afraid. Not uncurious, either. But he doesn’t want to stay.)

“I see you’ve brought home a research assistant!” Fuuka says kindly. “Thank you very much, Amada-kun! You’re free to go. Mochizuki-san can help with dinner tonight.”

Ken hesitates. “I-I don’t mind, ah—”

“Take the night off!” Mochizuki laughs, clapping him on the shoulder. “I might not be good at everything, but I can definitely take orders.”

Fuuka straightens up. This is her chance! Her opportunity! She might not be of use in combat, but she’s nothing if not a strategist. “Then leave it all to me!”

“You have my sword,” Mochizuki tells her solemnly. “Just tell me what to do.”

* * *

So, of course, in 19 minutes and 46 seconds, the smoke alarm screams to life.

* * *

Ken’s already disappeared out the front door, escorted by the estimable Koromaru-san. The seniors barely flinch. Fuuka full-on screams. Mochizuki flutters unhelpfully around her, fanning the smoke alarm with a baking tray and assuring her that she did her very best.

When the cacophony finally quiets, Mochizuki and Fuuka breathe simultaneous sighs of relief. As does the figure reclining against the door jamb.

Minato.

Oh, thank goodness. Fuuka sends a little prayer of gratitude up into the sea of human consciousness. Isn’t that just like her leader? To appear in her hour of need, just in time to save the day?

Across the kitchen, Minato quirks an eyebrow at her. (He’s asking if you’re okay, Lucia whispers.)

It’s not until Fuuka gives him a little nod that Minato rolls his eyes.

“You guys,” he says. “This smells rank.”

Mochizuki lights up. “Minato-kun!!!!!”

“Seriously, the whole dorm stinks. What are you even making?”

“Well!!” Ryoji huffs. “Can’t you tell? We’re making curry!”

“So why is it blue?”

“Oh! Well, that’s just because of the dye!”

“Of course,” Minato mutters. “So why is it sparkling?”

“Because of the glitter!!!!!”

Minato looks from Ryoji’s face, to Fuuka’s, to the bubbling glittering pot. Then he sighs. “Okay. Move over.”

“Are you going to cook with us?” Ryoji gasps. “Just like a married couple!!”

“There are three of us,” Minato reminds him.

“A married throuple!!”

Fuuka lets out a nervous little squeak.

“Don’t worry, Yamagishi-san,” Ryoji assures her. “I’ll be a very nice husband. Not a big bully like Minato, who won’t even tell his own husband what he does at his club.”

“It’s mostly volunteer work,” a new voice puts in. Kirijo Mitsuru, leaning over the counter on her way to the stairs. “Under the Kirijo group’s nonprofit branch.”

“I love volunteering! I volunteer to volunteer!”

“Invite only,” Kirijo says coolly, and disappears up the stairs.

* *

* * *

* *

The next time the lobby doors fly open, Aigis is standing behind them.

Ryoji blanches. Because it’s Aigis. Cute, blonde, terrifying. Awkward, dogged, terrifying. She’s the worst possible combination of his fears: she hates him, and she still won’t tell him why.

He drops behind the counter, yanking on Minato’s sleeve. “Hide me!!”

“Why.”

“Because you don’t want me to die!!!”

“…Don’t I?”

“No!!” Ryoji huffs. “You actually really don’t!!!”

Minato's mouth twitches. “Oh my god, fine. Stop trying to fit in that cupboard. You can hide in my room.”

Chapter Text

Ryoji takes one step into Minato’s room and then stops. “Oh. Hm. Do you believe in deja vu, Minato-kun?”

“Mh,” Minato hums, shrugging out of his jacket and dumping it on his bed. “I dunno. Why?”

Ryoji drifts in after him, scooping up the rumpled jacket and hanging it neatly on the bedpost. “This place… it always feels so familiar. It's so strange. Like a dream.”

Ryoji’s always saying stuff like that. For some reason, coming from Ryoji, it never sounds as weird as it should. It just sounds normal. Like he’s commenting on the weather or something. Nice breeze today! Do you ever feel like you’re not a real person?

It doesn’t seem like he’s waiting for an answer, so Minato doesn’t give him one. Instead, he leans over the edge of his bed to root around in his school bag. He's pretty sure there's still a packet of Jagariko rattling around in there somewhere.

As soon as Ryoji hears the crinkle of plastic, the fog seems to clear. Sensory stuff, physical stuff. Boring little everyday mundanities. That’s what Ryoji likes best. (Minato sort of gets it. Even when he's dissociating so hard that he can barely hear the teacher, he's still game to get a burger. Chewing. Swallowing. Grease and salt. Basic, physical reminders that he does still have a body, even if he can’t always feel it.)

When he looks up, Ryoji is perched on the foot of his bed, looking at the snack like Koromaru looks—looked at Shinjiro’s cooking. “Can I have one?”

“Fine.”

“Feed it to me?”

“No.”

“You never want to do anything fun,” Ryoji sulks. When he hops up to close the door, his eyes lock onto Minato’s SEES uniform: belt, holster and all. “Minato-kun??? Is that a gun?”

Minato looks, too. It does not look great. He should probably find a better place to stash his evoker. “Uh. No, not really. It’s just a prop gun. Basically a toy.”

“Don’t tell me it’s—”

“It’s for my club.”

Ryoji throws his hands up. “What kind of a club makes you carry a gun???”

“…Gun club.”

“That’s—hm. I’m pretty sure that’s not a thing?”

Minato’s mouth ticks up in just the faintest, subtlest smirk. “Then explain the gun.”

Ryoji flings himself onto the bed, rolling onto his back and curling up like a pill bug with one elbow over his eyes. “I caaaan’t!”

“Then I guess it’s a thing.”

“Minato-kun,” Ryoji says pitifully. “Mina-kun. Mina-chan.”

“No.”

“What do you do in your club?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know,” Minato snickers.

“Yes! Desperately!”

“Yeah, well, keep dreaming.”

“Mina-kun!” Ryoji gasps. “You’re a sadist!”

You like it, Minato almost says. He has to physically stop himself. Just because Ryoji can’t go two seconds without flirting doesn’t mean it’s a good idea to encourage him. It seems… sort of dangerous? Which is weird, because Minato had the impression that he’d forgotten how to feel scared. To feel afraid, you need to have anything left to lose.

“I have to study,” he says instead.

“Oh, me too!! I’ll help!!”

“You can help by being quiet.”

“I’ll be the quietest!” Ryoji promises. “You won’t even know I’m here!”

That’s… probably true. Which is weird, too. Normally Minato finds it annoying, having someone hovering over him. Talking at him. Expecting things of him. Waiting for him to look their way. But being with Ryoji feels almost like being alone.

When he reaches for his headphones, Ryoji catches him by the wrist. “Can I have an ear?”

“...Fine.”

* * *

There’s only one chair at the desk, so they set up on Minato’s bed, with their backs to the headboard and Ryoji’s long legs stretched out over the quilt.

Minato's headphone cables aren't long, so they're sitting side-by-side, so close that their arms brush. Minato doesn't usually like it when people touch him. But he doesn't really mind.

Being with Ryoji is weirdly easy. Which is... new. Even Minato's closest friends can be. Difficult. Comparing themselves to him; trying to commiserate with him. And then getting all disappointed when he doesn't laugh with them or cry with them or whatever-it-is that they want, but won’t ask for.

Not that Minato doesn’t love his friends. He can admit, at least to himself, that he loves his friends. But he knows that he’s doing it wrong. Everyone goes around laughing and crying and pulling out their whole bloody heart for show-and-tell, and Minato—doesn’t. He doesn’t. It always takes him a beat too long to notice when someone’s talking to him, or when they’re waiting for an answer. And even when he does feel the right feelings, he can't turn them into words, like Yukari; or wear them on his face, like Fuuka; or perform them with his whole body, like Junpei does. It's like all of humanity is one big orchestra, where every living soul is a musical instrument. And Minato is just a musician. Like he isn't really his body—he's just the guy pulling its strings.

But Ryoji never seems like he's waiting for anything. Wherever they go, Ryoji’s just happy to be there.

* * *

The hours drag on. By now, Aigis is probably recharging in her room. But maybe not. She's been changing. There's a lot of that going around these days. Yukari, Mitsuru... even Junpei. So maybe Aigis is a night owl now. It’s not impossible. And she’d definitely blow a fuse if she saw Ryoji sneaking out this late at night.

In the silence between songs, Minato can hear Orpheus humming in his ear. The sound is bright, hopeful. A little mischievous. Like a dare. Quick, curious finger-picking that whispers, press closer, dig deeper. Ignore every warning. Chase your heart’s song.

Minato ignores it. He’s read enough Greek myth to know how that story ends.

The next track in this album takes a different tone. It’s a tribute, apparently, to the vocalist’s dead dog or bassist or girlfriend or something. A lot of shuddering breathwork; melancholy chords in minor keys. It’s practically a dirge.

Beside him, Ryoji stiffens. “S-Skip this one?”

“Yeah.” He was already reaching for the button.

They’re sitting so close that, when the track changes, Minato can actually feel Ryoji relax.

Ryoji is always moving, punctuating every word with huge, sweeping gestures. It's weird to see him sitting so still. Even his skin looks paler than usual. Like something already dead.

After a beat, Ryoji manages an unhappy smile. “Sorry.”

“…Why?”

“Oh, I don’t know. For being sensitive, I suppose.”

“Whatever.” Minato doesn’t mind. He does sort of mind the way Ryoji is smiling, though. It looks like it hurts. “Are you—”

“—going to freak out on you? Haha, don’t worry! I promise not to be a bother!”

Okay, sure. “But do you—”

“—want to talk about it? But I don’t, really. Really! I’m not even sure there’s anything to talk about. It’s just that…” His smile flickers. “Minato-kun. Do you think I’m… really here?”

This again. Minato tries a new tack. “Do you think I am?”

“Oh, yes! Definitely! You’re the realest thing I know!”

“Then you probably are too.”

Ryoji’s eyes widen. “But—no. H-Haha, no no no, that’s… that’s different. You and I are… no, that’s not the same at all.”

Ryoji’s hands—usually expressive, expansive—have retreated toward his body, curled tightly in the fabric of his scarf. His whole body looks smaller, somehow. A visual diminuendo.

“Uh,” Minato starts to say, and then stops when silence settles over them. The album must have ended. All he can hear is his own shallow breath and Ryoji’s; the creak-clank of the radiator and the thud of his heart; and—behind it, suffusing it—Orpheus’s song. Orpheus makes percussion of Minato’s pulse; integrates blood and breath and bone to make something new entirely. The plink of phantom scales, high and ever higher.

Minato exhales slowly. “Then—um. Then…”

(This is normal. It’s normal. People touch each other all the time. It’s Minato who’s the weird one, for being so weird about it.)

Tentative, entirely unrehearsed, Minato reaches out. Traps Ryoji’s palm between his thumb and middle finger and squeezes, not gently. Pretends not to notice the way Ryoji’s breath hitches. “Do you feel that?”

“Y-Yes.” It’s barely audible. Barely a whisper.

Minato tilts his grip, digging his thumbnail into the lines of Ryoji’s palm. “And that?”

“Yes,” Ryoji breathes.

For the first time in his life, Minato is glad that he doesn’t wear his feelings on his face. Right now, he needs all the armor he can get. He feels—flayed open. Shucked-raw like an oyster, with all his insides on display.

When he chances a sideways glance, he finds Ryoji looking— Minato doesn’t even know. He’s never been good at other people’s feelings. Whatever it is, it’s too much. It turns his stomach inside out, makes his blood scream in his ears. It terrifies him.

Minato jerks his hand back.

“Then—” He has to stop for breath. He can’t believe how little his voice shakes. “Then you’re probably real.” Real is relative, anyway.

“Right,” Ryoji breathes. His fingers twitch, then close over his palm, right where Minato held him. “Yes. That’s—um. R-Right! Yes! That makes sense, haha! Of course! Do you want to have a sleepover?”

What? “What?”

“I could paint your nails!”

“…Why?”

“Well, I—I thought it might be fun to—and then I wouldn’t even have to sneak past Aigis, and—and it’s gotten pretty late, so…”

Minato looks at the clock and blanches. It is late. It is exactly 11:42 pm. Which is exactly 18 minutes before the Dark Hour. “Uh. No.”

“No?”

Minato shakes his head. “You gotta go.”

“But,” Ryoji says pitifully. “But don’t you want me to stay?”

(Yes.) “No.”

“But your nails!!”

“Sorry,” Minato shrugs. “I have plans tonight.”

“Huh??? What kind of plans do you make for the middle of the night on a school night?” Ryoji’s eyes widen. “Oh, no. Oh, don’t tell me. It’s—”

“—for my club.”

Ryoji's sigh is half-theatrical, half-genuine melancholy. “I’ll miss you.”

“I will literally see you tomorrow. At school. In, like, seven hours.”

“Then that’s how long I’ll miss you!!!”

Minato rolls his eyes. “Come on. I’ll help sneak you out.”

Chapter Text

A few minutes before midnight on November 25th, Minato blinks awake to a familiar sight: a spindly figure staring down at him. Bare feet, blue eyes. Unearthly pale and inhumanly still. Through the fog of sleep, Minato manages a bleary smile.

Then he remembers that Pharos is gone.

This isn’t Pharos.

Slowly, almost soundless, he slides his hand toward his bedside table. But before he can reach his evoker, the figure speaks.

“Minato-kun,” it whispers; and at last, it moves, raking tangled black hair back from a familiar face.

“Wh… Ryoji?” But what would he… And why would he… “How did you get here?”

Ryoji flaps a hand vaguely, like maybe even he doesn’t know. “S-Sorry, I’m sorry. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I just—I had to see you, I had to. I feel like I’m running out of time, like we’re running out of time, I can feel it slipping through my fingers, like… like something horrible’s going to happen. Can’t you feel it?” he pleads, suddenly desperate. “It’s so quiet, it’s too quiet, it’s—the horrible stillness as the surf pulls away from the shore, the beach all naked and exposed, the whole ocean holding its breath, and then—” He has to stop to gasp for breath.

Minato pushes up on his elbows. He’s still not sure if he’s awake. “What are you… What? Everything’s fine.”

“You can’t feel it?” Ryoji asks miserably. “No. No. I know that you can. A change in the wind, a cold front, a barometric shift like your ears are going to pop, except instead of your ears it’s everything. Everything is going to change. We’re going to lose everything.”

“Nn…no?” Minato yawns. “No, what? Come on. What?”

Ryoji laughs. It is not a happy sound. “Minato-kun. Have you ever known, really known, that you’re in danger? You can’t see it, you can’t hear it, but you know, you know it’s coming?”

“Anxiety disorder,” Minato mumbles.

Ryoji snorts a laugh. “Aw. Mina-kun. You’re so kind.”

“Not really…”

“But you are! You really are! You’re so good at picking the right answer! But sometimes there are only wrong answers. Sometimes mercy is cruelty and, and cruelty is kindness.” Ryoji spreads his hands wide, baring all his white teeth in a wild grin. “If you can’t save them, will you spare them?”

Okay, Minato is officially awake. “Ryoji. What are you talking about.”

“I don’t know!!” Ryoji giggles. “There’s—haha!! There’s so much I don’t know! It’s like the whole of my mind is the dark under the bed, the monster in the closet, only I can’t exorcize it by looking, because! It’s! It isn’t real until I look!!! A-And once I’ve looked, I can’t un-look. You don’t want me to look, do you, Minato-kun? That wouldn’t be kind.”

“I…” Minato trails off. He’s good at killing Shadows, taking exams. Right and wrong answers and, ideally, a navigator to tell him which ones are which. He isn’t good at… whatever this is.

“It’s okay!!!” Ryoji rushes to reassure him. His time-signature’s shifted along with his tone, minor chords to thunderous, crashing majors. “It’s okay!!!! You don’t have to have the right answer!!! I don’t want you to change at all!! I’m just—I’m so glad to have known you!!! I feel so lucky!!!”

“…”

“The monster in the closet…” Ryoji chuckles. “It’s like something from a scary movie. Isn’t it? What is it that Sadako said… ‘Seven days?’”

Minato’s skin prickles.

“That was kind of her, wasn't it?” Ryoji says thoughtfully. “To warn you before she unmakes you. B-But, but! Do you know! I think that might be even crueler! If you know what’s coming but you can’t fight it, can’t prevent it… wouldn’t it be better not to know?”

“I—” Minato remembers to breathe. “—never watched The Ring.”

“But you saw the commercials! They terrified you!”

…Yeah. That’s true. Not that Minato ever told anyone. He has a reputation to uphold. Everyone knows that he doesn’t scare easily. But it wasn’t Sadako’s sodden broken body that scared him, or her lank black hair, or that stupid VHS. It was the warning. Seven days. That’s how long you have. You can say your goodbyes, make your peace… just keep it short. There’s only one week left.

“Minato-kun?”

Minato shakes himself off. “Look. Do you need to sleep here?”

“In your bed?” Ryoji asks hopefully.

“On the ground.”

“Haha! I know, I know. But it’s alright, Minato-kun. I don’t need anything from you. You’ve already done more than enough.”

Minato glowers. “I—” haven’t done anything. I’ve known you three weeks. What do you even mean? But he doesn’t get the chance to find the words. Ryoji’s already slung one leg over the sill.

“Rest well, my dearest,” Ryoji says, from halfway out the window. “I think you’re going to need it.”

* *

* * *

* *

Mochizuki Ryoji is a threat.

The Anti-Shadow Suppression Weapon AIGIS cannot explain how she knows this. Many humans cannot explain how they know what they know, because human memories are made of meat and light. Their long-term storage systems are highly insufficient and, as such, force them to draw conclusions based on the memory of the memory of data. Associations, affiliations; pareidolia steered by emotion and allegiance. These things are beneath Aigis. Or, at least, they should be.

They are not.

Aigis knows—knows, without doubt—that Mochizuki Ryoji is a threat. When he draws near, her Anti-Shadow firmware fizzles and sparks. She can sense, with a sensory cortex more specialized than any bio-neural network, the way the air warps around him. The way sunlight seems to flinch.

Yet she cannot explain it. Cannot prove it. Of all the maddening, illogical lessons she’s learned from her time among humans, this is far-and-above the worst. To know what, but not why? To know why, but not how? To identify a threat mathematically, objectively, without any margin of error, and fail to produce any evidence? Aigis cannot imagine a worse fate. (Though, to be fair, ‘imagination’ is not one of her core functions.)

