Chapter Text
The scent of gunpowder and ozone from the final bullet hung in the air. Yaldabaoth had faded into nothing, and a moment later, so had Satanael. Now nothing remained but a very shiny cup, floating gently in the center of the pillar.
“Is that the Treasure?” Ryuji spoke up first.
No one answered him, but Akira approached, one step in front of the other. No one could really read his feelings after that ultimate strike. Satisfaction? Joy? Exhaustion? Regret? Some mix of all of those, with more emotions yet undeciphered?
Then Akira reached out to touch the Treasure. It flashed and shimmered, and then… vanished completely. Akira’s hand hung in the air, shaking a little, before he curled it into a tight fist.
“Where did it go?” Haru asked.
“Futaba?” Makoto turned to her for help.
Futaba just shook her head. “Nothing changed in the readings, but—I mean, we were too close to it to begin with, I don’t know where it went.”
Akira turned back to his friends and offered them all a small smile. “It’s okay. We won.”
“Are you sure?” Ann pressed, her voice trembling a little. “Is it really over?”
He flexed his fist one more time—fan the fingers, then pull tight—but Akira confirmed, “Yeah. It’s over.”
Relief they hadn’t let themselves experience finally pierced the haze, just like the sunbeams falling on the world again. Morgana trotted forward, catching Akira’s eyes with a fond and proud look.
“Thanks for everything, gang.”
“…Morgana?”
Dr. Maruki hadn’t answered Kasumi’s calls all month.
Her last session had been in mid-December, but Maruki hadn’t sent his usual confirmation message the week before her January appointment. Her mother called him, once a few days before the appointment, twice the day before, and five times the day of. Kasumi’s next meet was in February, and if she messed up like she had at that terrible show in July, she’d lose her Shujin scholarship for sure. She couldn’t afford to have her mind out of sorts before a competition.
But Maruki didn’t show. No reason, no rescheduling. Not even an excuse.
With every day that passed from the missed appointment, it got harder and harder for Kasumi to focus in class. Her teachers called on her, and she could barely stammer through apologies for not paying attention. There were nightmares in her mind, whispering to her, not enough. Not good enough. Less talented, less strong, less confident, less driven, lesser, lesser, the lesser sister—
That couldn’t be true. Kasumi missed her sister every day, but she didn’t think those things about Sumire at all, and she certainly didn’t think them about herself. When she had confided in Akira, he helped her put other people’s expectations aside. No matter what happened, Kasumi knew she was enough, and she would rise to the top.
Lesser, lesser, the lesser sister—
“The Phantom Thieves are the talk of the town,” Sojiro’s voice nearly echoed in Leblanc, in spite of its cozy size. No Futaba, no Christmas Eve patrons. “What’re you gonna do? Did Niijima say anything to you?”
Akira stayed silent in response. He looked at his hand again and flexed it: fingers in a wide fan first, then a tight fist.
“…Anything at all?”
“Don’t worry,” Akira told him, but Sojiro didn’t look satisfied.
“Look, I know I’m on the outside looking in on this whole situation, but we’ve gotta be able to rely on each other when the going gets tough.”
He opened his mouth to say something else, but the door to Leblanc chimed. Sojiro turned to look, expecting Futaba, but— “Oh. Welcome, sir.”
The man with glasses in the doorway had floppy hair, a brown blazer, and a strangely mystified expression. His eyes locked onto Akira instantly.
“Pardon me for intruding,” he said. “And I promise I won’t take up much of your time. But I’d like to speak to Kurusu-kun.”
“You're that counselor,” Sojiro’s tone carried suspicion and confusion together.
“Yes, I visited once in early September, and I'm just looking for a moment of Kurusu-kun's time. This is about what… happened earlier today. I need to discuss it.”
Akira hesitated, fanning his fingers and closing them in a fist one more time. Finally, he nodded. “We’ll go upstairs. Don’t wait for us.”
Five days after the missed appointment, Kasumi was so badly distracted that she didn’t notice she had been called on in class. She didn’t even respond to the girl beside her poking her arm until someone shouted, “Yoshizawa!” Apparently, she had been so disoriented during her apology that the teacher decided to send her to the nurse’s office.
“Did you get much sleep last night?” the nurse asked her.
“I didn’t,” Kasumi said, unable to explain that she had barely closed her eyes. She had shoved a pillow over her face, but it hadn’t helped. “I’m sorry…”
The nurse nodded and checked some boxes on a clipboard. “You should lay here until lunch period is over, then try to go back to class. If you can’t, I’ll have to call your parents and have someone pick you up.”
