Chapter Text
“Ah–?! What are you--!”
The first bullet had been the easiest to shoot, his finger pulling the trigger like he’d done so many times. What was one life, when he’d taken so many already now?
Akechi stands in the interrogation room, facing the guard he’d just gunned down without a second thought. Crimson eyes stare at the man bleeding out, already preparing for where his next bullet would need to land. Still, he wouldn’t turn to the arrested thief, not just yet. There was a buildup that needed to happen in his system, to face the thief locked to that table between them, and have the confidence to still pull the trigger. Something to push him forward, despite everything
Somewhere deep inside him he could feel Loki stir, the chaotic and erratic nature that he brought Akechi slowly bubbling to the surface, making him smile. He was infinitely closer to taking down Shido if he did this. Akechi merely had to keep his eyes on the prize, right? Otherwise, all this was in vain. He blinks, and his gaze locks onto the bruised and battered thief. Something within him angers, and he directs it towards Akira instead of for him.
“I owe you for all of this… Thanks.”
A pause, a breath. He will be that much closer to accomplishing his goals. Remember that.
“That’s right… You and your little friends were vital to our plan. And now, it will be completed.”
He wasn’t prepared, for as soulless red orbs met gentle charcoal ones Akechi felt himself hesitate and his smile drop. Black, void-like eyes, belonging to a man he’s spent the past several months becoming close with stare up at him. The bruises and angry red cuts that line his pretty face, making him look both more rugged… And like a kicked puppy. And he does, with those big charcoal grey eyes gazing up at him. Eyes that before had held love and mischief for the detective… Now looking at him, pleading. A silent beg.
Pathetic, he thinks as he steps to face Akira. But he isn’t sure if that’s meant for Akira, or for Akechi’s own hesitation.
At first, he only attempted to gain Akira’s trust in hopes it might be easier to betray them all later, easier to accomplish his own selfish deeds. Taking down Shido at his peak, restoring his mother’s name as more than just a whore who died in shame. However, as time pressed on, Akechi and Akira grew closer… Something about their bond shifted. What was once simply selfish gain quickly became selfish indulgence, the idea that Akechi could have fun or feel more like a teenager than a hitman.
That was what Akira had become, freedom. Someone Akechi envied, but nevertheless someone who broke the heavy chains that shackled him to Shido, and the precious princely mask Akechi had spent years perfecting. In just a few months - how foolish was the brunet? Was he so desperate for acceptance? For love? Those thoughts, seeping through the cracks of what was once his flawless act, strikes an anger deep inside him. Brows furrow, and a new fire lit behind those dark red eyes.
Who had the right to make him feel this way? He takes a few steps closer to the table, eyes trained on the thief who watches him with baited breath. With eyes that plead silently. Akechi could almost hear what the other might say. This isn’t you. You’re being manipulated. You’re better than this Akechi-kun.
He gave a soft chuckle, forcing calmness to his features.
“Have you finally pieced it all together?”
He gives pause - another hesitation as his heart tries to reason with his brain. He doesn’t want to kill Akira, no. This is his comfort, his home , or the closest he’s felt to it in years. But if he doesn’t do this, then he’ll never get close enough to Shido. Never earn his trust so he can watch the man completely shatter into shame and defeat. How many bodies has he piled up over the years, doing that damn bastard’s bidding? What were two more? What were a hundred more, if it meant Akechi could make him pay?
Why does Akira’s life feel… different? Why does he feel this way about the thief?
Akechi cocks the gun, pointing it dead center to Akira’s forehead. The raven watches the gun intently - more precisely, Akechi’s finger that now holds his life in the balance. His hand shakes slightly, a single digit wrapping tightly around the trigger until it meets resistance. The fraction of a moment before it would click and fire off the second bullet of that evening… But there is yet another moment of doubt.
What difference does it make, whether it’s Akira’s life or someone else’s?
Why does Akira not move, waiting, as if he trusts the man who is ready to kill him?
Doesn’t he know the fate that awaits anyone at the other end of Akechi’s barrel?
A smile spreads, wider, manic and almost as if impressed with his own plan coming to fruition. Impressed - no. Loki’s influence, or his own erratic nature; that much was hard to tell anymore. Another mask, either way. One to comfort him through and steady his aim. One to erase his weakness on the outside. A promise, a threat, a projection of his plan. If he doesn’t end it now, he’ll never accomplish his own plan. One more bullet, one more murder. Akira was helping him. Akechi couldn’t back down now. A sharp exhale-like laugh, and Akechi’s head tilts backwards.
