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Sae looks as pristine as ever. Her suit is perfectly fitted, face made up, hair lying side-swept on her shoulder with a slight natural wave that easily plays into the display of effortless beauty and composure. Makoto wonders how her greasy, overgrown bangs and bland prison overalls might reflect against that, then discards the thought. Comparing herself to Sae never did her any good.
“I thought a lawyer with a personal interest in the case wouldn’t be allowed to work on it in court,” Makoto says in way of a hello.
“I won’t rebuke that statement,” Sae greets back. “But I don’t have to explain the behind-the-scenes of my presence.”
“While I have to explain the circumstances of mine, of course.”
Sae says nothing. Instead, she takes a seat and places a recorder on the desk in front of her with a clear implication.
A part of Makoto wants to stand her ground on this at least a little longer; maybe just because it’s Sae, or maybe because prison has bored her to death, and she hasn’t had a proper conversation in god knows how long. But testifying is precisely what she is here for. Delaying the inevitable—the desired—would be stupid, so she bites her pride down like an unwanted meal to free the mouth for her to speak.
“Where would you like me to begin?” she asks.
“With how you started working under Shido.”
Like a bandage clinging to the skin it’s supposed to protect, instinct pushes her to seek a way out. Logic reminds her she’s forfeited that—but there is still a way to make sure no sacrifices will be in vain.
“I was careless after awakening my persona. I’ve never considered anyone else could follow me to the Metaverse,” she says. “But Akechi-kun did. And once he reported my existence to Shido, I received an offer I couldn’t refuse.”
“Does that mean Shido coerced you to work for him?”
“I suppose you could call it that.” She doesn’t like calling it that. Somehow, it’s easier to bear the weight of ruining your life when you don’t try to make it someone else’s fault. “Either way, I didn't volunteer myself for that position.”
A glimmer of hope slips into Sae’s features. “Does that mean you’ve never killed out of your own volition?”
Makoto feels almost eager to snuff that glimmer out. “It was under orders. Barring certain exceptions.”
The sudden demise of the gang members responsible for their father’s death and the timeframe of her awakening can’t be hard to connect. In a moment, Sae’s eyes go wide and lips part slightly before pursing into a thin line.
Makoto props her chin on her palm, observing Sae’s reaction and the wave of pale on her face, waiting for her to say something.
Each passing second feels like a hole growing wider.
***
“What was working with Akechi-kun like?” Sae asks.
“Like working with three different people,” she responds. “A howling beast in the Metaverse, a pleasant boy in public and the most casually unpleasant person in existence outside it.”
The real Akechi was probably at the dot where those three axes met. She wonders what parts the real Makoto would be composed of, if anything before the summer of 2015 still resided in her heart.
“I presume it was a rocky partnership, then.”
“In the beginning, yes.”
She never could find a single word to describe their dynamic. They butted heads more than they spoke amicably, and he would never let a disagreement go before he proved himself perfectly correct. She wouldn’t either.
They’d compete even in front of Shido, one-upping each other at every turn and currying favour through faster and cleaner work on individual assignments. Akechi became absolutely insufferable whenever he received even a modicum of praise, spiting her to work even harder, if only to wipe that conceited grin off his face.
But when a Shadow once got too close to killing him, she tore it apart with the force she didn’t know she had possessed. He later did the same for her, more than once.
He’d help her whenever she got stuck with her studies, and for their meetings, she would always pick quiet cafés that served the food he liked (or at least could put up with — he never really liked anything), so she could make sure he had at least one good meal for the day.
It was only after the shutter closed behind him in the engine room that she found out what the right word for the two of them would be.
By then, it had no longer mattered.
“Does that mean it wasn’t always rocky?” Sae continues.
“The fighting bonded us, in a way. As did a common goal.” Nostalgia splices Makoto’s words like venom. “It took me a month to figure out Akechi was out to bring Shido down. Then another month to suggest joining our forces.”
Akechi never lacked in his convictions, only in foresight. So she became the rhyme and reason of the plan, the keeper of elaborate records and evidence that’d keep Shido on a short leash, subservient to them.
Only to find out the leash extended only the other way around.