In her manufacture, Aigis received knowledge of the entirety of written human history. Those annals included the story of Cassandra, a fictional navigator whose RAM had desynchronized from linear chronology. Due to the parasympathetic mirror-neural response embedded in her Papillon Heart, Aigis can relate to this fictional human.

In the stories, the prophet Cassandra devotes herself to the man she loves. Then the both of them are murdered by Clytamnestra, who loved him first. Cassandra knew what was coming, and chose not to act.

This was a miscalculation. A more competent soldier would eliminate the threat on sight.

* * *

In the weeks since Aigis seized her autonomy back from the Chairman, the humans have taught her a great deal about how to be a person. Personhood chiefly involves the consistent exercise of agency and intent. Aigis has integrated these values into her routine operation. She does not simply default to her programming. She ruminates. She deliberates. She considers her motives.

Which is why, at 00:00 02 DEC 2006 (JST), Aigis is so surprised to find herself on the Moonlight Bridge. None of her operators—no, her friends—have requested her presence here. And there’s little to learn about the human condition with all proximal humans locked in coffins.

Her surprise only lasts a moment before she sees the threat, and the pattern comes into focus.

It feels like running antivirus software. Like there’d been a bug in her code—impeding her visual cortex, scrambling her RAM—and now that it’s been repaired, she can finally see clearly. She can see all the data, and her place in it. And she can see him. It. The thing that calls itself Mochizuki Ryoji.

“You are a threat,” she tells it, dizzied by the relief of understanding. “You are called Death.”

The monster doesn’t even look surprised. Its eyes don’t widen. Its pupils don’t dilate. There’s no flash of recognition, resignation. In the time it takes Aigis to load her firearm, the puppet named Ryoji is gone. There is only Death.

“Aigis,” Thanatos says. The corners of its mouth turn up into another lying smile, but its eyes are dark. “I don’t want to fight you.”

The energy building in her firearm crackles. “I do.”

“I don’t want to hurt anyone!”

“I’m not anyone,” Aigis says coldly, then pauses to run the query again. “You won’t hurt me.”

“I kind of think I will, though.”

She expels a puff of trapped steam. “If you’re so concerned for my condition, you could allow me to subdue you without resisting.”

“And then you’d let me go?”

“No.”

“See, that’s the problem,” Death says sadly. “It’d be different if you could really do it. But you can’t, so…”

“Allow me to disagree,” she suggests, and opens fire.

* * *

The damage report is incapacitating. Power-capacitors offline. Ignition triggers unresponsive. Circumnavigation cauterized completely.

The heap of smoking rubble that is Aigis glares up at humanity’s doom. “If you were truly capable of human emotion, you would not have inflicted so much damage to my chassis.”

“No,” Thanatos says sadly, “you’re wrong, I think. That might be the most human thing about me: I still want to live. So I couldn’t let you break this vessel. I’m not sure if I could make another.”

She tries to nod, but the joint casings in her spinal tract have fused. “You mean to destroy me.”

“Only eventually! Not for ages. A month or two, at least.”

“Why stay your hand now?”

“Because he loves you,” Thanatos sighs. “And I suppose I love him, too, as much as something like me can. Anyway, I already told you, I don’t want to hurt anyone. I just wanted you to stop shooting me.”

“Then you miscalculated.” Aigis flips on Orgia Mode, overrides the emergency shutdown. She overclocks her shattered propulsion engine point-blank in Death’s face.

The guttering glow of her HUD illuminates his sympathetic smile for only a moment before the lights go out.

* *

* * *

* *

Humans are unique. They’re infinitely variable, each with their own inimitable matrix of thoughts and dreams and instincts and associations. Which means that every human reacts differently when informed that they’re about to die. Thanatos knows this all too well. Thanatos has seen everyone die.

When Thanatos explains the situation, Kirijo Mitsuru doesn’t panic. She remains calm, impassive. Rigorously logical. Like any well-trained CEO-to-be, she will process her emotions after the fact, in private. Personalities like hers are often the most reactive, the least controlled, when they’re finally forced to accept that there’s nothing they can do.

Takeba and Junpei are the opposite. They’re emotional, resistant. Thrashing and biting in a desperate, pointless effort to escape the chains that drag them, and every other living thing, to their inevitable end.

Sanada is combative, agitated to anger by the thought of an enemy he can’t hit. Amada Ken lapses into numbness, sinking back into the polite, muted resignation that shrouded him for years before the others pulled him out. Fuuka seems more concerned for "Ryoji" than for herself, because of course she is. Because other people's problems are always less frightening than your own. And Minato—

Thanatos doesn’t think about Minato.

"But we can still stop it, right?" Takeba is asking now. “It’s not like we haven’t fought bad guys before.”

“Yeah!!” Junpei, of course. His grin looks a little strained, but it’s not a mask. He’s still not ready to give up. “What are you guys freakin’ out for? We’ve beat all kinds of monsters, and we’ve never been beat!”

Murmurs of agreement ripple around the room. Minato’s allies, his whole little platoon of after-school monster-hunters. They’re undaunted, even now. Because they still don’t understand.

Thanatos makes them understand.

The Fall. The Appriser. The role that only one person can play. The others listen in their own ways: arguing or not arguing; gathering their courage or sinking into despair.

Minato doesn't argue. He doesn't look at Thanatos, or at anyone else, either. He recedes into nothing. Sees nothing. Says nothing.

If Death had a heart, this would break it. Looking at the humans he pretended to love and telling them that they’ll never grow up to be baseball players or programmers or disarmingly sexy CEOs or whatever-it-is that a guy like Sanada-san wants, because they’ll never grow up at all. None of them will ever reach their dreams. Amada won’t even reach puberty.

Fortunately, Death doesn’t have a heart. Death isn’t vindictive, but it isn’t merciful. Death doesn’t care how you feel about dying. Death doesn’t care, full stop.

“You have until December 31st,” Thanatos says calmly. “That’s when I’ll come back for your decision.”

For the first time, Minato looks up. “You’re leaving?”

“Oh, don’t worry. I won’t dissolve until January. I’ll definitely be back in time for you to kill me.”

Yukari looks surprised. “You’re dropping out of school?”

Thanatos almost laughs. “Well. Yeah. I don’t think you guys want the Appriser of the Fall hanging over you all month long.”

“And if we do?” Minato demands.

“Um.” For once, Thanatos isn’t sure what to say. “Um. Well… don’t?”

Minato rolls his eyes.

“Look, I—I’m not human,” Thanatos says again. “You know? This is just a disguise. I’m not human, not really. But I hid in one for long enough to… learn a few things.” The pleasure of a perfect album. The shine of the sun off the sea. The taste of ramen, the giddy rush of making someone laugh, the warmth of another palm pressed to his: heat, pressure, light, laughter.

The slant of Minato’s mouth when he’s trying not to laugh. The slope of his shoulders, the way he slouches when wants to go unseen. The warmth of him and, and the spark in his eye when he sees someone he—

“So,” Thanatos says hastily, cutting short that line of thought before it can undercut him. “So, I learned enough to—to know good from bad, at least. To know what hurts and what doesn’t. And I suppose this is my way of thanking you. Like a White Day gift, haha! You gave me the love of life, so I’ll spare you the anticipation of death. And then we’re even.”

“Bullshit,” Minato mutters.

Thanatos flinches. “I just don’t want you to suffer. Okay? I just want you to make the most of the time you have left. That’s all anyone can do, right? So just—hold each other close, and have all the fun you can have for all the time you have. And I’ll be back on New Year’s Eve.”

No one answers.

Thanatos sighs. He isn’t human, but he’s still human enough to feel tired. He just wants this to be over.

He doesn’t want to argue anymore, so he doesn’t. He twists out of his chair and shoulders out the front door.

* * *

Minato narrows his eyes. Does Ryoji seriously think he can say all that and then disappear before anyone’s even had the chance to get their heads around it? No. No. That is not how this is going to happen. Of course Minato knows that everything ends, but that is not how this ends.

* * *

“Ryoji,” Minato hisses, shouldering out the door just a half-step behind.

Ryoji doesn’t answer.

“Ryoji!”

Still nothing.

Minato sighs. “Pharos.”

At that, Ryoji slows, half-turning to give Minato a sad little smile. “Did you prefer me like that? As Pharos?”

“I dunno,” Minato mutters. Pharos had been a soothing presence, sure. But it’s not like you can go out for ramen and shoot the breeze with a weird little ghost kid. (Unless maybe you can? Pharos never stuck around for long enough to ask).

Ryoji, though. Ryoji was real. A real person, human or otherwise.

“No,” Minato decides. “I didn’t.”

“I think maybe I did,” Ryoji says wistfully. “It was warmer.”

Ugh. “Whatever. Look, you can’t just disappear.”

Ryoji winks with just a glimmer of his former sparkle. “Oh, can’t I?”

“No.”

Ryoji holds his grin for a beat, then deflates. “I can’t stay, though. It’ll only make this harder.”

“I’m not going to kill you, Ryoji!”

“That’s not my name.”

“And if you disappear for a whole month, I’m even less likely to kill you.”

Ryoji clearly wasn’t expecting that. The Appriser of The Fall rapid-blinks a few times, looking boggled. “Huh? What? Why?”

“Because—“ by then, I’ll already know what it’s like to lose you. “Because we’ll… have so much to catch up on?”

“Minato.”

Yeah, that was never going to work. “How am I supposed to kill you if I don’t even have time to say goodbye?”

“Closure isn’t real,” Ryoji reminds him.

“I know that,” Minato snaps, stung.

“Real life isn’t like a story. No one gets a satisfying ending. People just end.”

“I know!“

“It’s the anticipation that—”

“I literally know. You think I won’t be anticipating it? Just because I can’t see you? I notice you more when you’re not around than when you are.”

“Haha, ouch!” Ryoji laughs. “Am I really such boring company?”

“You know what I mean,” Minato mutters. Ryoji—Pharos, Thanatos, whoever he wants to be now—lived under his skin for ten years. Practically his whole life; as long as he can remember. For ten years, Minato was two people in one.

And now there’s only him.

So of course he can feel it. He can always feel it. An aching sort of numbness just behind his sternum, like a splinter of ice that never melts. Absence where there was substance. An abscess that used to be the rest of him.

He understands, now, why Ryoji’s company always felt so reassuring. Ryoji is the piece that went missing, leaving the puzzle incomplete. Like losing a limb and then having it walk into your classroom and introduce itself. A living phantom pain.

When he looks up, Ryoji is watching him with a smile so wrenchingly sad that just looking at it hurts. Like an open wound carved across his face.

“Yeah,” Ryoji says, still smiling. “I know what you mean.”

Ugh. “Then don’t do this.”

“Minato,” Ryoji says gently. “The Fall is—”

“Are you stupid? I’m not talking about the end of the world. I know you can’t help that. I’m talking about this part. Now. Where you just walk away and leave us to deal.”

“But—”

“Shut up. I’m not done. I just mean… your whole thing is wanting us to make the most of our time, right? How am I supposed to do that if I spend the whole month feeling this—this loss, this missing thing, and—being mad about it, and not even having anywhere to put it, because you’re not even around to yell at?”

Ryoji is staring, bug-eyed, like Minato just grew a second head. Which makes sense. This is probably the most words he’s said in a row in… huh. His entire life, probably. Which Ryoji would know, since he watched that life play out in the first person.

“You want us not to suffer,” Minato tells him. “Right?”

Ryoji shrugs. “That’s the idea.”

“And you want to give us more time to… whatever. Do dumb high school shit.”

“It’s not dumb!” Ryoji gasps. “It’s the most precious thing in the world!!!”

“Sure.” Whatever. “Well, if you really wanna save us time, why not try—you know—actually helping us?”

“Wh-What?”

“We’re still gonna be climbing Tartarus,” Minato says firmly. “No matter what we decide. As long as Tartarus exists, there’s gonna be people wandering in there, getting lost and needing help. And no matter what we decide, the best tactical move is to get as far as we can. To leave all our options open. That’s what Mitsuru-senpai will say.”

“B-But it’s only going to get more dangerous!” Ryoji says, alarmed. “You’ve really only scraped the surface! Barely the outskirts! It’s going to get much, much more dangerous! Someone could get hurt!”

“Yeah. And we’re already down a few team members, what with Shinji dead and Aigis wrecked.”

Ryoji flinches.

“If only we had a reserve member. Someone strong enough to shred a Shadow in one hit...”

“I understand where you’re coming from,” Ryoji says uneasily, “I really do. But I don’t think it’s a very good idea to—ah—just think of how Aigis would feel! And—and I really don’t think you should be going to Tartarus at all anymore, it’s such a waste of time!”

“The more help we have, the less time we waste, right?”

Ryoji squeezes his eyes shut. “Minato-kun…”

Time to deal the killing blow. “Didn’t you wanna see what we do in our club?”

“Pfft—” Ryoji’s eyes fly open as he snorts a laugh, hiding his grin behind his hands. “Minato-kun!! That’s cheating!!”

“Well, you’re ending the world, so.”

Ryoji heaves another sigh. He looks more tired than sad. Why would the manifestation of death know how to feel tired? Probably another ‘precious gift’ from his time hiding inside Minato. Spend ten years inside a depressed human body and you’ll walk away with a slice of mortality, the ability to suffer, and a complimentary tote bag, free of charge.

“I’m not human,” Ryoji says quietly.

“Neither is Aigis. Or—“

“Koromaru. I know.”

“The Chairman was human,” Minato points out.

“I remember.”

“So it’s not really something we screen for.”

“Right. Right. But—the others. They’d never agree.”

“I’ll talk to them,” Minato says coldly. “I think you’re wrong, but. If you’re not.”

“I’m not sure they’ll want a reminder of their impending doom looming over them…”

“You’re not tall enough to loom.”

"But, um." Ryoji grimaces. “B-But, I mean… how would I even… I can’t just go to class, not now that I know what I—um. And I don’t have a phone anymore, I don't think. I think Aigis broke it. And it’s not like I have anywhere to go…”

“You’ll stay here,” Minato says flatly, ignoring the question(s) under the question. “We have an empty room. A bunch of empty rooms.”

“Well.” Ryoji’s mouth twitches, like it’s fighting not to smirk. “Welllll… I don’t know if you know this, but, technically, I already have a room. I kind of lived there all year.”

“You are so not sleeping in my room.”

Ryoji bats his eyes. “Aren’t I?”

Typical. Even at the end of the world, Ryoji can’t help being Ryoji. “You know Aigis is going to kill you.”

“Oh, good!” Ryoji says, brightening. “Great! That’s so great! I hope she does her best.”

Chapter Text

Minato's decision splits the dorm into two factions.

Aigis leads the opposition. Not that she’s around to advance her agenda—she’s still undergoing repairs, a fact that Thanatos is trying very hard not to feel guilty about. (He did warn her! Very clearly! In unambiguous terms!) But her disapproval haunts the dorm in spirit, if not in body. She’s backed by Sanada-senpai, who’s visibly discomfited by the thought of fighting alongside something he means to destroy; and also, unexpectedly, by Amada Ken.

The second-years are mostly in favor. Once he’s finished being freaked out, Junpei seems outright excited. Takeba rolls her eyes and complains about ‘certain leaders’ getting ‘preferential treatment’ in regard to their ‘stupid monster boyfriends.’ But she also asks Thanatos whether or not he still eats, and then aggressively insists that he help her cook dinner while she walks him through the chore wheel that Kirijo-senpai set up in the lobby, so. She can’t hate him that much.

Kirijo is being pragmatic. Her team intends to fight an impossible battle with unwinnable odds, and that means she can’t afford to turn away a strategic advantage.

Yamagishi is being kind. Navigator or no, she would never turn her back on anyone who sought her friendship, human or otherwise.

Koromaru is being adorable. He is a dog.

The humans in favor are baffling. The opposed, inexplicably hurtful. In both cases, Thanatos isn’t bothered. It’s not as though their feelings will change anything. This story is already written. He already knows how it ends.

* * *

Amada Ken, though. Amada Ken is a confusing incongruity. Even Sanada unruffles his feathers for long enough to scarf down a bowl of gyudon after Takeba announces that she and ‘Ryoji’ made enough to share. But still Amada keeps his distance. He skirts the edges of the lobby, darting quick, uneasy glances at the table and then tearing his gaze away.

It’s not until Junpei and Thanatos are washing up that Amada finally shuffles into the kitchen.

“What’s up, Ken-kun?” Junpei asks cheerfully. “You hungry? We saved you a bowl! But you might wanna nuke it first… it got kinda congeal-y in the fridge.”

“N-No, um. I’m… not hungry. It was just…” He looks at Thanatos for just a second before staring back at the ground between his feet. “I just wanted to ask, um. M-Mochizuki-san. Do you… know my mom?”

“Huh? Why, is she single?”

The temperature in the kitchen discernibly drops.

“Never mind,” Amada mumbles, backing away.

A beat too late, Thanatos reads the room. “Oh. I’m sorry, I didn’t… I’m very sorry. I guess maybe I do? I know a lot of people’s moms. But I don’t usually get to find out where their kids go to school. Was it recent?”

“Two years,” Amada says quietly.

“Can I ask how it happened?”

“It was—” Amada’s voice drops to a whisper. “There was. A fire.”

Woof. At least you’ll be joining her soon, Thanatos thinks, but doesn’t say. His new housemates are still lying to themselves about the possibility of preventing the Fall. Which is ridiculous, obviously. Still, even the manifestation of death knows better than to say that to a little kid. “I’m very sorry for your loss.”

“No, you’re not.”

Thanatos doesn’t argue. There’s nothing more peaceful than being dead. “But I’m afraid that’s not my, um…”

He hesitates. Is there a soft, gentle, kid-friendly way to say, My domain is natural, peaceful death, and being burned alive is one of the most painful ways to go?

“I don’t visit everyone in person,” he tries. “Mostly just people who die in their sleep, or… of old age. Um. Sorry.” Amada is just staring at him, looking totally inscrutable. Wow, is Thanatos terrible with kids? He had no idea. Probably because the kids that he meets don’t do a lot of talking. “I’m… sure she loved you very much?”

“Of course she loved me,” Amada spits, face taut, knuckles white with sudden, vivid loathing. “Do you think I don’t—” He takes a breath, straightens his mask. When he looks up again, his eyes are cold. “I shouldn’t have asked. Thank you for your time. Good night, Iori-san.”