“Case closed… This is how your “justice” ends.”
The shot is silent. It does not ring out, silenced by the modified gun. It moves swiftly, without Akechi’s same hesitation or consideration. It kills without mercy, slicing through the forehead of his companion of the last several months and knocking him backwards. No, the only noise that follows the bullet’s path is the softest gasp he’s ever pulled out of the other. A noise like no other from the thief, something like a whine but gentle. Confused, betrayed. As if he didn’t believe Akechi would do it. The gun is pulled back, the detective left watching… Waiting for something. His mind doesn’t fully know yet what he’s hoping to see from this.
Akira’s head doesn’t fall right away, no. The detective watches as he bleeds, how his head falls back ever so slightly before the raven’s whole body tips forward. A dead, lifeless body. And almost as if on cue, Akechi feels the gun slip from his hands. The sound of it hitting the table - that terrible metal on metal clang - was the same sound Akechi’s princely mask might’ve made, had it been real, as it shatters now. Crimson eyes, wide with emotions on full display, swirling with grief and disbelief and… Anger . Why had Akira just sat there, why had he just taken it? Didn’t he value his life as a Phantom Thief? And what of his friends?!
There was immediate regret, but also rage and denial.
Akechi’s breath quickens, hand shaking as he pulls it back to his chest. His head shakes - slowly at first, back and forth - as if he’s expecting the image before him to disappear as he does. The way Akira lays there, blood pooling around him on the table, wide charcoal eyes screaming Traitor. But who had really been betrayed!? Why didn’t he try to get away?!
“What are you… G-get up, Kurusu-kun! You think you can really give up here?!”
Akechi finds himself yelling before he can stop himself. Gloveless hands slam against the table, feeling the chilled metal against his skin. A sensation he isn’t accustomed to, sickly cold as it grips his palms and freezes him to the core. What’s worse is what came next - the sticky warmth of Akira’s blood touching his fingers. It causes the detective to yelp, to flinch back and stumble just a step away. His eyes flick down to the pooling red liquid, back to the figure from which it came, then finally down to his own hands.
He grits his teeth, eyes narrowing at the trace of blood that had already touched him. The way it clings to his hand, as if it intending to stain him. Blood that marks him, that reveals him for his true nature. Akira’s blood, the very concept makes his breathing quicken as his eyes flick to the pale lifeless form of his… Rival.
Why isn’t Akira getting up? The reality of what he’s done simply hasn’t sunk in, and after a beat he pushes forward again, grabbing Akira by his shoulders and shoving him back against the chair so his lifeless eyes would look into Akechi’s own. Blood stains the bottom of his coat as he leans over the soaked table, but the sensation doesn’t register. The only thing he can see is the way Akira’s head jostles back and forth, and despite the risk of drenching his hand in Akira’s blood further he grabs the trickster’s face by his jaw. Forces him to face Akechi… Or perhaps the other way around.
“Well?! Are you going to give up like this?! What about our duel, you promised Akira…! You can’t die like this - Wake up…!”
The fear now was starting to grip Akechi, his voice straining as he screams. His screams, so far underground that naught a soul would ever hear them… It didn’t matter how he shook, how he cried out , nobody would hear him. Not even Akira.
His palm burns as he slaps the thief, hoping it might pull him out of this ragdoll state, only to catch sight of his own hands and feel his vision go hazy. Blood red, blood , sticky and red, professing guilt his subconscious already knew. It seems everyone was right - Akechi’s existence only brought destruction. He could hear it, so clearly in his head now. Memories, echoes of what came before.
Before Akira, before Shido , the days his mother would be so drunk she couldn’t stand, and would tell Akechi how much she regretted him. How much happier she’d be without him - this problem child she’d gotten stuck with. The sirens that night, when Akechi found his mother’s body, a gun laid beside her barrel stained in blood. Back then, Akechi had clung to her too, begging her to wake up. Shaking her, screaming and crying. Holding her, clinging to her. His shirt had been drenched and tacky drying blood had coated every inch of his arms and lap, but he only remembered his hands. The way he screamed, the way he held her. Neighbors eventually called the police.