Sae’s voice breaks her out of the reminiscence. “You never thought Shido could’ve figured him out like you did?”
“No.” She shakes her head. “Perhaps that was the true reason for Akechi’s—our downfall. That we never thought anyone could be smarter than us. Until it was too late.”
“What offer did Shido make you?” Sae asks. “Why couldn’t you refuse it?”
I heard of your sister, Nijima-san. A promising prosecutor, isn’t she? What do you think would happen to her career if someone revealed her sister is a murderer?
“That was my only option.”
“That can’t be true. A smart girl like you would think of a—”
“Then perhaps I’m simply not as smart as you think I am,” Makoto says. “And that’s all there was to it.”
Sae looks unconvinced; Makoto sits ready to cross any line of thought that ends with something other than just her being stupid.
Sae stares her down, and when she asks to look through the list of the suspected mental shutdown victims, Makoto only nods in relief.
The questions about Makoto’s distant past are running out, which means the recent past will soon take its place. She dreads that line of questioning like one dreads dying, where the inevitability is the true origin of fear. Commonly, the human mind deals with it through the act of forgetting, but it’s not a luxury she can afford.
“The Phantom Thieves,” Sae says in place of an actual question. Makoto doesn’t feel like speaking until she’s presented with something she can answer, so she only stares back. “Was Kaneshiro’s Change of Heart only a setup for you to infiltrate their group?”
That doesn’t strike too close to heart. “I needed to put an end to his dealings. The Phantom Thieves only presented an optimal solution.”
“How so?”
“I couldn’t refuse the Principal when he pushed me to deal with Kaneshiro’s extortion schemes, and I couldn’t kill an associate of Shido’s either. But if a group of vigilantes caught wind of him…”
“They’d deal with him without worsening your standing with Shido.”
“And I could keep a close eye on them. A win-win.”
It’s easy to present it as a matter of practicality when it’s all it was at the beginning. It doesn’t matter what it became later—the depths of her affection and betrayal have little relevance in court. The crimes of her heart are the ones the law is the least concerned with.
“Did you, at any point, consider them your friends?”
Makoto taps her fingers on the table as she evaluates her strategy. Coming up clean about her feelings could be the finishing touch she needs—where Shido’s crimes are not enough, heartstrings can be pulled by the story of a heartless man who made his child soldiers turn against the only people they came to hold dear.
That would be highly optimal.
That would also make her and Akechi look like victims. The thought sends a gagging impulse to her throat.
“Makoto?”
“My relationship with the Phantom Thieves has nothing to do with Shido’s crimes. I’d rather we stay on the topic.”
Makoto is just wondering when Sae will move on to psychological profiling when the next question hits her like a forecasted rain—expected, but no less unpleasant.
“Have you ever felt guilty about your actions?”
“Innocent people don’t have Palaces,” Makoto responds.
That isn’t strictly true. A person devoid of passions would never have a palace, yes; yet passions came in different forms, not all of them deplorable.
Sae is quick to catch her on that. “What about Sakura Futaba?”
“As if all people that I’ve killed were teenage girls,” Makoto says. The verb makes Sae squirm. “Their shadows told me everything I needed to know to shoot them down without regrets.”
Those who found themselves at the tip of her blade or the crosshairs of her gun were often the scum of the earth, the people that made her regret that justice could be delivered unto them only once. Remorse was not a feeling she had to stave off—it was one her heart had not considered relevant.
Then, Okumura’s death put a lot of things in perspective; even a despicable man like him could leave behind someone who’d grieve him in earnest. That thought had never occurred to her until then.
That presented a crack in the foundation of her views. But she was a rational woman: a cracked pot, even if damaged, could still hold water.
Innocent people don’t have palaces.
Most of them don’t.
“What about my palace, then?” Sae asks.
Makoto freezes. Her consciousness is redirected to ensure her continued breathing, mouth shut tight to quell a scream, and hands clasping into one another to avoid slamming her fists into the table.
“That was different,” she whispers.
She doesn’t have the vocabulary to articulate how it was different. Just that it was.
Of course, Sae can’t be satisfied with that. “Why?”