Kasumi wanted to protest. Her dad was busy, and so was her mom, she shouldn’t trouble them with this, and she especially shouldn’t fall apart this badly over one missed therapy session… But she said nothing. She laid down on a cot and stared at the wall. When lunch ended, the nurse didn’t even ask if Kasumi could make it back to class. She just called Kasumi’s mother.
Walking away from Shujin with her mom, Kasumi couldn’t lift her eyes from the pavement.
“It’s going to be okay, S—e,” her mom said.
Kasumi twitched a little and looked sideways at her mom. “What?”
“I said it’s going to be okay. We’re going to find a way to treat this. Nothing is more important to us than your happiness. Please, remember that.”
Lesser, lesser, lesser, lesser…
A day later, a festive committee crashed through Leblanc’s darkened door.
“Merry Christmas!” Ryuji crowed. “And you’ll never guess who we found!”
Haru helpfully lifted her arms, carrying a familiar tuxedo cat in with a yellow collar. “He made it after all!”
“Ow, Haru—careful under my arms!”
“Ah, sorry, Mona-chan!”
But instead of resounding joy, Sojiro stroked his chin. “Oh, you found the cat? Guess he just went out wandering…” Futaba and Makoto didn’t say anything.
“Why do you guys look so down? C’mon, Morgana’s back!” Ryuji insisted, any and all feud with his feline comrade completely forgotten.
Morgana squirmed in Haru’s arms until she let him jump to a bar stool. “Where’s Akira? I need to let him know I survived the collapse of Mementos!”
“Um,” Makoto started. “Akira is…”
“It’s okay. I’ll explain,” Sojiro interrupted, mercifully.
Kasumi was falling apart.
After nine days, she finally managed to sleep, but when she woke up, she had no idea what to do with herself. She didn’t know how to start her life, because… whose life was it?
It’s my life. Kasumi’s life.
Right?
Her mother brought her to a doctor. The doctor checked her body for any signs of physical ailment, and found nothing. He asked Su—Kasumi questions about her symptoms, and Kasumi just told him what had been happening. Confusion. Sleeplessness. Dark thoughts.
“Your daughter needs a therapist, not a physician,” she could hear the doctor say to her mother through a thin door.
“She had a therapist, but we lost contact with him. Please, can you do anything to get her an exemption from her competition? Medical leave?”
“There’s no diagnosis I can provide. Her problems are psychological.”
“Please, isn’t there anything you can do? I don’t want my daughter to lose her future just because she’s suffering now. She hasn’t been the same since—“
Kasumi gripped her forehead and forced herself not to hear. If she didn’t find Dr. Maruki, then he wouldn’t be able to help her, and she’d lose everything. And she was already missing school due to this illness in her head, this cloud that kept her from seeing straight and knowing her own name…
“Su—re?”
That name. She heard it more and more often with each passing day. And she curled against it, trying to keep it out.
“Come on, let’s go home. I’ll… get you a treat on the way. Do you want an ice cream?”
I want my life back.
But she left with her mother, because that was all she could do.
The Shibuya walkway overlooked the street below, crowded with people ready to celebrate the New Year, barely contained by police on duty. The countdown sparked a wave of noise, reaching high into the air.
“New Year’s Eve… it seems rowdier this year, doesn’t it?” Makoto voiced.
“All the more reason for us to get rowdy, too,” Morgana agreed with a flick of his tail. “A lot of people are going to try standing in our way this year.”
“We’ll need to brace ourselves,” Ann agreed.
“I’m going to try contacting my father’s associates,” Haru offered.
Ryuji gave her a nod. “Sounds good to me.”
“Sounds like we’re set. We must succeed, no matter the cost,” Makoto declared. And when she looked to her comrades, not a single one of them dissented.
Two days after the doctor’s appointment, Su—Kasumi decided she had to take matters into her own hands. She couldn’t put her mind back in order without Maruki’s help, so she would find Maruki. Her mother had been taking so much time off of her work to take care of her. When Kasumi promised she’d just stay in bed, her mother believed her and went to her office for one more day. Then Kasumi immediately broke her promise. She figured her mother would forgive her if she got her daughter back.
She started at a police station, asking if there had been a missing person’s report filed for Takuto Maruki. No report was on file, so with shaking hands, Kasumi filled out the paperwork, with careful attention to his name’s spelling. The rest of the form looked like an elementary schooler had filled it out, but his name was perfect, professional.
“How are you related to this man?” the officer asked as Kasumi returned the form.
“He’s my therapist.”
“You should find a new therapist in the meantime.”