He remembers when he was finally separated from her, being held back as he cried and begged… Sobbing, looking down. Seeing his own hands stained in red. That same blurry vision then, that same deep pang of fear and regret. The first time those two words ever truly settled into his psyche. Undesirable Child.
Dealing, after, with the loss of a home. The loss of the only person who seemed to care about him - no matter her flaws. No matter his own flaws. And now, no matter Akira’s.
That time, he felt like he’d forced his mother to pull the trigger on herself. This time… He had held the gun, and done it himself. There was no one to run to yet again, but that didn’t stop Akechi from coming around the table now, grabbing Akira and forcing him upright.
“Wake up…!” he screams, voice cracking and echoing in the underground bunker. “Wake up, wake up, wake up…!”
Akechi shakes the raven, but his body only moved how Akechi told it to and how gravity pulled it. He doesn’t blink, doesn’t smile, doesn't grab Akechi in return. Like a doll he sits there, like his mother he stays lifeless, unmoving without Akechi’s intervention.
“You aren’t allowed to leave me! Not yet - you promised!”
Akechi spends… at least another hour down there, knelt on the ground in front of Akira as burning hot tears escaped him that he simply couldn’t hold back. His head, against the teen’s lap, hid from this reality he’s shaped by his own hands. His body shook; his whole being protesting the very idea that Akira had really left. Yet, every time he looked up, he was greeted by the face of his most trusted confidante , growing more pale as the seconds ticked into minutes. What a twisted joke, wasn’t it?
But his sobs slowly quiet down, as they fall on deaf ears. His heart breaking wouldn’t be heard by anyone, despite how devastating it felt to the brunet now. He does stand, hands stained with the blood of the only man who’d only ever sought to give him a second chance at family. Strange, how much Akechi craved such a thing, and yet seemed to sabotage it at every turn. That was all he wanted, wasn’t it? Family. From foster home to orphanage to foster home… Passed around like an unwanted toy. Like an undesirable child.
A fact he’d covered up, pushing out of the public’s consciousness in favor of how sweet and charming and lovely he was. An honors student, an ace detective. All he wanted, to be needed and loved. Akira had… Given him that, hadn’t he? A place to belong, somewhere Akechi could find peace. Their wits were matched, their personalities aligned. Like two sides of the same coin, like foils in a novel. Every part of Akechi had grown used to its counterpart in Akira. There was comfort in that. In a rival. Comfort in someone so uniquely crafted that he seemed to fit beside Akechi perfectly.
Crimson eyes linger on him now. Bruised, beaten. Some of it, prior. Some of it, Akechi himself. A shaky exhale escapes him.
What had he done…?
His legs feel like lead as he shambles forward, pushing himself away. The door, he just had to make it to the other side, and he could pretend this was all a nightmare, right? And yet, the light above the table glints against metal that catches his eyes, and his gaze is drawn to…
The gun.
Right… This was supposed to be a suicide , wasn’t it?
As if on autopilot, the detective drags back towards Akira to pull him once more atop the table as he’d been before all Akechi’s interference. He then grabs the gun, sticky with blood, and gently places it in his hands. Staging the scene, to help keep attention off himself. As he came back to the door, he gloved his hands once more - the sign of a job done. A mask returned to its place, no matter the cracks left in it now. His jacket is… Useless to him, stained in blood, so he takes that off and carefully folds it around his arm. He can’t get caught , can’t draw suspicious eyes… And he checks himself over one final time before making his way back to the elevator.
With the blood out of immediate view, Akechi could convince himself that perhaps Akira wasn’t dead , that perhaps he’d come out and receive a text from the other. Perhaps his hands weren’t stained with another death. Just maybe, this was all simply a nightmare, and he would find out he was locked in an intense daydream or a fitful night of sleep and wake up out of it. When he did, Akira would be right there, no doubt. He always was.
But he doesn’t text. Not the whole way back to Akechi’s apartment, not when he stumbles into his own dark and unwelcoming home, not even as he after he gets into the shower washes away the blood clinging to his hands. Akechi prepares for bed, completely on autopilot, as his brain finds ways to trick him into thinking Akira wasn’t truly gone. Yes, he’d get a text in the morning, and the thieves would all talk about how Sae’s palace had gone wrong, and Akechi would still have his family.
Yes… Akira would still be a part of that family in the morning.
And he would never know of this terrible nightmare, this game Akechi had been forced to play, where he had killed his closest companion…