There has to be a way to answer that question without circling back to the fact that if she had put Sae in the grave, then everything would have been for nothing.
Treacherously, her brain can’t think of anything.
“Talk to me, Makoto. Please.”
Sae isn’t supposed to plead. She never begs or asks—she demands, and then receives whatever she requires. It has never been any other way.
From the distance separating them, past the recorder that still diligently stands its duty, Sae reaches out for Makoto’s hand. It layers onto her like another impossibility—another way Sae could not have acted. The last time Sae held her hand must have been at their father’s funeral.
“I wouldn’t hurt you,” Makoto says. “The Phantom Thieves’ plan would fail, Ren would die so the others could live, and we’d leave your palace alone.”
The Thieves had tangled too deep with things they didn’t understand; if it was too late to save everyone, she could at least try to save somebody. She knew that Ren was more than willing to bear the price. And while he could not be certain he would outplay both her and Akechi, one thing was without a trace of doubt—he was ready to die to protect his friends. Nothing could take that away from him.
“How could you be so sure their plan would fail?” Sae asks. Her hand rubs gentle circles over Makoto’s like she’s providing comfort in exchange for answers.
Makoto hates how, in her head, even that simple gesture turns into a transaction.
“I didn’t think you would believe Ren without a Change of Heart.”
Her downfall was one hundred per cent underestimation—fifty for Shido, and fifty for Sae. The latter burns for knowing that every mistake could be prevented by having just a little more faith in the person she thought she was trying to protect.
Sae’s hand stills again. The touch, barely tangible, for a moment holds the weight of every what-if and alternate path not taken; before they cause her bones to crush, Makoto pulls her hand away, holding it to her chest for its residual, fading warmth.
She has to find a way out of this, and she has to find it now.
“I don’t regret it,” she says. “Don’t get me wrong—I regret being Shido’s lapdog. Regret the betrayal. But not the killing. Because—”
“Because you were doing that to protect me.”
Makoto gasps. A muffled “How”’ escapes her lips, too late for her to try denying the one truth she swore to keep hidden at all costs.
“You are not the only one we are interrogating.”
Shido… “Then why are you—”
“As a defence attorney, I always have to hear my defendant’s side.”
The gears turn in her head at screeching speed. Sae had mentioned plans to change her career. Barely any of her questions concerned Shido. In retrospect, she wasn’t building a case against him—she was building a case for Makoto’s defence. It all makes sense.
It doesn’t change the fact that it is pointless.
“Acquittal is impossible. I’ve murdered people. Too many to count.”
“And I will not promise you an acquittal,” Sae cuts off. “What I promise is that I will fight for you until the very end. As you did for me. You have my word.”
Makoto blinks rapidly, by impulse, not even understanding why. When something wet slides down her skin, she understands the source of that reaction and tries to wipe her tears off, but only more burst out as if mocking her.
“Those were my choices, my mistakes,” she says in an attempt to keep face. “You don’t have to fix them.”
“I know. But I want to. ” Sae turns the recorder off and gets up from her seat. “I have to go now. The visiting hours are almost over, and I shouldn’t impose on the prison guards after just starting the work on the case. In the meantime, please…”
“Yes?”
“Think it all through. Perhaps you’d rather think of yourself as a monster who deserves a punishment. Perhaps that makes said punishment easier to bear. But it’s not all that you are.”
“I’m—”
“And it’s always easier when the defence and the defendant cooperate on their points.”
Sae leaves without letting her finish.
Makoto sits back in her chair, waiting for the guard to take her back to her cell.
Sae is incorrect. Monster is what she and Akechi were, regardless of whether that was by choice or imposition. No attenuating circumstances will wash the blood off her hands; it’s soaked into her skin so deep it has by now mixed with her own.
But, perhaps, there are parts of her, yet surviving, that have resisted the transformation. The parts that can be mended to resemble what they once were, even if their original form is lost. The parts that make up the remnants of the sister Sae seeks to protect.
Are they worth digging out?
Alone, she does as Sae asked: she thinks until every possible line of thought is exhausted.
By their next meeting, she has her answer.