Sum—Kasumi shook her head. “I don’t have time. I need to find him.”
“When was the last time you saw him?”
“December fifteenth. And I should have had an appointment on January twelfth.”
The officer looked at a desk calendar, calculating how overdue Kasumi was for her appointment. Eleven days. “Do you believe your therapist had any enemies? Or any reason he would leave town?”
Kasumi shook her head. “No, no one. And even if he did… he should have considered those he was leaving behind.”
The officer gave Kasumi a sympathetic nod. “Well, resources are tight. Unless we believe Dr. Maruki has committed a crime or is the victim of one, we probably won’t get to investigate. But you did the right thing, young lady, letting us know he’s missing.”
Sumi—Kasumi nodded, and tried not to cry.
From the police station, she took the train: first to Maruki’s therapy office, the little room in the wing of a hospital amid other mental health offices. The door was locked, and no one could account for when they had last seen Maruki. Then Kasumi headed back to Shujin, where she spoke with the nurse and asked if Maruki had left any address or phone number. No other addresses were on record for him, and in spite of Kasumi’s tears, the nurse wouldn’t tell her where Maruki lived. She had to flee the school before any students noticed her, dashing to the nearest Internet cafe. She plugged her phone to charge and searched public databases about medical professionals. Maruki had to have additional addresses listed somewhere! Or some kind of colleague who would know how to find him! But, either that information was not available to the public, or Sumire didn’t have the computer savvy to research it.
Senpai knew a computer genius, didn’t he? A girl in Yongen-Jaya?
But what would Kasumi even say to that girl? ‘Hi, Senpai is in jail and we never met, but I want you to help me find my missing therapist because my personality is coming apart at the seams?’
Lesser, lesser, lesser sister, useless sister, useless Sumire—
No. She wasn’t useless and she’d do this herself! She stood up from the cafe table and adjusted her glasses—
Her glasses.
She was wearing glasses.
She still had her hair tied up with a ribbon, that had just been reflex, but… she was wearing glasses. They rested so naturally on her face, and the world looked so clear through them. But this was wrong, she never needed glasses. Why had she been wearing Sumire’s glasses all day?
Kasumi shook her head and took the glasses off, slipping them into her pocket. It was just a mistake, a weird mental hiccup. She’d been having more of those lately, but once she found Maruki, he’d sort them all out, and she’d perform at her best again, and no one would have reason to doubt her.
“How’s it going, Sis?” Makoto asked. She had a careful mug of tea grasped in her hands, just in case Sae was too stressed to give her the time of day. It was an old reflex, hard to shake.
But, Sae looked up at Makoto with a smile. It wore all the weary tension of her hard work from the past weeks, but it was fond. “Your friend’s contacts and resources are deeply appreciated. I wish all my cases could have the support of powerful people.”
“You don’t seriously wish that, do you?” Makoto passed the tea to her sister.
“Don’t worry, no one is cheating, least of all me. We’re almost set to gather a corrected testimony from Shido’s original victim, who should be able to corroborate that Shido lied to the court. She’s just very nervous about facing retaliation from the remnants of Shido’s conspiracy, so we have to take precautions. But she’s very brave, to speak up at all after everything that happened. We’ll probably have her records completed just before the end of January.”
“What would be the next steps after her testimony?”
“Re-opening the original conviction case and submitting the new testimony. Essentially, Akira will be re-tried from prison.”
“Will they let him out in order to testify again?”
“That matter will rest with the judge. If anything, testimonies from people who knew Akira during his probation will be more helpful.”
“Why is that?”
“Essentially, we need to overcome any prejudices the judge might have about Akira being a delinquent kid. You see it all the time in courtrooms, where defendants try to argue that the accused is an upstanding moral person, but those pleas fall flat unless others corroborate it.”
At that, Makoto smiled. “That shouldn’t be a problem, then. Akira made quite a few friends over the last year.”
Sae returned that smile. “I’m proud of you, Makoto. This is exactly what Dad would have wanted for us.”
Makoto had no idea what to actually say. She couldn’t remember the last time Sae had mentioned Dad, or spoken fondly about his legacy. “Thank you,” she settled on. “I think I’m going to call the others, give them an update.”
“And thank you,” Sae said. “For not giving up on me. Now we won’t give up on him.”
Sumire—Kasumi spent the next few days all but wandering the city. She felt less like her entire life was falling apart, but the stable whole that remained... it coated her like grit. Her body felt wrong. So did her hair, and her face, and her clothes. She had a life and it wasn’t the one she wanted. It was the one she had to leave behind if she wanted any chance of being happy.