Junpei and Thanatos finish washing up in silence. Every clink of cookware feels deafening. But not as deafening as the quiet.

In the end, it’s Takeba who breaks the tension—by storming the kitchen like a very fashionable battering ram. She takes one look around and whacks Junpei on the back of the head.

“What the heck is wrong with you guys? Who does chores in total silence? You’re creeping me out!”

Thanatos smiles feebly. “S-Sorry, Takeba-san—”

“And why is Ryoji doing dishes?” she demands, rounding on Junpei. “He cooked! The ones who cook don’t clean! What are you, some kind of freeloader?”

“Hey, he offered!!”

Thanatos nods. “Junpei looked like he could use a hand, so…”

“Don’t coddle him!! He’s not a little kid, he can wash a few dishes! It’s not like he’s gonna spend the extra time doing anything useful!”

Junpei sputters. “Wh– Hey!!! I do useful stuff all the time!”

“Well, right now you can be useful by doing the dishes. Senpai wants Ryoji in her office. The meeting room,” she adds, exasperated, when Junpei opens his mouth. “She asked me to show him the way.”

As a matter of fact, Thanatos already knows the way. Now that he’s remembered himself, he can remember the stuff he saw through Minato’s eyes, too. Though the details are a little fuzzy. The only nights he can recall with any real clarity are of Iwatodai Dorm, one week before twelve full moons—and, technically, those memories belong to Pharos. (It’s always a little disorienting, accessing memories that belonged to another incarnation of yourself.)

But Thanatos keeps his mouth shut, because actually, he’d appreciate the escort. He’d rather burn himself alive than bump into Amada Ken alone.

* *

* * *

* *

“So,” Kirijo says briskly, drumming her nails on a slender silver briefcase. “In light of our collaboration, we’ll need to outfit you with an evoker.”

“Oh! Um, thank you! But, um, no.”

She gives him a flat look. “Arisato led us to believe that you’d be joining our fight.”

“Oh, yes! Definitely! That’s the plan! It’s just the evoker. I don’t think I need one.”

Kirijo raises one flawless eyebrow.

“It's the shock to your system,” Thanatos explains. “Isn’t it? Facing the inevitable. But I always know what’s coming. I can feel it always. Always." Even when he couldn’t remember himself—when he’d buried his true nature deep inside a human guise—even then, he could feel it. A wordless anticipation, like the sky before a storm. The sense that this breath, or this one, or this, could be his last.

If Kirijo is rattled, she doesn’t show it. “A physical weapon, then.”

“I'm all set, haha! I have a sword.”

She looks him over, as if looking for a scabbard.

“I don’t have it right now,” he assures her. “Only when I want it.”

Her eyebrow climbs another millimeter, but she doesn’t argue. She just closes the latch on the briefcase and slides it back under her desk. “Well, you’re officially the least expensive member of the team. Do you know, Iori has broken four evokers?”

Thanatos winces. "Oh, um… don’t worry. It’s alright.”

“I beg to differ. Each replacement costs close to a million yen.”

“No, I— Sorry, a million??”

She nods.

“Wow. The Kirijo Group must be very successful.”

“Yes.”

Thanatos clears his throat. “Um. Anyway. That’s, um, not what I meant. I meant about the team, and… me being part of it.”

“You don’t want a uniform, then?”

“A uniform!” he repeats, reverent, before he remembers himself. “Oh. Sorry. No, I just meant… you know. I’m not really one of you, am I? Not really.”

Kirijo is giving him that look again, like she’s a preschool teacher and he’s a particularly vexing toddler. “Are you not joining the fight, after all? I hope I haven’t said something to change your mind in the past…” She glances at the wall clock. “50 seconds.”

“No, no, I want to help! It’s just that…” He musters a melancholy smile. “Well. You know what I am. I’m what you’re working so hard to prevent. Not a teammate, not an ally. A reaper.”

“Who’s better fit for an Execution Squad?”

“Is that what that stands for?” Ryoji gasps. “Really? You wrote that on the application form and everything?”

Kirijo smiles drily. “Being the majority stockholder of Gekkoukan does allot certain benefits.”

“Hah! Yeah! Apparently!”

If she got the chance to live a few more years, Kirijo probably wouldn’t react at all. But she’s still only in high school. She can’t help narrowing her eyes a little. “I do hope you won't have any qualms with the marginal reallocation of educational funds. Our work is, after all, entirely in the interests of the student body.”

“Ma’am, I am destroying all life on earth at the end of next month.”

“Point taken.”

* * *

The only one missing from Thanatos’s SEES orientation is Minato, who spends the entire day locked in his room.

Thanatos could get inside, if he wanted. He wouldn’t even have to break the lock. If he stopped paying attention, let his focus slip for just a second, he would close his eyes and be there, in the room where he lived all year. Next to the person he lived in all decade.

It’s sort of like what Minato was saying, about noticing ‘Ryoji’ more when he isn’t around. Though not exactly like it. Minato carried Thanatos for most of his life, whereas Thanatos was Thanatos for eons before he was a splinter lodged inside a human soul.

It’s just that those eons were, well… pretty boring. Guiding the peaceful dead into oblivion isn’t a bad gig, all things considered. But your clientele is mostly asleep. Peaceful death is not a very lively scene. (More or less by definition.)

Thanatos blames this incarnation. ‘Mochizuki Ryoji’ was literally made from Minato. Like… well, not a child, obviously—that would just be weird—but like… a mirror? A homage not only to mortality, but to one specific mortal.

So of course his body remembers. Of course it longs for what it lost.

Thanatos didn't even want to leave Minato. He was pulled out. Painfully, surgically excised as part of some embarrassing power fantasy from that moronic chairman. Come out, wake up, take form! End the world for me! Ridiculous. Every surviving member of SEES has a thousand times more common sense, and none of them has a developed pre-frontal cortex. One of them is a dog.

If it was up to him, Thanatos might have stayed.

He might have stayed forever.

* * *

Minato, on the other hand, can’t hide in his room forever. After all, he’s only human. And for humans, there is never enough time.

Chapter Text

The Tower of Demise is a lot of things. An accident. An eyesore. A very prestigious high school. And, for now, the sickbay, safehouse and homebase of the Specialized Extracurricular Execution Squad.

Just a few steps past the front gate, Minato hooks a left and beelines for something that no one else can see.

“Oh!” Ryoji gasps, chasing after to tug at his sleeve. “Oh, can I come too? I want to say hi to a friend!”

Minato looks over warily. “I don’t think I’m supposed to bring anyone…”

“I see,” Ryoji says seriously. “Yes, you’re right. It could be dangerous. We should hold hands so we don’t get separated.”

Minato rolls his eyes. “Just don’t do anything stupid. And please don’t hit on Elizabeth.”

“But she likes it!!”

“I don’t know why I asked,” Minato mutters. “Let’s get this over with.”

* *

* * *

* *

When Arisato Minato enters the Velvet Room in company with the Harbinger of Nyx, master of death and Appriser to the Fall, Igor is not surprised. Igor is never surprised by anything that has happened or is happening. There is no moment, past or present, that he cannot see. Only the future eludes him.

His attendant, on the other hand, is so surprised that she actually drops the Registry. Fortunately, she catches it before it can collide with the fabric of time, and so humanity is spared the indignity of any temporal paradoxes and/or premature extinction events.

“Oh!” Elizabeth gasps, fanning herself with pages from the sea of human consciousness. “Oh, but what a marvelous surprise! Ryoji, you sly fox! I never dreamed that you might be acquainted with my guest! Do all humans know each other?”

Igor does not pick favorites. With that said, Elizabeth is his favorite. This contradiction does not trouble him, because Igor is—on some level; by many definitions—human. And humans are masters of contradiction.

“Elizabeth!” the god of death greets her, beaming. Then his shoulders sag. “Oh. I think I might have misled you. N-Not on purpose! I didn’t find out until recently! But I’m… not actually human, it turns out. I just sort of look like one.”

“Hm. Hmm.” Elizabeth leans in very, very close, till their noses nearly brush. “Oh, I see! How unusual! But whatever are you doing in there?”

“Going to high school?” Thanatos says lamely. “I guess?”

“But why are you wearing a human?”

“Um. Well, it’s not a real human. I guess I… made it? By accident! It’s not like I just woke up and decided to look human!”

“Hm? What do you mean, look human?”

“Er. You know. The… outfit? The way I look?”

“No, no,” she says dismissively, “that’s not right at all. You’re hiding inside that human teenager. Mochizuki Ryoji.”

“N-No?” To Igor’s amusement, the god of death is starting to sweat. “I’m not… Ryoji isn’t… This is just how I look right now?”

“No,” Elizabeth says firmly.

“No?”

“Absolutely not! If it was only an incarnation, I would have recognized you at once. No, I’m afraid you’re quite human. Though not exclusively, it seems!” She prods at his arm with one finger, looking fascinated. “Why, but it must be awfully crowded in there!”

“U-Um? I did make him, though.”

“Yes, yes, and you did a very nice job.” Elizabeth gives the Appriser a comforting pat on the shoulder. “Everyone was made by someone, you know. I was made by my master!”

“And you’re… human?”

“Oh, no! No, not at all.”

“Oh,” Thanatos says faintly.

The Room’s guest huffs a breath. “Can I please just fuse some Personas? We’re kind of crunched for time.”

* *

* * *

* *

Mitsuru had her doubts about the induction of a combatant who posed such an obvious threat. But she trusts Arisato’s judgment implicitly. Besides which, SEES’ latest recruit provides an invaluable opportunity to gather intel. If Mochizuki is truly capable of ending this world, the team will need every strategic advantage that they can get. And what better way to assess a foe’s strengths and weaknesses than to fight by his side?

Her initial appraisal leaves her… frankly, a bit underwhelmed. As a teammate, Mochizuki seems reliable enough, and he clearly has no qualms with taking orders. But he isn’t the ringer that his shocking confession led her to expect. He doesn’t swell into some impossible, supernaturally powerful deity the moment he steps onto the battlefield. For the most part, it’s just Mochizuki Ryoji, swinging a sword.

Except for the fact that the sword in question is imperceptible outside of combat, and only shimmers into existence when Mochizuki reaches over his shoulder and draws it from empty air. Or the fact that he can cast support buffs without summoning any Persona at all. His physical attacks are largely unexceptional, but his hastening spells have considerably improved the Theurgy rates for the entire team.

It’s not until they face their first gatekeeper that Mochizuki shows his true colors.

They’ve been backed against a wall by a towering, stone-skinned goliath that absorbs Artemisia’s torrents of ice and cloaks itself in them like armor, thickening its hide and filling in the cracks gouged by Kali’s Almighty blades. Isis gets in a hit or two, but Yukari is too busy keeping the team on their feet to go on the offensive.

“Fuuka!” Minato pants. He’s flagging, cornered into a defensive fight that’ll drain his SP long before the Shadow drops. “Any word on that analysis?”

“Got it!” Even amplified though Juno, Fuuka’s voice sounds thin and strained. It’s been a long night for everyone, and Fuuka never gets benched. “Leader, can you hear me? Its weakness is Darkness!”

But Mitsuru just used the last Eiga Gem, and Koromaru is resting downstairs. Minato grits his teeth. Why didn’t he anticipate this? Why did he fuse Alice into fucking Shiva? His roster has grown so bloated that he’s getting sloppy, taking shortcuts, trusting his team to pick up the slack. And now everyone’s going to pay for it. He flips through the Personas jostling behind his eyes but he’s got nothing, not a single fucking Dark skill. Not unless—

Minato hisses a curse. He would’ve liked to ask first; he’s been meaning to bring it up for the past 20 floors, but there’s no time, not if they want to walk out of here alive. Everyone trusts him to make the calls, so. He’ll make the call.

“Thanatos!!” he shouts.

There’s a sound like—like a shaken can of soda finally cracking under pressure. Like stagnant air hissing out from a time capsule that’s been sealed for a hundred hundred years. Or from a coffin. The last fetid breath pressed from lungs that have already started to collapse.

And then: silence.

Absolute, deafening silence crashes over the battlefield, just as sudden as turning out a light. All the clamor of combat—the grunts and the growls and the pained, choking gasps; the clang of metal on stone and the clatter of shattering ice; the howling wind and the crackle of flame and even the buzz of Fuuka’s voice—it all vanishes to nothing, like they’re fighting in the vacuum of space. Even the Shadow looks surprised when it bares its teeth and lets out a soundless roar.

Against the unnatural quiet, the soft scrape of metal feels deafening. Minato knows better than to take his eyes off the enemy, but he can’t help but half-turn to stare at the phantom rising behind him. A sword twice as long as Minato is tall. A cascade of coffins fanned out in an arc like the feathers of some grim, gunmetal vulture. A steel-plated head that's all mouth, long, hooked, bristling with silvery teeth. No eyes to see, no ears to hear. No expression whatsoever. That mouth wasn’t made to smile. It was made to devour.

Thanatos doesn’t even use his sword. He takes the Shadow apart with his hands. He tears out huge chunks of ice and stone and squeezes them to powder. And it’s not vicious. It’s not violent. His movements are cold, thoughtful. Utterly exacting. Ruthlessness without a trace of pathos. He isn’t acting out of anger. He’s just doing a job.

He doesn’t slow down when the monster falls. It’s only after he floats over a heap of snow and sand that sound rushes back into being.

Ryoji turns to give Minato a wincing little smile.

“I’d, ah…” Ryoji falters, slowing to wipe his hands on his pants. His arms are dust-gray all the way to the elbow. Fingers dripping silt and snowmelt. “I’d prefer it if you… didn’t do that, haha. If you can avoid it.”

Minato’s already closed the space between them. For a second there, he was afraid that Ryoji might have shattered when Thanatos tore its way out of him. That Ryoji’s other self had shredded him like tissue paper, forever, for good, and now he would never come back.

“Sorry,” Minato whispers. He doesn’t usually wear his emotions, but right now he can hear his voice shake. “S-Sorry, I was— We were cornered. I couldn’t think of any other…”

“I know. It’s alright. I just meant, um, in general.”

Minato reaches out, unthinking, and feels his heart break a little when Ryoji flinches. But before he can pull away, Ryoji catches hold of his wrist and draws him back in.

“Sorry,” Minato mumbles.

“It’s okay.”

Minato runs one finger over Ryoji’s knuckles; traces the line of his forearm all the way to the crook of his elbow, where coffins just burst through his skin like a fungal bloom. “Does it hurt?”

“Haha… no. No, it doesn’t hurt.”

“Then…”

Another wincing little smile. “I just. Don’t want you to see me like that.” An unspoken 'yet' hangs between them.

“I don’t mind.”

“I know.”

“You’ve already seen all of me…”

“But all of you is lovely!” Ryoji protests. “I never saw anything I didn’t love! I think that’s why I look the way I look, now… because that was the first time I got to choose. I wanted to hide behind you forever. But I couldn’t, because the thing I was hiding from was, well. Me.”

“But you’re part of me, too,” Minato points out. “Right? All the Personas I call on are me.”

“Well…”

“And some of them are gross.”

“What!!” Ryoji says, indignant. “No part of you is gross!”

“Have you seen Pisaca?”

“It has a certain charm! Those stalk eyes are very graceful! And it has such a big smile!”

“Slime?”

“Slime is very popular right now,” Ryoji informs him. “With kids, mostly.”

“Mara?”

Ryoji's smirk isn't so much 'suggestive' as it is 'declarative.' “I dunno, Mina-kun. I’m not sure you really want to ask me about your ‘Mara.’”

* * *

Across the room, Mitsuru—who’s industriously adjusting her hair, tallying inventory, and generally avoiding eye contact—jumps as she senses a sudden presence. In her haste to appear otherwise occupied, she failed to notice Takeba slinking up beside her.

“C’mon, senpai.” Takeba rolls her eyes at Minato and Mochizuki, who’re still occupied in some inscrutable form of post-fight aftercare. “I think we should give them some space.”

Oh, thank god. “Yes,” Mitsuru agrees, relieved, and the two make a tactical retreat.

* * *

In the next room over, Takeba holds her tongue for less than a second before bursting into peals of laughter. “Oh, my god, what!!! I knew Minato and Ryoji were, like,” she rolls her eyes, “a thing, but—oh my god! Like!! PDA much??”

“Were they?” gasps Mitsuru, who knew nothing of the sort. “Were they truly, ah… you know…”

Yukari smirks. “Sorry, do I know what, exactly?”

“You know.” Mitsuru is mortified to find herself blushing. She can only hope that the grim, green-shot lighting of Tartarus will conceal it. “Were they truly… going steady?”

“Oh my god, senpai,” Takeba giggles. “What are you, like, a million years old?”

“W-Well!! I’m quite sure that you know what I mean.”

“I know what you mean,” Takeba agrees. Takeba is unerringly good at knowing how far she can push without doing any real damage. It’s a remarkable skill, one which Mitsuru envies immensely. “And no, I don’t think they were actually dating. But they definitely wanted to. Both of them. They had crazy chemistry. Nuclear. The kind you can see all the way from space.”

“Perhaps you can,” Mitsuru says ruefully.

“Hah! Yeah. So that was, like, pretty obvious. But then when it turned out that Ryoji’d spent ten years inside him—ew, sorry, phrasing,” she snickers. “But, yeah. I figured it was just that.”

“It may still be ‘that,’” Mitsuru muses. “If not ‘just’ that. They do have a certain…” She stops herself, suddenly embarrassed. “Excuse me. It’s inappropriate for me to speculate about the relations between our teammates.”

“Only if they hear you!!”

“And I suppose it would be untoward to pursue such relations with any of our colleagues, in the first place,” Mitsuru goes on. “You know what they say about mixing business and pleasure.”

“Yeah?” Takeba asks, casual. “I dunno. I think it might be alright. Not like we have anything to lose.”

Mitsuru’s neck feels strangely hot. “Well. I suppose it would, ah, depend on the circumstance, non? And the, ah… professionalism of the parties involved?”

“Well,” Takeba says slyly. “I guess it’s lucky you’re so professional.”

“I-I suppose so.”

“And I’m great at parties.”

Okay, Mitsuru is definitely blushing.

“Hey, senpai!” Minato shouts. If Mitsuru hadn’t been attending rigorous, twice-weekly etiquette lessons for more than a decade, she might actually have flinched. “Yukari! We’re moving out! You good?”

“We’re great,” Takeba calls back, with a wink that makes Mitsuru flush even darker. Because apparently 10+ years of etiquette lessons still weren’t enough to inure her to disarmingly charming second-years. “Are you guys done being gross?”

“Minato is never gross!!” Mochizuki huffs.

“Yeah,” Minato snickers. “We’re done.”

* *

* * *

* *

After learning Ryoji's secret, Junpei had got kinda hyped to see the guy fight. It was like something out of a sentai show: twelve big bad boss-Shadows all Phoenix Ranger Featherman-ed into one bigger, badder MegaShadow. A MegaShadow big and bad enough to end the whole world, supposedly. Surely something like that should be stronger than the sum of its parts, yeah?

So he’s bummed to find out that, most of the time, Ryoji fights like anyone else: by swinging a sword at the bad guys until they fall down.

—With the emphasis on ‘most of the time.’ Because all that changes when Fuuka’s voice buzzes into their comms line, frantic and shrill with fear. “Th-Th-The Grim Reaper!!!”

“It’s just Ryoji,” Junpei points out.

“N-No, it’s—it’s really—with the chains, and, and the scythe, and—!! The real Grim Reaper! The one we keep running from! Leader, it’s blocking the stairs!!!”

“You think it heard you’re here?” Junpei snickers, elbowing Ryoji. “Think it’s, like, a territory thing or somethin’?”

Ryoji scoffs. “I wouldn’t put it past him.”

“Think you can take him?” Sanada-senpai asks, clearly unconvinced. But Ryoji doesn’t hesitate.

“That guy? Please. No problem.”

“Actually?” Minato asks quietly.

“Mina-kun!” Ryoji gasps, wounded. “You think I can’t?”

“I’m asking you. You can do it?”

“Of course!”

Minato’s mouth ticks up, all grim and self-assured in that way that used to piss Junpei the hell off, once upon a time. “Then let’s do it.”

* * *

So that’s how Junpei finally gets to see what Ryoji can do.

By now, Junpei’s got a sense for what pumps everyone up. Sanada-senpai's Theurgy cartridge sparks when he powers himself up with a support buff, 'cause he's all hung up on getting stronger. Yuka-tan gets off on healing others, saving lives and protecting people and all that crap, ‘cause she’s secretly way nicer than she acts. And of course Junpei's engine revs when he knocks some loser Shadow on its loser ass.

Ryoji, though. Ryoji doesn’t even use an evoker, so there’s no way to keep an eye on the glow of its grip. Junpei figured that meant the poor guy didn’t have a cool kickass super-attack at all. And since Junpei is a totally amazing guy, he opted not to bring it up.

Turns out: Ryoji’s got Theurgy. It’s just got one hell of a twisted trigger.

Fighting the Reaper is… rough. Inarguably. With Aigis on the bench, the ‘Bachelor Pad’—that’s what Junpei’s been calling this four-man party, at least in his head—is the sturdiest, hardest-hitting, knock-em-down-and-they’ll-pop-up-swinging team-up in all of SEES. And still they can barely stay on their feet.

Maybe that was the problem. Because when Sanada-senpai finally goes down and stays down, Ryoji’s eyes burn.

“No,” Ryoji growls. Blue flame curls from his nostrils, licks at his teeth. “You’ll have them soon enough. But not today.”

When he spreads his arms wide, he’s—bigger. In every sense of the word. Taller, wider, stronger. All teeth and blades and steel that seems to glow dark, like a blacklight. Not light’s absence, but its opposite. And when he slams his palms together, a coffin slams shut around the Reaper.

The Reaper doesn’t take that lying down. It struggles. It bites. There’s low, wild growling, the grind of straining steel.

“You thought you were immune?” Ryoji asks, and laughs. “No one's ever safe. Not me, and not you. Not anyone. EVERYTHING ENDS.”

The coffin ages a thousand years in an instant. Planks weather, hinges rust. Worms squirm through the grain of the wood; they chew and chew and swallow.

When the withered wreckage of the lid swings open, there’s nothing left inside.

“Oh,” Junpei mumbles, while Minato kneels to shove a Revival Bead down Sanada-senpai's throat. “Uh…”

“Oh!” Ryoji gasps—and it is just Ryoji. The specter of death is gone. “Too much? Haha, sorry! I guess I got a little upset.”

“N-No, I wasn't… It’s all good, dude. I just meant…” Junpei gestures at the coffin, still yawning open. “Shouldn’t there be, I dunno. Bones in there, at least? Or zombies or something?”

“I’m death, not putrefaction,” Ryoji sniffs. “And I’m definitely not undeath.”

“Okay, but. If you’re Death, then who was that guy? Shouldn’t that be you?”

Ryoji looks even more offended. “That clown? No way! I'm not some—some ridiculous mascot character running around doing anti-death promos. I'm just The End. Of everything.”

“What’s the difference?”

“Do you really have to ask??” Ryoji demands, and then seems to see that, yes, Junpei really does. “Oh. Well, it’s… It's like the difference between Santa Claus and—whoever Santa’s derived from.”

(“Saint Nicholas,” Minato contributes, without looking up.)

“Or the difference between Jack Frost and an actual blizzard.”

“So that guy really doesn’t scare you?” Junpei asks.

Ryoji just laughs. “You should meet my sisters.”

They keep moving.

Chapter Text

One week before New Year’s Eve, Ryoji appears in Minato’s room.

He doesn’t knock. He doesn’t even use the door. Minato is alone in his room, and then he isn’t. Like when Ryoji was still Pharos. But without the dreamlike quality that Pharos always carried. Pharos gave off the impression that, if you tried to touch him, your hand would pass through without resistance. That if someone else walked in, they wouldn't see anything at all. Not like Ryoji. Ryoji is solid, tactile. Tear-streaked.

Minato nods a greeting. “I was waiting.”

“S-Sorry.”

He doesn’t say anything else. He just stands there, shivering, hugging his chest with both arms and very visibly holding back tears. Washed over in the Dark hour’s greenlit glow, he looks like his own ghost. Not vengeful. But with plenty of unfinished business.

“C’mon,” Minato sighs, patting his bed. “You’re gonna give me a crick in my neck.”

When Ryoji collapses onto the bed, he’s still keeping a careful distance between them. He hasn’t tried to touch Minato since the first time he manifested as Thanatos. Not that he’s stopped hitting on anything with a pulse, but something about it feels… cursory. Reflexive. Like he’s just going through the motions.

Ryoji sniffles, wipes his nose with his sleeve. “I shouldn’t be here…”

What? “Why?”

“You still have to kill me, and—”

“Stop.”

“But—”

“I’m not going to talk about that,” Minato says flatly. He doesn’t want to hear it. He doesn’t want to hear about how hungrily Ryoji wants to die. He can feel his nails digging into his palm, almost hard enough to break the skin. Ryoji’s existed for barely a month and he’s already more alive than Minato ever was, so— “Why do you want to disappear so bad, anyway?”

“You think I want to disappear?” Ryoji laughs, a desperate spray of sound. It sounds like a cry for help. Like something bleeding, breaking, crying out in pain. “Of course I don’t want to disappear. I don't want any of you to disappear! It was easier when I was inside you,” pressing his palm to Minato’s chest, right over his heart. “When I didn’t ever have to be alone. But I’m—I’m so alone now, Minato. I’m so alone without you. I feel like I can’t get close enough… it’s so selfish, it’s so selfish, I’ve already stolen so much and still I want more, can you believe that?”

If it was anyone else, Minato would brush their hand away.

He doesn’t move.

“It’s all these tiny things,” Ryoji breathes. “What you hear, what catches your eye, all the little ways you calm yourself down. I see you tapping on your knee, or your palm, and I—I know which songs are playing in your head, which rhythm you’re tapping along to and I still know how to do it, Minato, my hands still know how to make you feel better.” He pulls in a shuddering breath. “I look at you across the room, fidgeting, recentering, and I want so badly to reach out and—just—do it for you, or, or with you. To treat your body like it’s my body, like I still belong to you. Because I do, you know? I still belong to you.”

Minato can't help staring at Ryoji's hands, so like his own and also different: the fingers longer, slimmer. Almost skeletal. He can see the bones through Ryoji's skin and he can't shake the feeling that they're his bones, his skin. Because they are. They are his. Ryoji is his, just like Pharos was, and even Thanatos. All of Minato's Personas are a part of him, but none of the others ever look at him like this. Orpheus plays for him, sometimes, but Orpheus never speaks. Never sings. Nothing inside Minato sings anymore. His mind is cold inside and dark, all sound and discord without any words at all. The only thing that ever spoke in him was Thanatos, was Pharos, was Ryoji.

“You could—“ Minato swallows. “Do that. If you want.”

“You don’t like being touched,” Ryoji sighs. “Not even just for a handshake. That Kenji kept hitting you on the arm and you deleted his number.”

“That was just because he’s annoying. And anyway, it’s—different. With you. I don’t think I'd mind if it was you.”

Ryoji’s eyes widen. “You mean it.”

It isn’t a question. Ryoji always knows what he’s thinking. But Minato nods anyway. He can’t afford any misunderstandings, because—he wants this. He doesn’t often know what he wants, doesn’t often want at all, but he wants Ryoji to touch him. He just couldn’t put it into words.

It’s like all the words went out of him when Ryoji did, and now when he listens to Ryoji, he hears his own thoughts reflected back at him. The discord behind his eyes, organized into language. I missed you. I still miss you. Even when you’re with me. Even when you’re sitting right beside me, you’re never close enough.

Minato lays his hand, palm-up, on the bedspread between them. An invitation.

A shiver ripples through him when Ryoji’s fingers ghost over his palm. Tracing the lines of his hand, writing music on his skin. He knows it’s stupid, but he can almost believe that he feels it in two places at once. Orpheus’s melody duplicates, complicates. It forms intricate harmonies, like two songs in one.

Ryoji exhales raggedly. “It feels different from out here.”

“Y-Yeah.”

Ryoji tangles their fingers together, squeezes with painful desperation. He draws their clasped hands toward his face and presses Minato’s knuckles to his lips. Minato can feel Ryoji’s breath on his skin—shallow, sharp, in perfect time with his—as Ryoji uncurls their fingers and presses Minato’s palm to his cheek. Ryoji’s face fits in his hands like it was made for it, designed for this and only this.

Maybe it really was.

Minato’s thumb brushes the jut of Ryoji’s cheekbone, the smooth line of his jaw. When the tips of his fingers graze the soft skin behind Ryoji’s ear, he can feel a shiver shudder through them. Ryoji’s, or his? It doesn’t matter. Heat pools in his belly, slides up his throat. He wants—he wants—he doesn’t even know what he wants. Ryoji was the one who knew how to turn his want into words.

“It’s not enough,” Ryoji whispers. “I still want more.”

Oh. Yes. Like that. “Yeah.”

When Ryoji giggles, Minato can feel it vibrate against his palm. Like giddiness was something tactile, something you could hold. “Wow, Mina-kun. You’re so articulate.”

“Fuck off.”

“And so romantic! You should be careful, sweet-talking me like that. I might get the wrong idea."

“I don’t think you could.”

“Oh, no?”

“Not if it’s… you know. Not wrong.”

When Ryoji swallows, Minato can feel it under his fingers. The slide of muscle shifting under skin. “Are you sure about that?”

“It’s you,” Minato says simply. “You always know what I want.”

“Because it’s always what I want.”

Minato nods.

"You probably shouldn't write a blank check like that," Ryoji whispers, but he also tilts his head to press a kiss to Minato's palm. "I'd like to get very close."

"N-Not sure we can get any closer than. Y'know. The past ten years."

“Well,” Ryoji breathes. In the half-light of the Dark Hour, his eyes almost seem to glow. “No harm in trying.”

* *

* * *

* *

When Yukari stumbles downstairs, yawning, she walks straight into an ambush.

“Yuka-tan!!!” Junpei hisses, in a deafening stage whisper, seizing her by the arm and tugging her toward the kitchen. “You are not gonna believe this!! Look!! Look!!!”

When she moves to elbow past him, he flings himself in the way. He won’t budge until she resigns herself to peering around the corner like something out of Scooby freaking Doo.

At the kitchen counter, Minato and Ryoji are making breakfast. Minato slumps sleepily against Ryoji’s shoulder. Ryoji’s got one hand on the kettle and the other in Minato’s back pocket.

Yukari looks back at Junpei. “What.”

“You didn’t see??? They’re all touching and stuff!! And Minato isn’t even hitting him! Yukari,” he says seriously. “I think they might be. You know. Together.”

She stares at him for a solid minute.

“What?” he asks, when he finally gets around to feeling self-conscious.

“Are you actually stupid?”

“Wh— Hey!!”

“No, I’m serious. I'm not even making fun of you. I'm seriously asking.”

“…So you think they’re not?”

“Oh my GOD,” she literally shouts, and shoves past him. Then, to the kitchen: “About time. Honestly. You guys better get less annoying, and not more.”

“I don't see how he could,” Minato shrugs.

Ryoji beams at her. "No promises!”

“Ugh.”

“Takeba and I went on a date once,” Ryoji tells Minato solemnly. “But don’t worry. My heart beats only for you. Assuming I have a heart? And, um… blood, and arteries and things?”

Minato's mouth ticks up. “Pretty sure you do.”

“Ew!!!” Yukari screeches. “You guys are disgusting!!! I haven't even had breakfast!!! You better not let Senpai hear you talking like that—”

“Like what?” a mellifluous voice asks. Mitsuru-senpai, of course, enjoying her morning tea around the corner. Yukari feels a little bad, but she’s in no obligation to cover for them. She crosses her arms at Minato and waits.

“We didn't do the homework,” Minato says calmly.

“Yeah, ‘cause we were up all night—”

“Watching movies.”

“Really good movies,” Ryoji says dreamily. “Life-changing.”

Senpai gives them a disapproving look, then sighs. “In the circumstances, I suppose I can understand the need to take a little time to yourselves. So long as you don’t let it get in the way of your studies. Still, we could all use a bit of rest and relaxation… Perhaps I'll join you next time.”

Ryoji brightens. “I definitely wouldn’t take it off the table!”

“Take it off the table,” Yukari groans. “Take it all the way out the door. Senpai, ignore them, they’re cretins. You don’t want to watch what they’re playing.”

“Ah. ‘Guy stuff,’ I take it?”

Minato nods seriously. “That's right.”

* *

* * *

* *

Junpei is— He’s happy for them.

He is! Ryoji’s his bro, and so is Minato, and what kind of a bro would be mad about his two best bros making each other happy? Besides! This takes the most popular guys in his class off the market without even narrowing the pool for the rest of them. Right? Riiiight?

Ha, ha. Yeah, right. Maybe that’s what Junpei from two months ago would’ve said. Right now, just thinking it is enough to make his chest clench. Right-now Junpei doesn’t want a confession, or a girlfriend, or a stupid perfect Christmas date. He just wants Chidori.

Is Junpei jealous? Uh, yeah. No shit, he’s jealous. Even if they are all gonna die; even if Ryoji’s gonna disappear, none of that is happening right now. Right now, Ryoji and Minato get to sneak around, elbowing each other and giggling and sneaking into each other’s rooms and just—holding. Touching. Having.

And Chidori only ever gets to be dead.

Minato and Ryoji are making dinner, but Junpei isn't hungry. Just thinking about sitting at that table makes him want to hurl. He brushes off Fuuka’s invitation with some excuse about Koromaru not getting enough exercise, even though they’re all exercising plenty in the Dark Hour, and shoulders out the door.

* * *

Koromaru is good company. He leads Junpei to the shrine and then gives him space. Which makes sense. Koromaru’s grieving, too.

“Hey, Chidorita,” Junpei says quietly. Chidori isn’t buried here. He doesn’t know where she’s buried. But people aren’t their corpses. Shrines are mostly just somewhere to keep your grief. “We’re, uh. We’re gonna die soon, I guess. So… maybe I can take you out on that date soon, haha.” He grins at her, a little foolishly. “You’re totally gonna hate it. You’re gonna think it’s sooo tacky.” He was never smart enough for her.

Maybe she would’ve stooped to his level, though. If she’d got the chance.

“Anyway,” he whispers. “I miss you. And, uh. Merry Christmas.”

When he turns around, Ryoji is standing right behind him.

“Whwfhdh???” Junpei sputters. “H-Hey! Not cool, man!”

“Sorry, sorry.”

“This is private!!”

Ryoji tilts his head, like, Is it? But he doesn’t argue.

Junpei huffs a breath. “Why aren’t you back in the dorm with your stupid boyfriend?”

“I was looking for you. I care about you, you know? Minato does too. He’s just funnier about about how he shows it.”

Ugh. Gross. Like—yeah, sure, but he doesn’t gotta say it like that. “Doesn’t answer my question.”

“You didn’t show up for dinner,” Ryoji explains. “And you always show up when someone else cooks. So I wanted to make sure you were okay. You’re my friend, you know?”

Junpei rolls his eyes. “Yeah, right.”

“…Are you not?”

Tch. “Of course we’re—or, I mean—it’s not like we’re not, it’s just…” Junpei trails off. Ryoji is just… looking at him. Forehead furrowed, brows knitted, looking exactly like he did a month ago. Like any other classmate. A normal person, a real person. But he isn’t a real person. Real people don’t tear off their skin and sprout coffins from their elbows. “Hey, uh. Ryoji?”

“Junpei?”

“I just wanted to ask—um. About… death.” He has to stop to shove away the image that swims behind his eyes, a flash of white lace and red hair, or else he'll start crying again. Chidori isn’t a real person, either. At least not anymore. She’s only a memory now.

She'd probably like that. Not being real. She liked all that creepy shit, blood and dead flowers and dressing up like every day was Halloween. Why else would she walk around with a huge prop knife sticking through her head? She’d probably think it was romantic, existing as a memory in someone else’s head. And maybe she’d draw something about it, some weird, abstract shit that only came into focus at the exact right angle, like one of those Magic Eye optical illusions. And of course Junpei would beg her to show him, and when she finally did, he wouldn’t know any of the right words to say. He’d just blurt out something stupid about how the colors looked cool, and she’d look at him like she thought he was the biggest dumbass alive, and then she’d laugh at him. He always loved it when she laughed at him. Isn’t that stupid?

It doesn’t matter. If Ryoji’s right—and he seems pretty sure that he is—all of them are about to be just as gone as she is. Except that, when it’s Junpei’s turn, there won’t be anyone left to remember.

Junpei blinks the itch from his eyes, tries to swallow the lump in his throat. “Like, uh. Being dead. Is it… you know, okay? Or, I mean… what is it like?”