She had to wear her glasses now. Her contact lenses made her head ache now. And tying up her hair was too difficult. She needed Maruki’s help, and badly.
And just like before, when it felt like the world was against her and she needed to find the courage to go on, she found herself in Odaiba. The stadium’s construction site hadn’t made any progress since last October, but the steel beams and cranes stretching above the partition walls felt different. Colder. The thing that had drawn her to this place was missing, somehow.
What’s going on? What’s happening to the world? What’s happening to me?
She found her usual spot near the entrance and tried to find some kind of meaning. Thinking of how this was her latest failure, and how the last few weeks had been the absolute worst, as she caused problems for everyone around her. And at this point, maybe her dream was dead forever, and Kasumi—no, Sumire—would never be able to rest in peace. But if that was true, she wanted answers: why was she suffering because of this? What had happened to destroy her dream before she even had a chance to show the world what she was capable of?!
Looking away from the construction site, Sumire… no, Kasumi, saw how filthy this surrounding area was. Odaiba was a beautiful neighborhood overall, but the construction site had no stores or homes to attract people’s care. Dented trucks and vans lined the street, and litter didn’t find its way to trash cans or dumpsters. There was even a homeless man asleep on the garbage—
Wait.
“Dr. Maruki!?”
Sumire sprinted to his side and knelt beside the trash bags. She could get hold of his wrist, and thankfully, felt his pulse. He stirred when he felt her hand, but he struggled to focus on her. His glasses hung low on his face. One of the arms looked like it had been fixed with masking tape.
“Dr. Maruki, what’s going on? Where have you been?”
Maruki coughed first, but then asked, “What day is it?”
“Thursday,” Sumire said immediately, then remembered how long Maruki had been gone. “January twenty-seventh, a Thursday. You’ve been missing for over a month now! What happened to you?!”
Maruki groaned first and made an effort to sit up straighter. “We… missed your therapy appointment, Yoshizawa-san. I’m sorry about that.”
In spite of herself, Sumire felt a bit better that Maruki remembered how he had abandoned her, but that didn’t fix anything. “Why are you here? How long have you been here?!”
“I… tried to come here to refresh myself,” Maurki explained.
“What do you mean, refresh yourself?”
Maruki shifted his hand into his pocket and pulled out his smartphone. He tapped the screen with his thumb, but Sumire couldn’t see what he selected. “It won’t work anymore, though… I think I drained it. This place means nothing to me now.”
“Why did it mean anything to you before!?” Sumire—no, Kasumi—no, Sumire shook her head. “You aren’t making any sense! What’s going on? Why hasn’t anyone seen you since December?”
“I’m just not sure where to start. This is something I never thought was possible, even when I was researching the topic for my thesis.” He leaned forward again, but winced. Sumire had to guess it was some kind of muscle cramp. “How much do you remember about what happened last Christmas?”
“When the world turned red, and a god tried to take over the world?”
“Oh,” Maruki blinked at her. “I guess you remember everything. That’s a first. That world was the collective unconscious, and that god wanted to enslave humanity—”
“Yes, I know about the collective unconscious!” Sumire snapped at him, more impatient than she wanted, but she had been suffering for weeks trying to find Maruki! “I’ve been to the Metaverse, and I have a Persona of my own! I fought alongside Senpai, once in a Palace that was on this very spot, and then once in the Palace of a prosecutor! You don’t have to explain that part to me!”
“You too?” Maruki leaned forward a bit more, muscle cramps be damned. “You were one of the Phantom Thieves?”
“Not… exactly,” Sumire admitted. “I never formally joined them, but I had the same powers. So I fought a few times, when they needed my help.”
“Then, I think you and I should be allies,” Maruki said with a wry little laugh. “This Palace is very complicated, and in spite of how hard I’ve tried, there’s no way for me to tackle it by myself.”
“I thought the Metaverse was destroyed when the God of Control died.”
“Not exactly. I have a theory, but I don’t think you’re interested in that.”
Sumire had to nod. “So, what are you doing in this Palace?”
“I want to collapse it, like the Phantom Thieves did to the others before it. My Persona’s abilities are helping me a lot, but I can’t make progress alone.”
“Can you not ask for Senpai’s help because he’s been arrested?”
Maruki shook his head at that, then handed his phone to Sumire. He had a Metaverse Navigator app open, but with an unfamiliar, silvery color scheme. There was only one Palace saved, and as Sumire read the fields, dread descended in her heart.
Name: Akira Kurusu.
Location: Juvenile Hall.
Distortion: Pandemonium.