Ryoji’s face softens. “It’s nice.”

“Come on,” Junpei says tiredly.

“I’m serious! It’s honestly nice. It’s… of course I don’t want you to die. I don’t even want to die! I really really don’t want to kill you. It’s totally natural to be afraid of, of pain, and change. But actually being dead? Junpei. There’s nothing more peaceful. No more loss. No more suffering. No more anything, ever. Just… peace.”

“So, what. You think everyone should just die so they don’t have to—I dunno—flunk exams, or sprain their ankles or whatever?”

“No, no, I don’t think that at all! Life is wonderful! I know that now. It’s, haha, wow, it’s so good. Every moment you’re alive is a miracle. But you should live because of life, not because you don’t want to die. Because you’re going to, you know. Even if humanity hadn’t asked to Fall. Everyone dies. But it’s not a punishment, not some threat hanging over your head. It’s just what happens when you’re done being alive.”

Junpei glares right into Ryoji’s stupid blue eyes. “Promise?”

“I promise. I really, really promise. I swear, Junpei, being dead is… there’s nothing more peaceful. There’s nothing bad there! There’s just… nothing.”

Junpei grits his teeth, squints his eyes. Somehow, that doesn’t make him feel better.

* *

* * *

* *

When Aigis is finally cleared for combat, she is dismayed to find her comrades weakened by her absence. Dismayed, but not entirely surprised. Humans pride themselves on their irrational, counter-productive emotionality.

Humans have always been mortal. For humans, mortality is not a threat, because it’s not negotiable. Logically, the most optimal course is to adjust each ephemeral existence in avoidance of fear, pain. Suffering, especially.

And yet Minato rejects all but the most painful death. For himself, and for all of his kind. He will not be dissuaded. He steers the fate of all conscious humans by the compass of his own shortsighted selfishness, without regard for those lives which may be ruined in the process.

Aigis does not understand. She cannot understand. Unlike these humans, Aigis knows her limits. She cannot laugh. She cannot cry. She looks upon their grief as an outsider, as a creeping thief in the night might peer through a window toward a family, a home. She bears witness as a voyeur. Not a person. A machine.

Aigis was programmed with facial recognition software sophisticated enough to parse the emotions behind each human expression. When she looks at these humans—her humans, the ones that welcomed her as one of their own—she can see the fear under their courage. The desperation that props up their insistent, self-sacrificial hope. Their very defiance is an act of self-harm.

When humans are subjected to severe distress, their adrenal cortex produces the stress hormone cortisol, whose levels can be reduced through the expulsion of tears. But Aigis cannot cry for the people she loves. She cannot even bleed for them.

She will not be complicit. She will not watch them torture themselves for weeks, for months, for nothing. She will not let them armor themselves in delusion only to find themselves naked and exposed at the end of everything. Unprotected. Soft. Humans were always so soft.

If she cannot cry with them, the least she can do is ensure that they need not cry.

* * *

But in the end, she cannot do even that.

* * *

After Minato and his allies give her their choice, Aigis leaves the dormitory of her own free will.

She will not take up arms against the ones she loves. She will safeguard their ascent to certain doom. She will stand by their side for every foolish, pointless moment they have left. And then she will watch them die.

But she has not lost hope. There is still time.

Minato follows her, of course. She knew that he would. By isolating the only one whose decision truly matters, she can advance her position without the interference of cross-chatter; without allowing him to be swayed by the imprudence of his comrades.

“Minato,” she greets him, when he finds her. “You are behaving illogically.”

Minato shrugs.

Aigis considers the input, registers its ambiguity and discards it. “Minato. Your responsibilities are immense. You are obligated to act for the benefit of all mankind. You are not in a position to act selfishly.”

At that, he finally smiles. “I’m glad you’re back.”

“Yes. I am a highly effective combatant. If I were to be incapacitated prematurely, it would be a grievous waste of my abilities. Should you refuse to see reason, at least I may actualize my potential by returning to the battlefield.”

“And to school.”

She refocuses her lenses. “Repeat?”

“School,” he repeats. “You know. Going to class? It’s a privilege, apparently. Supposedly. According to some people.”

“Ye-es,” she says slowly. “The inefficient, interpersonal acquisition of information at the pace of human speech, which is far slower than even the most outdated electronic upload. Yes. I too am glad to ‘return to school.’”

Unexpectedly, Minato laughs. This is anomalous behavior. According to her calculations, Minato is 64% more humorless than the human median. “Haha… yeah. Totally.”

She turns to face him. “Will you truly not be swayed?”

“…Sorry.”

"I understand that you believe your combat capabilities of sufficient force to overcome this obstacle. Hubris is one of humanity's driving principles."

Minato chokes on another laugh.

“But you are wrong,” Aigis says clearly. “You think that your capacity for change—”

“And yours.”

“And mine,” she concedes. “Mean that you can change the rules of this encounter. But you are wrong. You will die. I will be there to see it. I will fight by your side until you are gone. And I will watch you die.”

“Yeah,” Minato says quietly. “Yeah, maybe.”

That takes her by surprise. “You know that you go to your death?”

“Yeah,” he says, shrugging. “Or, I mean. I still think there’s a chance. But… yeah. I know that’s likely.”

“Then why?”

“We’re all going to die, sooner or later. Or even sooner, depending. But if we just throw away everything we went through this year, then aren’t we losing even more?”

Minato has fought alongside SEES for 267 days. Should he accept Death’s offer, he and his comrades will live free of the shadow of death for an additional 65. “Your math is sound,” Aigis admits. “But for all the time you have left, you will suffer.”

“Sure. But that’s not all we’ll do.”

Aigis expels a puff of steam. “Humans are very confident.”

“Pffft—hah!! I think we’re just good at looking away from things we don’t want to look at. But I guess it amounts to the same thing.”

Aigis shakes her head. She’s already made her choice. She will stand by her humans’ decision, no matter how foolish. “I accept your objectively incorrect choice. I will remain by your side. It is my purpose. The purpose I chose.”

A flash of teeth: the barest, briefest smile. Minato seems more cheerful than he did before, Aigis notes. A strange temperament to take on as he charges toward his doom.

“Oh, yeah,” Minato adds. “And there’s something I should tell you.”

* *

* * *

* *

That went pretty well, Minato decides, as he and Aigis make their way back toward the dorm, where Ryoji very much still lives (for one more day, at least). She barely committed any property damage. Most of the monkey bars are still more-or-less functional. And the scuffs on her chassis look superficial.

“Minato,” Aigis says calmly, when they're halfway home.

“Aigis?”

“Self-determination by way of free will is… trying.”

Pffft. “Yeah. That’s what I keep hearing.”

* *

* * *

* *

On the night that he’s due to disappear, Ryoji appears in Minato’s room. Minato sits up in bed and glares.

Ryoji gives him a wincing smile. “So…”

“No.”

“No, but—”

“Literally no.”

“But if you think about it—”

“Why don’t you think about it?” Minato demands. “What would you do if I asked you to kill me?”

“But that is what you’re asking,” Ryoji says quietly. “If you don’t, I mean. You’re asking me to kill you.”

…Oh. Well. Yeah. “The answer’s still no."

“You know you’ll be happier if you do it.”

“Will I?” Minato spits. “You know what I was like before I came here. Better than anyone. Before I was— Before all the stuff you want me to forget… was I even alive then? Well? Was I? Was that worth protecting?”

Ryoji flinches. “But…”

“I hate you. Do you know that? I hate you for asking me to do this.”

“Good,” Ryoji says miserably. “Good, if that means… if that’s how you’ll…”

“No!! No. I don’t care what you want. And I know I’m being selfish. And I know we’ll probably fail. I don’t care. Everyone told me to make friends and form bonds and so I did, and now I won’t unmake them. You don’t get to turn me into someone who won’t die for them.”

“I understand,” Ryoji whispers. “I don’t think it’s the right choice, but… it’s not my choice. All that’s left for me is to disappear into—”

“Fuck that.”

“Wh-What?”

“Fuck that and, and fuck you, Ryoji! No! I get that you have a role, and a place, and some big stupid destiny that you never even wanted. And guess what? I don’t care.”

Ryoji blinks at him, lost for words.

“What,” Minato sneers. “So you’ll live in the Dark Hour now? Fine. So does one of my best friends. Elizabeth isn’t real, and she still matters. Pharos never touched this reality, not outside my stupid brain, but are you going to tell me he was never here?”

“He was here,” Ryoji says numbly.

“I don’t care if you’re not human. I don’t care if you disappear. All my Personas disappear if I don’t call them. They live in the Dark Hour. And in the Dark Hour, they’re as real as I am.”

“But—”

“So disappear. Disappear into the Dark Hour, if that’s what you need to do. I’ll call you back out. I’ll make you real. I don’t care what you want. I want you here. And I know, I know, that you want it too.”

Ryoji doesn’t say anything.

“Ryoji,” Minato says. He reaches out, grabs Ryoji’s hands and squeezes with crushing force. “I’ll see you in the Tower. At midnight. I’m not running away, so you can’t either. I won’t let you. I won’t let you go.”

Ryoji clutches at him, desperate. His eyes are wild. “M-Minato—”

—and he’s gone.

Chapter Text

*

* *

* * *

Beyond life, there is nothing.

Before nothing, there is death.

In the gray between, Thanatos drifts.

This is his birthplace. His birthright. Thanatos is the liminal, the bridge that binds Is and Is Not. Thanatos knows the face of life. He knows how it looks when it ends.

Thanatos does his duty. He ushers lost souls into the fog of nonexistence. He holds their phantom hands, their fading-forgetting hands, and shows them how to disappear. He says, There’s nothing left to fear. He says, You are beyond fear. You are free.

He says, You aren’t hurt. This doesn’t hurt. There is no pain here, only peace. Soon there will be no pain at all, anywhere, for anyone. Isn’t that wonderful? Isn’t it a mercy? My Mother’s first and only gift! Who could say no? What fool would choose pain when he could choose freedom, and respite, and peace? What kind of a fool would stare at the truth with eyes unclouded and choose, of his own free will, the path that hurts the most? Why, WHY, WHY—

But there are no souls here. Thanatos is talking to himself. Which means that he isn’t really talking at all.

(If the god of death whispers into the collective unconscious, does it make a sound?

It does not. Sound cannot travel in a vacuum. Pain cannot live in something dead. When Thanatos whispers, cries, screams, there is not any sound at all.)

Thanatos does his duty. He reaches out to dying souls and he shows them the way. He holds their hands. He holds their faces in his hands. He holds them as they die and die and die.

He has heard his Mother’s call. He knows Her voice now, and always has. He knows what awaits those who yet breathe. The peaceful dead he meets, they are the lucky ones. Exempted. Blessed. He holds their faces in his hands and he smiles. He presses his blade to their throats gently, only gently, and he smiles. These broken husks, these empty shells. They are the lucky ones.

And then: another voice. Closer. Clearer. Not his Mother. Not a fading soul, either. The voice sounds strangely like his own, like the echo of an echo of something already dead. But this voice is not yet dead. It is different. Alive.

For now.

Death draws near.

* * *

* *

*

The night after Ryoji disappears into the Dark Hour, Minato goes to Tartarus alone.

Of course, Minato is never really alone. He has a rolodex of Personas jostling behind his eyes. He has the Velvet Room and Elizabeth and (maybe, sort of) Igor. He has his strength and his sword and his bonds.

Still, he wouldn’t want his friends to see this. Because. It’s embarrassing.

Minato makes the necessary fusion. He leaves the Velvet Room. He clears his throat.

“Um,” he mumbles. “Thanatos?”

There’s a shimmer of light, a crackle of abyssal cold. White fire courses through his veins in sparks and rivers, forking and splitting. And then a voice.

“I Am Your Sword,” it intones, “And Your End. I am all that you have Lost, and will yet Lose.”

Barely perceptibly, Minato relaxes. “Ryoji.”

“I Am Death.”

“Ryoji.”

“I Am The End.”

“Ryoji.”

Thanatos bristles, ruffling the coffins that jut from his limbs like the pinions of some colossal steel-and-bone vulture. A spark of irritation jumps between his teeth. “I Do Not Answer To That Name.”

“Ryoji!” Minato calls again, emboldened. “This is where you went, isn’t it? To the Dark Hour? This is where you disappeared, so just—come out already.”

“You Chase Shadows,” Death says coldly. “The one you seek is Gone. I Saw Him Die. Now there is only Me. Only Death. Death cannot change Its Face to suit some mortal whim."

"It's not a whim. It's… I dunno. A memory?”

Thanatos doesn’t answer.

“And of course you can,” Minato goes on. “Junpei already proved it. He carries Chidori with him all the time, now. His Persona isn’t only him, it’s both of them. Everything of hers, everything she touched, it’s still inside him."

No whisper of breath fogs the Persona’s steely muzzle. Thanatos floats silent as the grave.

Minato gestures impatiently. “Call it what you want. A fusion, a re-Awakening… whatever you need to tell yourself. I don't care. Just stop fucking around and talk to me like a real person.”

“I Am Not a Real Person. A Persona is Only—”

“You think I don't know what a Persona is?” Minato asks, exasperated. “I've got like, a hundred. A Persona is just what’s inside you, and you were inside me for ten years, Ryoji. You think you’re not still here?"

The god of Death hesitates. His wings droop, only slightly, drying leaves in fall’s last gasp. Still clinging to the branch, but only just. One stiff breeze away from spiraling to earth.

Time to finish him off. “Ryoji,” Minato snaps. “You are being so lame right now.”

“I— You Are!!”

Minato’s scowl blooms into a wide, blood-hungry grin. “Hah… you’ve already lost. Ryoji. You’re part of me. I can’t stop you dying—everyone dies—but you don’t get to disappear.”

Thanatos shatters to shards. In its place slumps a tiny, black-and-yellow echo of its grandeur. “I’m not—I mean… I never meant to—”

“You’re not hurting anyone, you dick. You’re part of the Dark Hour now? That’s fine. We come here all the time. Like… most nights.”

“But—”

“Are you gonna tell me you don’t care what happens to us?”

Ryoji hangs his head. His silhouette warps and sparks. “No…”

“Then we’re on the same page.” Minato reaches out, grabs for Ryoji and feels wild, transcendent, when his fingers close around something solid. Not warm, not soft. Ryoji’s hand is rigid-cold as bone. But it’s tactile. Real.

In the back of his mind, Orpheus sings.

“Look,” Minato says quietly. “It’s okay if you can’t find yourself. Okay? Because I’ll find you.”

“You shouldn’t…”

“I really don’t care what you think about this.”

Ryoji sniffles, snuffles a laugh. “Haha. Yeah. You were never the sensitive type, were you?”

“Yeah, well,” Minato shrugs. “That’s what you were for.”

* *

* * *

* *

It isn’t like before.

Ryoji is dead. No one can change that. Minato’s will burns blue-hot enough to bend the 25th hour to his will, but even a Wild Card can’t turn back the hands of time. Mochizuki Ryoji is a dead boy. Gone. Extinct.

But Thanatos cannot die. There is no death for something that never lived. And yet Thanatos cannot live, for there is no life for one who cannot die.

And what floats between? Between life and death, time and reality?

Between here and nowhere, there is… something else. Not Ryoji, not Thanatos. Not just a figment of Minato’s imagination. Not a person, but too tangible for a memory. More alive than a Persona.

A ghost?

Ryoji doesn’t have the answer. He was never any good at exams. Frankly, he can’t be bothered to care. He’s just happy to be here.

And to be clear: he isn’t always here. He isn’t even always anywhere. When Minato leaves the Tower; when there’s no one left to call him into being, Ryoji is nowhere. Nothing. Gone.

Not that it scares him! Being nothing isn’t lonely. It isn’t even dark. It just… isn’t.

And then Minato calls his name, and suddenly Ryoji exists. His consciousness aggregates around Minato’s will like a scab around a wound. Light and shadow turn to steel and bone, a quick smile and blue-fire eyes. Sort of like being born. Almost like being alive.

“Mina-kun!!!” he’ll sing out, after Minato conjures him into being. “Are you ready to execute me yet?”

And Minato rolls his eyes. “Maybe next time.”

* *

* * *

* *

Aigis cannot understand why Minato refuses to eradicate the threat.

Her allies mean to achieve the impossible. To avert the inevitable—to break the very chains of fate itself. If they hope to overcome, they will need their steeliest, most unshakeable convictions. They cannot afford to be swayed by fear or love. Minato understands this. He’s conveyed the same on numerous occasions.

So why does he insist upon inviting humanity’s end into the war-room?

Minato is a formidable combatant. The force of his will has bound Thanatos to a smaller, flimsier form. But this is only an illusion. The so-called ‘Ryoji’ is only another guise of misdirection. Only another face of Death.

Thanatos is a threat. This much is inarguable. The last time Aigis faced the God of Death on the field of battle, he tore her limb from limb. He is powerful. Dangerous. His machinations are inevitable.

Yet no matter how clearly Aigis voices her discontent, her leader is unmoved.

Which makes it all the more maddening that her most outspoken supporter—the sole proponent to her cause—is Thanatos himself.

“Minato,” Aigis says firmly. “This cannot continue. You are exposing your allies to unnecessary risk.”

“She’s right, you know,” the God of Death agrees.

Minato rolls his eyes. “I don’t want to hear it.”

“He is a threat.”

(“I’m a threat! I’m, like, the threat.”)

Aigis valiantly ignores him. “As the Fall draws near, the monster’s true nature will emerge.”

(“It really will! I can already feel it, sometimes. My wings get sort of… itchy? Like feathers growing in.”)

“Who can say when your hold over his facade may loosen?”

(“Could be any floor now!” Thanatos says cheerfully. “Or maybe one of those Monad passages? I always feel weird when we go through those. Sort of… stretched out.”)

“Should the world-ender’s avatar outmatch your own power, how will you survive?” Humans, as Aigis knows well, are terrifyingly fragile.

(“Yeah! Or what if I—”)

Aigis’s artillery loadout charges without her even firing the command. “Will you desist.”

“Sorry, Ai-chan!” The face of the End of the World holds out both hands in a facsimile of supplication. “I was just agreeing!”

“Haha, yeahhh,” Takeba Yukari laughs, hooking one arm around Aigis’s elbow and tugging her toward the nearest corridor. “Yeah, good talk. Love when we all agree. Hey, Ryoji-kun? Why don’t you, umm… Why don’t you and Minato scout the next floor, 'kay? Aigis and I can finish up down here.”

“Did you have alternate orders?” Aigis asks uneasily, once Minato and The Threat have vanished up the stairs. “All Shadows on this floor have been vanquished.”

“Nooo, I wouldn’t say, um…” Takeba trails off, then laughs. “Haha, sorry, no. I just kinda thought you might wanna let off some steam.”

“My circulation fans are operating at full capacity. And my coolant well is at 68%.”

“Coolant, huh?” Takeba asks curiously. “Like for a car? What do you, like, drink it?”

“Negative. I replenish coolant through the insertion point at—”

“You know what? I think I don’t really need to know, actually! No, I just meant, um…” She twirls a lock of hair around two fingers. “I guess I thought you might need a break from, you know. The lovebirds.”

“Most avians lack the sentience to produce a Persona,” Aigis informs her. “And thus could not sustain consciousness under the conditions presented by the—” A beat too late, her facial recognition software registers amusement in Takeba’s eyes. “Ah. A figure of speech.”

“Hey, yeah! You’re getting pretty good at all this human stuff!”

“Not good enough,” Aigis says. It takes her a moment to recognize the disturbance humming from her Papillon Heart as bitterness.

“Hey, what!!” Takeba demands, indignant. “Who told you that? I swear, if there’s someone at school messing with you, I’ll mess with them!”

“This is not an issue. Though I am grateful for your concern. It is only—” Aigis hesitates. “I… cannot understand why Minato persists in the inclusion of our enemy.”

“You mean Ryoji?”

“Thanatos,” Aigis says firmly. “Death.” He dismantled her. Ten years ago, and then again, only last month. He means to dismantle every living thing. He is their enemy!

“Aw, geez. I mean. I’m not sure how to…” Takeba lets out her breath. “Okay, this might not totally translate, but I think Minato has a… soft spot? Or whatever? For Ryoji. That isn’t totally, um, logical.”

“Yes.” Aigis is aware. Dilated pupils, swollen blood vessels… Minato harbors a personal affinity. “Yet such ‘soft spots’ do not always necessitate illogical behavior. I have observed the same symptoms in many human relationships, without ensuing strategic impairment.”

“Oh, yeah? Like who?”

“For instance: Kirijo-san and yourself.”

Takeba’s cheeks redden. “Whaaaat? No. Haha, oh my god, no way. …You think?”

Aigis’s data processing is functionally indistinguishable from human thought. “Yes. I think.”

“Huh,” Takeba mumbles.

Aigis decides to risk a joke. “Do you think?”

“Huh???” Takeba gasps. “I mean… I don’t know! Senpai can be pretty hard to read, you know? She’s all, like, cool and collected and stuff. All business.”

“But you are.”

“What?”

Human audio processing is very faulty. “But you are,” Aigis repeats.

“What, all business?”

“No. You are, therefore you think.”

“…What?”

In spite of all she’s learned in recent weeks, Aigis may not be cut out for telling jokes.

The gravest insult is this: the mask of Death can mimic human behavior more convincingly than Aigis ever has.

“Rio-chan is going out with who??” Thanatos screeches, when Takeba provides the ‘hot goss’ from school. “Takeba-chan! Takeba-chan, please, you can’t lie about this! My heart can’t take it! Rio-chan is way too good for him!!!”

Takeba snickers. “They are childhood friends, you know. Apparently she’s liked him since forever. And his actual crush was, like, a million years old, so…” She shrugs airily. “What? Did you want him to confess to Kanou-sensei?”

“Of course I did!! It would have been hilarious!!!”

Takeba laughs. Even Minato huffs a quiet laugh. The smiling, lying monster that is Thanatos is very good at making humans laugh.

What could be more insulting? Of course Aigis knows that she is not human. She cannot laugh, cannot bleed. Yet Thanatos is not human, either. And yet Thanatos can. (For now.)

Aigis engages and disengages her propulsion engine. She opens and closes her fists. She is not controlled by her programming. Her choices, her will, her actions and inactions are her own. She can bypass her threat sensors and suspend the Shadow-suppression alerts that are always pinging, pinging, pinging at her awareness, now that the mother of all Shadow walks among them. She can even affect an air of ease, to avoid producing ancillary concerns for her humans.

...For now.

She is unsure how far her self-control will bend before it breaks.

Chapter Text

The night before the end of the world, Minato opens his bedside table. He draws his evoker. He raises it to his temple.

“Thanatos,” he whispers, and pulls the trigger.

The figure that materializes at the foot of his bed isn’t a Shadow or a Persona. It’s not a figment or a concept or a person. It’s just Ryoji.

“This is so nice,” Ryoji says dreamily, swaying back against the desk. When his blue-fire eyes fall shut, he looks painfully human. “Just like when I was Pharos. I loved being Pharos, did you know that? I already loved you.”

Of course Minato knows that. “I feel like it must have been boring.”

“Hm? What must’ve been boring?”

Isn’t it obvious? Ten years in a waking dream. Looking through someone else's eyes without any control over where they look; listening to someone else’s music without any voice to ask to skip a track, or try a different album. Honestly, it sounds like hell. Even Minato gets bored of being Minato, and he gets to hold the reins. “Being… you know. Inside me.”

Ryoji waggles his eyebrows suggestively.

“Gross,” Minato snorts, but he also hooks a finger around Ryoji’s scarf and pulls him in closer. “Grow up.”

“No can do, Mina-kun! Not me or you or anyone! Not… ever again, h-haha.”

Typical. Ryoji was always mercurial, his melancholy as short-lived as his joy. Even before he remembered what he was, his mood careened around in drunken swirls. It spiraled like a ginkgo leaf, flitting from one fascination to the next.

Now that he’s lost his borrowed body, Ryoji’s rhythm has grown even more erratic. Staccato, then legato; minor into major; climbing crescendos of gratitude that careen into the discord of despair... To be honest, it’s kind of overwhelming. But Minato doesn’t mind. He’s tired of feeling nothing.

“Stop,” he says succinctly.

Ryoji looks innocent. “Stop what?”

“Stop… going somewhere else. Just. Stay here.”

“Such a romantic,” Ryoji giggles, but his eyes brighten. “I’m surprised to see you hiding out up here, Minato!”

“Really.”

“Well, no, I guess I’m not. But I’m a little disappointed! Isn’t there someone you’d like to spend this time with? It is your last night on earth, you know.”

Minato ignores the implication that Ryoji’s not worth his time, because. That’s stupid. “You still don’t think we’ll win.”

“I know you can’t,” Ryoji says sadly. “I know you think you’ve seen me fight, but you’re wrong. I’m only a fragment. Not even a fingernail. Just the smallest, faintest splinter of the force that’s gathering on that roof.”

Minato is never going to win this argument, so he skips past it. “I had dinner with everyone. Earlier. The whole team.”

“Aw, I wish I could have helped!!”

“I don’t,” Minato snorts. Ryoji’s cooking should be classified as a nuclear-grade biohazard. “The team needs to eat. Can’t kill death on an empty stomach.”

“You can’t kill death at all.”

“Maybe.” Then, before Ryoji can argue: “Anyway, I am with someone. I’m with you.”

Ryoji gives him a wan smile. “I’m not sure that counts.”

“Can you not?” Minato asks, impatient. “You’re the one who’s hung up on making the most of our time. So can we not spend all night talking about what I ‘should’ be doing?”

“Okay, okay!” Ryoji laughs. “I had to try, you know? But, fiiine. I suppose if you’ve already fallen victim to my charms—”

“Yeah, right.”

“—then at least I can make sure you do something worth doing. Something… human. Alive.”

“…Like what.”

“Like…” Ryoji plants a finger on his chin, thoughtful. “Oh! I just learned about this recently! Have you ever made a bucket list?”

Ten minutes later, they’ve got a solid list going.

Most of the items aren’t possible. Rent a car and follow a touring band, no. Get adopted by a cat, no. Play backup for a music group in a pinch, no.

(“Just backup, huh?” Ryoji asks. “You never wanted to be in the actual band?”

And: no. Minato never did.)

Paint something you actually like: not realistic. Buy half-decent speakers: not rewarding, plus it’s after business hours. Steal something stupid and run from the cops—

“Wait, wait, hold on,” Ryoji cuts in, grinning. “How stupid are we talking?”

So that’s how they wind up at the Iwatodai Station strip mall in the middle of the night before the end of the world.

“Why the beef bowl place?” Minato whispers.

“They threw me out once. Before I even got the chance to order!!”

“...You were hitting on the cashier.”

“Gasp!” Ryoji stage-whispers—like, literally, the word ‘gasp.’ “I was just being friendly! I’m a very friendly person!”

“Uh huh.”

“And her eyes really did make me think of sapphires!”

“I bet.”

“And the curve of her neck really was—”

“Yeah, I think I’ve got it.” There’s friendly, and then there’s shameless. Or the Mochizuki Special of C, all of the above. “I can’t believe we’re robbing them just ‘cause they don’t allow sexual harassment.”

“Sexual—!!” Ryoji gasps, clutching his pearls. “Minato-kun! You insult me! There was nothing sexual about it!”

“Uh huh.” Minato juts his chin at the store window. “So, we doing this?”

“It’s your bucket list,” Ryoji says loftily.

“What if they don’t have insurance?”

“Then they’ll have a nice cross-breeze for about…” Ryoji checks his watch. “23 hours before I end the world.”

“When the world doesn’t end, you're paying for the repairs.”

“I can live with that.”

(They don’t even make it inside. The shatter of glass is the loudest sound Minato’s ever heard. You could probably hear it from space. Barely a second’s gone by before a pair of footsteps come pounding up the stairs. The time-signature is fast, forceful. The percussion of rising panic.

“Oh my god,” Minato mutters, “if I can’t save the world because you got me arrested—”

Ryoji grabs his hand. “Then we better run fast!!”)

The cops in this town were all drafted from the Kirijo Group’s personal security, but Minato can juke past the Grim Reaper. Some guy with a nightstick and a blue hat never stood a chance. By the time the footsteps reach the scene of the crime, Minato’s already hauled himself up the drainpipe and onto the roof. An eyeblink later, a monster the size of an SUV alights weightlessly beside him.

“Quick!” Ryoji giggles, clutching at Minato’s collar. “If we make out, he won’t see our faces!”

“Genius. You’re a criminal mastermind.”

“And so handsome, too!”

“Shh. He’s gonna hear us.” Minato waits until the footsteps have receded down the stairs before shouldering Ryoji. “Hey. If you're Death, why do you act like that?”

“Like what?” Ryoji asks innocently. “Fun? Delightful? Incredibly, heart-winningly charming?”

Minato nods.

Ryoji’s whole face lights up. “Aw, Mina-kun! You do care!”

“You’re dodging the question.”

“Only because it’s obvious! Obviously it’s because I'm Death.” In the face of Minato’s blank stare, Ryoji shrugs helplessly. “Maybe I didn't understand the question?”

Minato shrugs it off. Translation issue, maybe. Or a cultural difference. Ryoji’s only been Ryoji for a couple of months. He’s been Death since the dawn of time. Anyway, it doesn’t really matter why he is the way he is. Minato likes what he is now.

“Say it out loud,” Ryoji whispers.

Minato blinks. Ryoji’s leaned in close, barely an eyelash away. “What?”

“I can see you thinking. But I can’t hear it anymore.”

Oh. “Good.”

“It’s not good!!” Ryoji huffs. “It’s mean!!”

“It’s not mean.”

“And it’s lonely!!!”

“Everyone’s lonely,” Minato reminds him. That’s just how it is to be human.

“Yes,” Ryoji says softly. “Yes, I suppose that’s why you called for me, isn’t it? You’re all so alone. You’re born alone, you die alone… All alone inside yourselves, from start to finish.”

“There’s a whole middle, though.”

Ryoji looks up in surprise. His gaze is bright and curious. He knows how Minato thinks, but he doesn’t know what Minato’s thinking. Not anymore.

“After the start,” Minato explains. “And. Before the end. Sometimes you don’t have to be alone.”

Those hellfire eyes widen, then crinkle. “I really love you, you know?”

Minato nods. He knows.

“I… um.” A shadow falls over Ryoji’s face. “I… really don’t want to kill you. You know? I know I don't have a choice, I just. I guess I just… I hope there’s not enough of me left to see it.”

“That’s not what I want.”

Ryoji quirks an eyebrow. “Oh?”

“If we were gonna die up there,” Minato clarifies. “Which we won’t. I’d want it to be you. I’d want you to do it.”

“Ohh…” Ryoji’s head tilts dreamily. “Then maybe it will be. I do so love doing what you want.”

“So do it.”

Death’s eyes burn as he leans in closer. (Ryoji always knows what Minato wants.)

* * *

THE END OF THE WORLD

Tartarus is always a nightmare. But this isn’t just a nightmare. It’s what happens when the nightmare stops. When you wake up sweating, gasping, clutching at your sheets with shaking hands, only to open your eyes and see that the nightmare didn’t dissolve, it evolved. It followed the stink of your fear all the way into the waking world and now it’s hunched at the foot of your bed, slavering, hungry. It’s as real as you, or even real-er. The nightmare didn’t end. And now it’s going to end you.

It’s the end of the world.

Shadows squirm out of the corners. They chitter in the cobwebs, the cracks in the floor. There are dozens, hundreds, thousands of them, swarming over an army of unpaid teenagers who definitely didn’t get enough sleep for this. (Who’d’ve guessed that the imminent apocalypse might screw with your circadian rhythm?)

“Thanatos!” Minato calls hoarsely, as a Maya drags itself toward him, and—

—nothing happens.

“Thanatos,” he says again, more desperate. “Thanatos. Ryoji!!”

“Mother?” Ryoji says dreamily.

“Uh,” Minato mumbles (while, in the background, Junpei pisses himself laughing). “No.”

“Oh,” Ryoji sighs, more breath than sound. “Oh, I see. Sorry, Mina-kun. I’m… not all here.”

“Gonna need you to fix that,” Minato grates out.

“R-Right!” A beat out of step, Thanatos rounds on the swarm and draws his blade. “Mudoon!!”

* *

* * *

* *

To be honest, Jin isn’t all that jazzed about this ‘end of the world’ thing.

Sure, humanity is rotten. Sure, living is ugly and grim, and pointless, and embarrassing, and the whole world is puppeteered by a bunch of snotty hypocrites too self-righteous to get their hands dirty. But mostly it’s just boring. School or work, Tokyo or Osaka or the Kirijo Group’s multi-billion-yen sandbox, it’s all the same old bullshit. A bunch of mindless automatons falling into the same boring roles, rattling off the same boring lines, marching to the same boring tune. Too busy licking someone else’s boot to notice that their tongue tastes like shit. A lot of glassy-eyed hypocrites acting like they’re god’s gift to humanity just for doing what they’re told. Boring.

Takaya, though. Takaya is never boring.

Speaking of:

“Rouse yourself, Jin,” Takaya says, stretching langurously. In the corner of his eye, Jin can see pale skin slide over the jut of bone. Takaya never wears a shirt, because why would he? Just because someone told someone told someone that they were supposed to, and no one ever stopped to ask why?

Jin doesn’t look up. He’s almost cleared this level, and he’s actually sort of into this game. (Videogames put you on rails, too, but at least they’re honest about it. At least they don’t act like you’re some kind of saint just for coloring inside the lines.) “Let me get to a save point.”

“Jin.”

“What?”

“We have company.”

…Ugh. 

Unfortunately, Jin can’t say no to Takaya. Not because he’s some mindless flunky, like everyone else. Just because doing what Takaya wants is never boring.

Takaya was right, of course. It’s those damn kids again. Who else? Honestly, the Kirijo Group is next-level pathetic. They couldn’t control an adult with the power of Persona, so they decided to brainwash a bunch of grade schoolers and a baby? And an actual, literal automaton? And a fucking dog? What is this, obedience school?

They’ve got another new kid with them, this time around. But he’s—(Jin blinks a few times)—sort of… weird? There’s something weird about him. It makes Jin feel like he’s wearing the wrong prescription, or bifocals or something. The edges of the kid are blurred out, sort of? Like there’s another image transposed over him, but with the transparency cranked way up. And his eyes are all wrong. Not empty metal, like the robot’s. But definitely not human, either. They glow. Sort of like when someone summons their Persona, except full-time.

Takaya prowls forward, smiles wide. “Well, look who it is. The Appriser Itself! And in the flesh, no less. I’m honored. Have you come to bring about the end of days?”

The weird kid nods cheerfully.

“Don’t say yes,” groans the leader, Arisato.

“But I have!” the weird kid huffs. “That’s why I’m here!!”

“You’re supposed to be here to help us.”

“I am! I’m helping you go faster so you can have more fun before I bring about the end of days!!”

Jin looks impatiently at the pause screen of his game and rolls his eyes. “Can we just get this over with?”

* *

* * *

* *

When the dust settles, Minato reaches back blindly, grasping for Ryoji’s shoulder. His hand finds cold steel.

“C’mon,” he says impatiently, “change back. You take up too much space like that.”

“Got it!” Ryoji says, whipping off a smart salute.

…Nothing happens.

“Ryoji.”

“I-I know!” Thanatos squeaks, patting anxiously at the angular jut of his armored jaw. “I know, I just, um. I think I can’t. Maybe there’s not enough of me left?”

“Or perhaps there is too much,” Aigis says coldly.

Minato darts an uneasy glance at the hallway, where another horde of shadows is already taking form. “Leave it for now. It’s fine. Let’s just keep moving.”

* * *

Death is hatching.

He can feel it—It, Her, Us, Them—Everything And Everyone and then No One Else Ever Again. He can feel himself changing, the ways that he’s already changed. He can see where it’s already happened. Already too late.

This manifestation is melting. Fluttering and scattering like snowflakes. It’s more Shadow, less steel. Feelings fracturing, splintering. Movements stuttering, buffering. He can sense emotions but it's like they're happening to someone else, like something written down that he's reading. There’s less and less of him here, now; more and more of him… somewhere… else.

Sometimes he isn’t sure where he is, if he’s in an ambush or a Monad passage or floating high over a rooftop, shrouded in darkness, eclipsing the moon. The moon huge and round like something ready to hatch. His mother, the moon, Mother Nyx, his other self, his entire self—his calling, his birthright, his purpose—a mercy, it’s a mercy, it’s what everyone wants, everyone except—

“Ryoji!” Minato says sharply. He reaches out to grab Death’s wrist, but his hand passes clean through.

“S-Sorry!” Thanatos laughs, with someone else’s mouth. “I’m not all here, haha!! Got my head in the clouds!! Haha!!! Don’t mind me!!!!!”

The human frowns, but doesn’t argue.

The human is very pushy. Very demanding. He gives orders and playing cards and convenience store snacks and he takes and takes and takes. He says, Cast magic! Swing your sword! Save each other! Save my world! Save me, save me, save me!

“Thanatos!” he calls, and Thanatos hefts his sword.

“Thanatos!” he calls, and Thanatos heaves a sigh and does his bidding.

“Thanatos!” he calls, and Thanatos steps forward to answer, but… what would be the point? Now or later, here or ten floors higher, the humans are going to die. It’s their birthright, the role they were born to play. Why make such a fuss over the timing?

At least now, they aren’t expecting it. They aren’t tensed up, flinching for the hit. Anticipation is the worst part, after all. Dying now would spare them so much fear. So much suffering. No room for dissolution or for dread. No room for bickering or grief, or misunderstanding, or rejection, or… weird takoyaki…

Ryoji rocks back on his heels, catapults out of range as Minato finishes off the cyclops. “Minato,” he says desperately, “execute me now.”

“Wh-What?”

“Fuse me right now!! You have to!!”

“A sound proposition,” the Anti-Shadow Suppression Weapon puts in. She was always the most practical among them. It's one of her gifts—the burden of those denied the mercy of mortality.

“Wh— No!” Minato sputters. “Why? No!!”

“It’s too dangerous!” Ryoji says desperately, “I’m too dangerous! What use is a Persona that doesn’t obey? This high in the Tower, so close to the End… It’s a risk that you cannot afford!”

Minato’s eyes narrow. “Ryoji. Come on. We’re moving out.”

“No.”

“Wh— Come on!”

“No!”

“Thanatos,” Minato hisses. “I am ordering you to—”

“No,” Thanatos says flatly. “I don’t have to obey you anymore, Mina-kun. I’m not yours. Not up here.” It hurts to say it, a half-remembered ache from a life he pretended to live, but it’s for the human’s own good. “I’m hers as much as yours. More. And the higher you climb, the more hers I’ll be.” Usually Minato’s so reserved but here and now his eyes are wild, his face an open wound. “I’ll forget you. I’m already forgetting you. I’ll kill you, Minato-kun. That’s a promise, haha! Hahaha!!! Here or higher, now or later, I will kill you. So kill this form before it gets the chance.”

Minato swallows. “I’m not afraid of you.”

“Yes you are,” Thanatos breathes. “I can taste your fear but don’t worry, Minato-kun, I can make it stop if you just step a little closer. If you press your throat against my blade I can make it so quick, Mina-kun, I can make the fear stop forever. For good.”

“I c-can’t— I won’t.”

(“I can,” the Shadow Suppression Weapon volunteers. “And will.”

The human Yukari elbows its steel chassis hard enough to bruise her elbow.)

“Ryoji—”

“—is gone,” Thanatos says firmly. “I killed him. Avenge his death, if you like.” Humans love avenging death with death, for some reason. It never made any sense to Thanatos. Why give such a gift to someone you hate? “It’s easy. All you have to do is kill me.”

For once in his life, Minato looks hesitant. “But I don’t… Th-That isn’t what I…”

“Death is an end,” Thanatos tells him. “But it is not my end. Kill this vessel and survive long enough to die by my hand. Or spare it and die here, in a squirm of lesser Shadows. The choice is your own.”

“We’re not dying,” Minato says coldly.

For the first time in its endless existence, Thanatos laughs.

“Something funny?” the human demands.

“Yes.” Humans are always dying. Humans are born to die. They are born and they kill and they die and die and die.

The leader of the human resistance bares his teeth. “We’ll see who gets the last laugh.”

“It will be you.” When the human looks surprised, Thanatos clarifies, “Death does not laugh.”

“Agree to disagree,” Minato says drily, and executes him.

Chapter Text

The culmination of the Judgment Arcana hangs dolefully overhead, gazing down at the party with clouded, sightless eyes.

Junpei’s the one who blurts it out. “Dude. It looks like you.”

Ken winces. “It does sort of look like you…”

“It literally looks exactly like you!!” Yukari screeches. “It’s kinda creepy… ew, ew, it just looked at me, did you see that? Oh my god, this is way too weird. Why does it look like you???”

Minato has no idea why it looks like him. None of his other Personas look like him. Not even Orpheus looks like him.

Mitsuru-senpai purses her lips thoughtfully. “A Persona reflects the psyche of its wielder…”

“Oh my god,” Yukari cackles. “So this is, what, some kind of martyr complex or something? Like you think of yourself as a—”

“I do not,” Minato says firmly. “Think of myself. As a Messiah.”

“I dunno, dude,” Junpei snickers. “It kinda looks like you do.”

“Can everyone lay off?” Minato snaps. “We’re about to go kill my boyfriend, so can we just—cut me some slack? About the stupid Persona? Which is probably going to save all your asses up there?”

That shuts them up.

Maybe Minato should feel bad about that. About making them feel guilty, when they’ve already lost so much. Unfortunately for everyone involved, it doesn’t seem possible for Minato to feel any worse than he already does.

“Sorry,” Junpei mumbles.

“Um… yeah,” Yukari says quietly. “Sorry.”

Okay, so maybe he feels a little bad. “It’s whatever,” he mutters. “Let’s just save the world already.”

* * *

For a normal person, this would be the hardest part. Climbing staircase after staircase to fight the one you love the most. Sealing your emotions, turning your chest to stone. Becoming numb.

But this is Minato’s strong suit. It’s his trump card, his first and only suit of armor. Minato’s go-to coping tool has always been to put his heart on ice.

A shard of him is missing. He knows that. It’s the best part of him, the only good that was ever inside him. He knows that, too. Everything in him that reached for the light, that harmonized in major keys… it’s gone now. It’s all gone.

And now it wants to take away everything else. For everyone. For good.

The funny thing is, Minato doesn’t care. He wouldn’t, anyway; not if he was just speaking for him. If someone said, Just give up, actually! And then you’ll never lose anyone again! Minato would say, Cool. Sounds great. Sign me up.

But that’s not what’s happening. Even if it’s what Minato wants—right now, anyway; he’s pretty sure he didn’t feel this way last week—it’s not what Junpei wants, or Yukari. It’s not what’s right for Mitsuru or Akihiko or Fuuka or Ken. And it’s not what Ryoji would want.

So Minato keeps climbing stairs.

* * *

It’s the end of the world.

The air tastes like metal. The sky shines swollen, putrescent. Moonlight bruised purple-black. Wind heavy-sweet with rot.

Miles underfoot, the soil twitches. The earth squirms like a worm pinched between two fingers, or pouring water on an anthill. Clouds like bread mold. Dirt like dust mites. And the moon, the stars, they’re gone.

By now, SEES has climbed higher than the stars. It should feel cold, so high up. Shouldn’t it? Bitter, abyssal cold. Aigis should feel ice crystallizing on her chassis, frost kissing her fingers. But the atmosphere is stagnant. Dead.

She knows that it is far from over. And that her fate is long since sealed. She always knew, from the moment she agreed to the impossible terms of her humans’ unwinnable game. She does not believe that her allies will win.

But she intends to go down swinging.

* * *

Miles above the dying world, Nyx descends upon humanity’s last stand.

She has come to save these mortals from themselves. Humanity called, and She will answer. The clamoring throng atop the Tower of Demise… they are an anomaly. Nine little instigators, smaller than dust. Sub-human. Like a virus.

This world begged Her to return. It begged and it pleaded and wailed. It whimpered, Save me! Set me free! Save me from hurt, from loss, from heartbreak! Save me, save me, save me!

The humans on the roof do not beg. And in doing so, they war with Life itself. These nine would condemn their kin to suffer and suffer and die, over and over again. Forever, for always. To blame themselves, and each other. To hurt each other, and themselves.

Nyx does not resent them. She cannot. Resentment is of the living.

They are tenacious, these nine. But Nyx exists outside of time. Against the endless expanse of the infinite, these nine do not exist. In the grand scheme, they have never been born, and are already dead.

They are nothing. Less than nothing. They stir nothing within her.

It is not as though She has forgotten. Nyx has no memory—She cannot forget. Nyx remembers the Harbinger, just as She remembers all that has happened, happens, will happen. That little steward, sent to herald Her return. She remembers the motes of emotion that it played at feeling. A paper doll on a paper stage, playing at being a real boy. But no boy is real. It is the stage that deceives.

Nyx has heard the same story time and time again. Over and over, Life tells stories of meaning, of purpose. A song that sings, If only you could see a little further, you would see the larger picture. If you only understood, you would understand that all of this—every fragment, every shard—is a stitch in a larger fabric. Nothing was for nothing. Everything made sense. All that you suffered, all that you lost, it wasn’t random. It mattered. You mattered. You were brought here for a reason.

But reason is just another story. Smoke and mirrors, light and life… this song is sung by everything that dies. Always the same. It shines and it shatters. It sparks and it breaks.

Sometimes Nyx wonders how it might feel if Life’s children learned to be a little more creative. But She does not wish. Wishing is for the living.

* * *

“You can’t do this!” one of the dust-motes scrapes out. The ruined skin of his knuckles has all but worn away, baring meat and bloody bone. “We won’t let you take one more step. This ends here!”

“Yes,” Nyx agrees.

“You think you’re doing what we want?” another shrills. Another mortal. Insignificant. “We don’t want this! We want to live!!!”

“You Do Not,” Nyx informs it, and flicks it away.

“How could you,” one of them whispers. A pained voice, thin and choking. Nyx tries to focus on the speaker. Red and silver, steel and ash. “Do you hate us so much??”

“I Do Not.” How could Nyx hate Life? Nyx is in love with Life. She always was. Life is so precious, so… desperate. And so hungry, hungry, hungry. Without Death to soothe her, Life would destroy herself. She would burn high and hot and then she would burn out. Until there was nothing. Not even hunger. Not even Death.

The bacterium raises its needle-blade. Nyx wipes it away.

A ragged sob shudders from the petri dish before Her. “Senpai!!! S-Senpai, please get up, p-please, I h-haven’t even— We never even— Senpai, please…” Another choking gasp, bitter with salt. “Can’t you just leave us alone???”

“I Will Not.” Troublesome as these mortals are, Death will not abandon them. She could never be so cruel.

The insect might have answered. Nyx does not hear. That little voice is not even a fraction of a fragment of Life. It is a cell of a larger whole. Born to suffer. She gestures and it is gone.

“Takeba!!!!!!” Another scream. More pointless whining. Life’s children are so very needy. “T-Takeba-san, can you hear me? Just, j-just look at me, okay? Just keep your eyes on me. It’s going to be—”

But Nyx already knows what it is going to be. It’s going to be about eleven minutes. And then it won’t be anything at all.

Life’s rebel children are willful, but will is nothing to The End.

Soon they have all but fallen. All but one.

“Ryoj—” the dust-speck starts to say, then stops. “Nyx.”

“Yes.”

“You think you’re here to save us. But we don’t need saving. Not from ourselves.”

There’s a screeching grind of metal. Her immense awareness tilting, like the turn of the earth.

“People always suffer,” the dust-mote says. Blue-furred. Insignificant. “They always have. That’s nothing new.”

“Yes.”

“So what changed? Why now?”

“I Was Called.”

“By Ryoji.” It isn’t a question.

“My Herald Heard Your Call,” Nyx concedes. The Appriser held only the smallest, barest flicker of Her awareness. Only enough to watch, and to listen. To press Her ear against the wailing of Life’s children. To beg Her for relief.

“Sure. But why did he call you?”

“Because It Is Time.”

“Come on,” the mortal says, impatient, and Nyx becomes aware of the faintest spark of what might be called surprise. “Think about it. If you reflect what people want, then you must want this, too. Even if it’s only a reflection. So why do you want this?”

“...I Am Needed.”

“By who?”

Isn’t it obvious? “Life.”

“What about it,” the dust-mote scrapes out.

“She Missed Me. Needs Me.”

The blue-hair huffs a breath that spatters the roof with red. More blood than air. “Be more specific.”

Nyx considers the creature. It has put up a fierce fight. Injured Her vessel. Perhaps it has earned an answer before Her final gift.

“You Are A Song,” Nyx says at last. “She is the Symphony.”

“She?”

“Life.”

“Ohh,” the dust-mote whispers. “Huh. Okay.”

Nyx is no longer listening. She cares not what Life’s children think. She is here for Life. Life, a concept all Her own. Life, who is color: unreal, illusory. Light shone through glass.

Life, who is fabric: countless threads in an intricate tapestry. One slice and the image unravels.

Life, who is . . . music. Life is music. Life is rising chords, ringing, singing, folding and unfolding until they’ve become something new. Life is harmony, intersecting melody; Life is a song. Every life is a song.

“Do you get it yet?” the blue-haired dust-speck says, with the faintest note of challenge. It is infinitesimal. Smaller than dust, less solid than smoke. “Come on, Ryoji, you never used to be this slow. You’re the one who had to tutor me, remember? All this abstract stuff, you’re the one who gets it.”

Nyx does not answer.

“Oh, fuck off.” The mortal yanks one metal disc off of its ear. A sonic amplifier. One half of a pair. “You go on and on about hearing us call, so why don’t you listen?”

“I Care Not For Y—”

"I don’t want to hurt you, either," the Fool cuts in. "Neither of us wanted this. But you asked. So if it has to be like this, then… let me do it how you wanted. Let me let you decide how it ends.”

“The Arcana Is The Means By Which All Will Be Decided,” Nyx says coldly.

“Sure,” the mortal snorts. “That just means you can’t load the dice, though. We all have to see how it goes.”

(Nyx was right. She always is. The Arcana is the means by which all will be decided.

How could She have known that the humans would stack the deck?)

The Fool gathers around him the power of his Universe. The will of a dying world, clutched between shaking hands and pressed into a blade. A living weapon, glittering, electric. Too alive to disappear. Just alive enough to die. Or to kill.

Nyx does not grieve Her defeat. She cannot. Yet when The Universe drives his soul into her throbbing heart, She feels something both foreign and familiar. A thread of… relief.

Oh, good, says no one, from nowhere at all. I really didn’t think that you could do it, you know? But I hoped. I really, really hoped it would be you.

* * *

When Nyx’s vessel falls, everything she was dies with her. The End of the World, humanity’s doom, the intractable call of the void, and (last but never, ever least): the mask of death, harbinger supreme, Gekkoukan second-year & two-month-old high-school drop-out, Mochizuki Ryoji. Which makes this the third time that Ryoji’s died. Pretty good for a guy who technically never lived!

Fortunately, death doesn’t present much of a threat for Ryoji. It’s just another job. Not a popular gig, admittedly. But it’s a living.

* * *

Ryoji wasn’t expecting to stick around. The dead generally don’t, much less the thrice-dead. But Ryoji’s never been very good at doing what’s expected.

It’s a gift, maybe. Nyx’s first and last. Just a little more time outside of time.

* * *

Before long, Ryoji bumps into an old friend. Minato was always weirdly good at making friends, so Ryoji was, too. Though it was weirder, when it was Minato. (Ryoji is actually nice to people.)

Minato is… not nice. But in a way that people like? Like he’d never say something nice just to please you, so you never have to wonder if he’s just indulging you. Minato is compliant, but he’s not complacent. He goes where you want him, but when he gets there, you get the sense that it’s exactly where he meant to be.

“Am I truly to spend the rest of my eternity listening to you talk about my guest?” Elizabeth asks mournfully. “Do not misunderstand, I do so love my guest. Such a soothing presence, and always so informative! But in the third person? Relayed through another person—a non-person, I might add! Objectively, the end of every person!—well, it’s simply not stimulating.”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Ryoji says, crestfallen. “I didn’t mean to bore you.”

“I should hope not. Now be silent! We’re about to get to the good part.”

Elizabeth has a strange idea of what ‘the good part’ entails. She has very little interest in Minato’s feats in track and field, or the medals of academic achievement that he very grudgingly accepts. But she watches with unblinking focus when he deliberates between two different packets of ramen at the conbini.

Ryoji watches Elizabeth watch Minato make change, swipe his train pass, and fumble with the electric kettle for at least two hours before nudging her curiously. “So what is it that interests you about—”

“Shh!!”

“Ma’am yes ma’am,” he snickers, and shuts up.

* * *

A slow, idle month trundles by before Ryoji bumps into another old friend. Though it might be more accurate to say that an old friend bumps into him. Fist-first.

“O-Oh!” he greets her, taken aback. “You can see me?”

“Yes,” the Anti-Shadow Suppression Weapon says grimly.

“You… know me?”

Her face darkens. (She’s grown so expressive in just a few weeks!) “Yes.”

“And you remember!”

“I do,” she says. “Only I do. My comrades, my… friends. They do not know me.”

…Ah.

Aigis grabs a fistful of his collar and yanks. Ryoji finds himself faintly surprised to see that she can touch him. He’d sort of assumed that he wasn’t corporeal.

“Why,” she hisses, “do they not know me.”

Ryoji makes his face look as thoughtful as anyone can while scruffed like a kitten. “Just to be clear—because I don’t want to get the wrong idea, you see—is this, ah… Are we, maybe, flirting?”

Aigis throws him across the roof.

“That’s not an answer,” Ryoji points out, wiping phantom blood from his (apparently all-too-corporeal) knees. Human courtship is, after all, really very complicated.

Aigis charges her missile-launcher and aims. She won’t fire. She’s standing on top of a school full of mostly-innocent teenagers. Still, it gets the point across. “Why. Do. They. Not. Know. Me.”

“Sorry, sorry!” he says hastily, scrambling to his feet. “I was just being silly. I knew we weren’t really flirting.”

Aigis stares at him, implacable as a steel wall. Or an android designed to kill death.

“A-hem. I, ah. I don’t…” Ryoji musters a sheepish grin. “It… seems like they forgot a lot, huh?”

The android’s eyes narrow. She emotes with her face a lot more than she used to. It’s nice. Makes her look more alive. “This was your doing.”

“N-No way!” he yelps, “I’m dead! The dead don’t have any doing! We don’t do anything at all!”

Aigis does not look convinced.

“Okayyyy, okay. I could take a guess, okay?” By now, he’s had enough time for it. “I guess it’s like… it’s what I said would happen when he killed me. If, I mean. What was supposed to happen, if he’d done it the first time I asked. And now he did.” He holds her gaze for a moment, makes sure she knows he means it. “The Dark Hour is gone. Unwritten. And so everything that belonged to the Dark Hour—Shadows, Personas, your after-school activites, those cool jackets you all wore—they’re gone, too.”

“And Shadow-Suppression Weapons,” Aigis says flatly. “They are gone too.”

Ryoji winces. “I, uh. I don’t know. Maybe? But, I mean… after everything… that’s not all you are. You know?”

Aigis doesn’t react. Her entire face has gone still, the way it always used to look. Somehow, it doesn’t make her look any less human.

“You exist,” Ryoji reminds her. Because he was made from Minato, he doesn’t need to tell her how jealous that makes him feel. “You’re alive, still. The things you lost… you can still get them back. Rebuild them from scratch, if you have to. There’s still time. So don’t waste it, okay?”

“I do not take orders from you,” Aigis says, but the words ring hollow.

“This isn’t an order. It’s, haha, it’s my last will and testament! Haha! My dying wish, just a little too late. I’m not telling you, I’m asking you to…” When he closes his eyes, he can see that flat glare, that dry smirk. Quick hands that turned his pulse into percussion. Eyes that saw through him without judgment, without flinching away. Not a hero, not some perfect world-saving champion. Minato. Just Minato. “Just—um. Just take care of him, okay?”

“I would do so regardless,” she says. “But your request has been registered.”

* * *

The next day, Aigis stomps into homeroom like an oncoming storm. She looms over Minato’s desk with all the ominous gravitas of a moon crashing out of orbit.

“Arisato-san,” she announces. “I am a transfer student unused to this geographic region.” In the background, someone snickers. But Minato doesn’t. He stares up at her with something approaching fascination. “I require data on Tatsumi Port Island’s ‘music scene.’ Please direct me to the nearest CD shop at your soonest convenience.”

Half a millimeter and a plane of existence away, Ryoji grins until his non-corporeal cheeks give off a post-mortem impression of a muscle ache. He can entrust Minato to Aigis. Of course he can trust Aigis. Everything is going to be okay, until it isn’t.

Until it isn’t, everything will be okay.

* * *

Ryoji assumes that he’ll never hear from Aigis again. But she’s not as predictable as she used to be. She’s too human, now, to live without changing.

Not that he’s growing on her, or anything! No matter how many days go by, Aigis looks his way with cold, impassionate distaste. But she does look at him. So maybe his company is slightly less horrible than the absolute solitude of her memories. The burden of loving a family that reality forgot.

…Ooorrrr maybe she just likes Elizabeth. Ryoji could understand that. Elizabeth is very likable.

So the two become three, sitting vigil for a life that arguably, technically never happened.

Some days they sit on the roof of Gekkoukan, watching Minato run slow, lazy circles around the track. Or they loiter on the steps to Mandragora, unseen by the gaggle of second-years bounding up the stairs. Yukari doesn’t remember saving the world, but she never forgets to text Fuuka before dragging her friends to the mall. Junpei doesn’t remember fusing Chidori’s arch, somewhat scathing affection to a shard of his soul—but some days he loiters in front of the train station for hours, circling the crowd like he’s looking for something he lost. And Akihiko visits the hospital every week. He can’t understand why Shinji would get mixed up with such a bad crowd. Didn’t he know what might happen? Why would he be so careless with his life?

Today, the time-stuck trio is hanging out by Iwatodai, slipping treats to Koromaru. The dog looks a little confused by the scraps of curry bread materializing in the empty air above him, but not confused enough to turn them down.

“It’s Yukari,” Ryoji says confidently. “They’ve got great chemistry. And a lot in common! If he asks anyone out for Valentine’s Day, it’s going to be her.” He flicks another crust to Koromaru, who snaps it right out of the air.

“Ridiculous!” Elizabeth huffs. “My client would never!”

“What!!” Ryoji laughs. “Why not Yukari!?”

“I believe the better question is, why Yukari! Why would my client entangle himself with the Lovers—a healing type, I might add!—when the Chariot is far more fleet of foot?”

That one takes him a second. “The— You mean Kazushi??”

“His physical fitness makes him far-and-above the most viable mate,” Elizabeth says snootily. “Recurring injuries notwithstanding. At his age, it’s likely a matter of overuse.”

“Kaz-kun didn’t even get him chocolates!!!”

“Then perhaps my client ought to take the initiative!” At the look on Ryoji’s face, she flaps a hand dismissively. “I’ll concede that it’s not his strong suit.”

“Kirijo-senpai, then,” Ryoji suggests. “She’s crazy viable. Have you seen her spar? It’s poetry in motion, truly!”

“The Empress cannot even eat a human hamburger.”

“Then Hiraga-kun. He’s like a cute little hamster! But with a sly sort of charm, like he knows just what he’s doing…”

“Hah! The Chariot can run at least three times faster than that flimsy Fortune!”

“Yukari does archery,” Ryoji sulks. “Her arrows are a hundred times faster than some high school athlete.”

“The Lovers gave my client friend-chocolate. She specified that quite clearly. But the cake she baked the Empress was made by hand.”

“Aw,” Ryoji gasps, one hand flying to his chest. “Aw!! Is that true??”

Elizabeth lifts her chin proudly. “Would you question the voice of fate itself? The very mouthpiece of space and time?”

“Oh, yeah, definitely. But not about this!”

Hairline cracks form in the concrete as Aigis leans between them. “I have a question.”

“Yes?” Elizabeth says.

Ryoji looks up, grinning. “What’s up, Ai-chan?”

“My question is: What is the function of ‘Valentine’s Day?’”

“They didn’t put that in your database?” Ryoji asks, crestfallen. “Ai-chan!!” (“Aigis-san,” Aigis says firmly.) “You’ve been deprived!!! Come on, let me take you out, huh? Come have dinner with me, and I can show you all kinds of functions.”

“I would prefer to be instructed by Elizabeth,” Aigis says primly. But when Ryoji pulls the girls to their feet—okay, so maybe Aigis does most of the work; Ryoji’s a ghost, not a power-lifter—Aigis brushes the dust from her chassis and allows herself to be led.

(In the second floor of Iwatodai Dormitory, Minato flips through his spoils with a frown. There are cookies from Fuuka, a dented box of pocky from Yukari, Castella from Yuko, even a way-too-fancy box of sponge cake from Kirijo that must cost more than he’s earned all year. He’s gone through it twice already, and he knows he didn’t drop anything. But something’s missing. He’s sure of it. Why is he so sure that something’s missing?)

* * *

When Minato invites Aigis to go check out the cherry blossoms, no one’s more thrilled than Ryoji. He insists on dragging the whole trio to Paulonia to pick out an outfit, on the grounds that ‘the pre-date is just as important!!!’

An hour later, Aigis is staring blankly at the department store mirror.

“This impractical attire,” she says, tugging gently at the lace collar. “This is part of ‘dating culture?’”

“Impractical—!!!” Ryoji gasps. Men aren’t usually allowed into the women’s changing room, but that’s because most men are alive. Ghosts aren’t bound by social mores, except for the fun ones. (Date prep is definitely one of the fun ones.)

“Very much so!” Elizabeth announces, each word ringing with baseless self-assurance. “Heterosexual courtship rituals rely heavily on each party’s adherence to outdated social roles! So in cases like yours, in which the ‘woman’ is stronger than the ‘man,’ it helps to shorten your gait and hinder your strength. Think of it as a handicap!”

“You don’t have to shorten your gait,” Ryoji snickers. “Or hinder your strength. But you do look really cute. I think that’s the main thing, is looking really cute.”

Aigis looks dubiously at the frilled hems of her sleek, A-line dress. “In combat, such delicate material would be shredded in an instant.”

“Yeah,” Ryoji says, nodding solemnly. “I think that’s probably part of it.”

(When Minato meets up with Aigis—a weird foreign name for a weird foreign girl, but he does feel oddly at ease in her company—he’d swear that she was talking to someone. But the second she meets his gaze, he’s just as sure that she was alone. Like a scene from a movie, where you lock eyes and suddenly you’re the only two people in the world.

But it doesn’t feel like in the movies. It feels like a blow to the gut. Like stumbling into a funeral and looking into the open casket only to recognize the body inside. Like it used to belong to someone… important.

Minato has a nice time with Aigis. But the feeling never goes away. He can’t stop feeling like he’s at someone’s funeral’s. But whose funeral is it? His parents? His sister’s?

…His own?)

* * *

Ryoji has been testing the limits of his corporeality. His not-so-physical not-quite-existence.

He’s grabbable, clearly. That much is inarguable, courtesy of Aigis’s very grab-first, ask-questions-later approach to reunions. But he doesn’t seem to be visible, at least not to normal humans. He has substance, but no presence. Like a body with no face.

He can affect things. He can break a dish, knock things over. Plug in a phone charger that’s slipped out of the circuit. (The last of which he does a lot. Minato has many virtues, but is uniquely disinterested in the charge on his phone.) Ryoji can hold dog treats, door handles. Robot hands. Several dozen clothing hangers laden with several dozen date outfits.

He can even work with people, somewhat. He can’t hold a stranger’s focus for long enough to clear an interview, but he can work jobs whose customers never really see the guy making their change. He can linger behind a counter and slide into place when the alive employees need a smoke. So long as he sticks to the script, no one seems to notice that he’s not wearing a uniform. Or that, at some angles, the light shines straight through him.

That’s what he’s doing one sunny Sunday when Junpei and Minato turn up to buy tickets for a movie.

“Two for Fight-Puncher!” Junpei says cheerfully, rapping his wallet on the counter. “Hey, you got any student discounts?”

Ryoji swallows and looks up.

A few feet back, Minato’s idling in Junpei’s shadow with both hands shoved in his pockets, both headphones blocking out the world. You wouldn’t know it, seeing him—especially since you’ve got to call his name at least six times before he looks up—but Minato has really sensitive hearing. Annnd probably an auditory processing disorder. When he stands in a crowd, all the chatter bleeds together into one endless, intractable wall of sound, like a concert-hall sound system blasting TV static. The words lose their edges. Consonants sanded down until the world is only thunder. ‘Sound and fury, signifying nothing.’ That’s a quote from someone, Ryoji thinks. But Minato never remembered that sort of thing, so Ryoji doesn’t either.

It served him well in combat, back when the world was different. It was one of his strengths. You’d hear the slorp and cl-cl-click of sludgelike pseudopods sliding over stone and Minato would know exactly where to look. He’d know how many were coming; how big they were, how slow or fast or strong. But the real world is so loud! There’s so much noise, so many voices from so many directions, all talking over each other. This bray of laughter, that scandalized squeal, the thump of feet and the clatter of the rail cars, the whole living world fighting to be heard—

It was too much. It was always too much.

Music, though. Music was different. Organized. A dozen different elements working in concert with each other, becoming something larger. Two becoming one. Separate and whole.

“Hey, uh, buddy?” Junpei says. “You sold out or something? For Fight-Puncher?”

“Oh! Yes! I mean, no, we’re not sold out. And—” There aren’t actually any student discounts, but what’s the manager going to do, fire him? She’d have to see him first. “A-And we are doing a promotion right now, yes! Congratulations! Haha! You’re our hundredth customer today! You both get a free drink with purchase of any movie ticket. And a large popcorn,” Ryoji adds, because Minato always wants to get popcorn and never wants to pay for it. “On the house! Pretty lucky, eh?”

“Woah, for real?” Junpei’s grin is just as affable and even-keeled as ever. It makes Ryoji’s heart swell. (Which is saying something, because he’s pretty sure he doesn’t actually have a heart.) “Hey, that’s awesome! Thanks, man! You hear that, Minato? We’re the lucky winners!”

No answer.

“Haha, sorry about him,” Junpei tells Ryoji, rolling his eyes. “He’s just like that.”

“Yeah,” Ryoji says dreamily. “Totally.”

Ryoji isn’t stupid. He doesn’t try to talk to Minato. Even if he did, nothing would come of it. Aigis already proved that. The rest of SEES remembers nothing. But even so, when Minato reaches for his “free” (read: stolen) popcorn, Ryoji lets their fingers brush. How could he do anything else? Ryoji’s a ghost, not a saint.

(Minato doesn’t care about this stupid franchise. It’s splashy, brainless, violent. And loud. It’s way, way, way too loud. He only let himself get dragged along so Junpei would stop bugging him.

He didn’t want to see this movie. He’s not even a little bit excited.

…So why are his hands shaking?)

* * *

The months pass like minutes. Ryoji’s kept busy, for a dead man. Gossiping with Elizabeth, bantering with Aigis, watching over the humans he loves… it feels like he could do this forever.

And then all at once, without fanfare, his time’s up.

The savior of humanity is resting on the rooftop. Aigis is there too. She’s studying Minato’s face with her usual expressionless expression, one hand nested in his hair. Logically, an android made of metal shouldn’t make a very comforting lap pillow. But, logically, Ryoji should be dead.

And here they are.

Minato looks so comfortable in Ai-chan’s lap. So peaceful. In the months since he and his friends fought fate and killed death, he’s grown more comfortable, more at ease in his skin. Like he could lie in the sun forever and never get tired, and never wake up.

Part of Thanatos wishes that things could always look like this. Like he could take this scene in his hands and hide it in his pocket, where no one would ever find it. He’d keep it safe from the scars of mortality, the corrosion of time. A single moment floating in formaldehyde. Love trapped in amber.

But no one can escape time. It delivers us all to the same end.

(There’s something missing, Minato thinks. A harmony, a… melody? The chord progression that will turn all this noise into music. Take a thousand different notes and make it a song.

But this is good. It’s already good.

He smiles at Aigis. He closes his eyes. It’s warm, he thinks.

And then the thinking… . . . stops.)

Minato opens his eyes.

He’s not alone. He’s surrounded by friends. And across the roof, wearing a smile so wide that it’s a miracle it hasn’t cracked his face in two, is the most familiar stranger he’s ever seen.

“Hey, Mina-kun,” Ryoji says. Still smiling, even as tears spill down his face. “I missed you.”

...Oh. “Yeah.”

“Yeah??” Ryoji laughs, too giddy to sound properly indignant. “That’s all you have to say, is yeah?”

“Yeah,” Minato says again, nodding. “I think me too.”

Through the curtain, Aigis sits up straight. She’s come so far in so little time! She’ll never be truly, vividly expressive, not like Yukari or Junpei are expressive—she doesn’t have the muscle fibers, the elasticity of tissue—but you can feel the grief boiling off of her.

“She’ll be okay,” Ryoji says softly. “She’s learned how to change.”

“I know,” Minato says. He sounds almost defensive. “I—I do know. Why didn’t I know…?”

“Magic?” Ryoji shrugs.

“Fuck off?”

“Hah!!!” the ghost of death squeaks, bouncing on his heels. “Ahah, ahaha!! Oh, Mina-kun, I really, really missed you.”

“Obviously,” Minato huffs. He reaches for his headphones and then remembers that he doesn’t have headphones. Or a head. “So. What now?”

“...Ah.”

Minato quirks a phantom eyebrow. “That bad, huh.”

“N-No, it’s not—! Well. A little, yes. You did sign the contract.”

Minato’s forehead furrows, chasing memories purged from his mind. “Oh, yeah.”

“But maybe we can—!” Ryoji starts to argue, before his nature reasserts itself. He knows better than anyone that Death isn’t negotiable. It definitely doesn’t come with a repayment plan. “Well… yes. Sorry.”

Minato nods evenly. Most humans flinch away from mortality, but Minato was never most humans. “What will you do?”

“Hm? Well, of course I’ll—” Oh. Huh. What will Ryoji do?

He can’t just go back to being Death. Or, more accurately, he already isn’t Death. People are still dying. They’ve been dying. He can say with confidence that that’s no longer his jurisdiction. Of course Death can’t die, but this fragment; this awareness… it’s already more Ryoji than Thanatos. Not a concept, but a person. Not a monster, but a ghost.

…Sort of like Minato.

“Well,” Ryoji says slowly, with a grin that dawns as slow as sunrise. “I didn’t really have any plans, so. Is it cool if I just do whatever you do?”

“Probably won’t be fun,” Minato mutters.

“Minato.”

“And there’s definitely better stuff you could do with your—”

“Minato,” Ryoji says again. “There’s really nothing else I want. So… can I just follow you around? Forever? Until the end of time? You can say no.”

“I’m not saying no,” Minato says grumpily, which is a yes. “Just… it won’t end well. Or start well, even.”

“But, Mina-kun,” Ryoji says. “There’s a whole middle.”

The dead don't have blood, much less subsurface capillaries. But they do have memories. Apparently, Minato’s ghost remembers how to blush. “…Do what you want.”

“I dunno, Mina-kun. I think I’d rather do what you want.”

Minato rolls his eyes, but he’s already drifting closer. “So do it already.”

Thanatos is the End, is the Seal, is Ryoji. And Ryoji always knows what Minato wants.

* * *

And so the credits roll. The end of the story, the end of the end of the world.

“That’s just how it goes, I’m afraid,” Elizabeth explains. “If there was anything to do about it, I’m quite confident I would have done it!”

“No,” Aigis hisses. Steam pours from her nostrils, from the ventilation slits along her spine. It billows from the creases of her eyes, where humans keep their tears. “I disagree. I request a different outcome.”

“I don’t like it any more than you do,” Elizabeth says disapprovingly. “But my guest signed the contract. The outcome is already set.”

“Give me a new one. Let me begin again.”

Elizabeth frowns. “You will be acting against his wishes…”

“I am alive,” Aigis spits. “Arisato-kun is dead.”

“I see,” Elizabeth says, nodding. “Yes, I see! A new game. Then I believe I know where you might start.”

* * *

Across the endless plane of space and time, a retired god of Death elbows a champion of Life. “They’re going to undo everything you did, you know. Aren’t you worried?”

“What?” Minato says, distracted. “Sorry. What?”

“Oh, I’m sorry, am I boring you?” But Minato’s eyes have already clouded over. Ryoji sidles closer. “What were you listening to?”

“Do you know, 200 years after I died, there’s an iteration of steelcore soundwave that revolutionizes everything?”

“Wow,” Death says fondly. “Sounds pretty cool. Can I have an ear?”

Everything alive must change. It’s in Her nature. That’s why Life can’t live without Death. But that’s not their business anymore. Minato’s job is done.

In the world he left behind, the rhythm of existence rumbles on.