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Monday, 7:09 AM
The doors to the subway car shut soundlessly as Akechi slid into his seat. He was flanked on one side by an elderly woman leaning forward and staring at everyone like a hawk, and on the other by a young man in a suit who was frantically typing up an email to his boss about being late for work. Normally, he would have taken a better look around, but he was still half-asleep and he had a long day ahead of him. So he set his briefcase on his lap, kept a tight hold on the handle, and shut his eyes.
And he thought of his mother.
Shortly after he’d discovered her body, her lifeless face had been all he’d been able to think about. He kept seeing it, over and over again, even when he was asleep. Especially when he was asleep. But then it was like a veil had been cast over that particular set of memories, leaving them cast in murky shadow. His own mind trying to protect him, he suspected. On one hand, he was grateful not to remember so clearly. On the other, he felt cheated. He needed to remember. Remember as clearly as possible to fuel his anger and his rage. Masayoshi Shido wanted people to forget about all the things he’d done. He wanted all of it to be swept under the rug and left in the world of stained photographs, choking clouds of dust, and cobwebs. Akechi would rather die than do that. So, in exchange, he held all the other memories of his mother close. Together, they formed a picture of the person she had been.
She had never been very good with feelings. She occasionally lost her patience with him, and although he could tell from her eyes that she was apologetic, she couldn’t really bring herself to say sorry. When he would come to her, crying over petty things that had felt like the end of the world, she would hold him close and not let go until he moved away. But she said nothing, likely because she wasn’t able to find the right words.
She’d told him that she loved him only a handful of times. But he didn’t need that to know for certain that she was the first person who had ever felt that way about him. He knew because she would always pick him up from school and listen as he talked, even though she would be working in the evening and couldn’t put him to bed. He knew because she was always buying him little things and smiling when he smiled at them—even when money was tight, which it almost always was. He knew that she hadn’t been perfect. But she had loved him. And she deserved to be alive today. …But she wasn’t.
He swallowed and opened his eyes, staring straight ahead through the window opposite him. Most of the view was blocked because of the crush of people in the way, but he could still catch glimpses of the lights along the tunnel walls as they slipped past. The train slowed, then stopped. The man in a suit rushed off through the doors. Life went on, as it always did. The next stop was his.
He couldn’t turn back the clock or resurrect the dead. But if he played his cards right, he could make sure that that Shido would share her fate. Well, not exactly the same fate. He wanted to make it worse for him. Much worse. Then he would be standing above him with his heel digging a hole through his chest, even though right now he was still miles below, invisible to nearly everyone.
Then, when he granted him death, it would be a mercy.
Would his mother have approved? Probably not. But she was dead, he reminded himself, so it wasn’t as if it mattered. She could rest, as peacefully as she could, and he would take care of this.
As the train began to slow again, he grabbed the upper handrail and hauled himself to his feet. He didn’t feel any more rested, but he was more alert and awake. And that… was good enough.
Tuesday, 3:48 PM
He stepped through the revolving doors to the public prosecutor’s office and was greeted, as always, with a blast of air conditioning. They switched to heating in the winter, of course, but there was always an absolutely ridiculous temperature difference between outside and inside the building. There was some metaphor to be made there about being out of touch with society, but Akechi couldn’t be bothered.
As he headed for the elevators across the lobby, his phone dinged with a text. He pushed the elevator button before taking out his phone and looking at the screen. It was from Niijima— come see me after you get to the office. Fine, he’d take it. It was better than getting a text from most of the other people who’d like to bother him right about now.
He went to reply, walking into the elevator as he did, and found that she was still typing. For an excessively long time. Eventually, she decided on: I need help to think over some recent developments with the mental shutdown case.
Well. Sure, why not. He’d love to spend his afternoon pretending to crack the case he was the perpetrator of.
Of course, Sae-san! I’ll be right there ^_^
Maybe he was laying it on a bit thick. But he already knew she wasn’t the biggest fan of his, so it wasn’t as if it mattered. He didn’t blame her. He saw how hard she worked, and then some kid with a title he hadn’t earned had come along and stolen all of her prestige. If he were her, he would’ve hired someone to get him out of the picture long ago.
A very agitated woman on the phone with someone entered the elevator on the twelfth floor, complaining about some ridiculously tight deadline. He was glad to get off a few floors later, if only so that he wouldn’t have to listen to her rambling anymore.
The sixteenth floor was a mess of interlocking cubicles and small offices—one of which belonged to Niijima. She hadn’t had her own office until about a year ago. When that had happened, she’d been unusually pleased for a couple of days, but then she’d settled into her new routine with a displeased glare back on her face.
Dodging someone clutching a large stack of files to their chest with one hand and a briefcase with the other, he headed down the route he knew by heart now. Take a right after getting off the elevators, then another right through the cubicles and head through the first door on the left. Today, the door was lying half open. Walking slowly so as not to make his presence known, he peered inside.
Niijima’s office didn’t have windows (so unlike the director’s, which had floor length windows lining an entire wall) so it was perpetually slightly dark in there, despite the desk lamp. He sometimes teased her about ruining her eyesight by reading too long under those conditions, but frankly, he didn’t think it was a joke anymore. Still, it wasn’t any of his business.
Right now the desk lamp and the dim light streaming in from the hallway were the only things keeping the office from total darkness. Niijima didn’t seem to notice, though—she was frowning deeply at something on her laptop screen, one hand knotted through her hair in frustration. Her phone was on one edge of the desk, threatening to fall off if jostled, and there was a messy stack of papers next to it. Ah. He should’ve known that she wouldn’t call for his help unless she was really struggling.
Looking away from the screen for a moment, she sighed and glanced out the door. When she spotted him, she startled slightly. She ran a hand through her hair to smooth it over but didn’t make an effort to shift her expression to something more professional-looking. He wasn’t sure to be pleased that he’d gained a bit of her trust or insulted that she didn’t think him important enough to put on the mask of a perfect and willing subordinate that she used around her superiors.
“That was quick,” she commented.
“Or maybe you just lost track of time?” He replied with a smile. When she shot him the same kind of look she used when cross-examining uncooperative witnesses, he laughed. “Only joking. You know me—I’m always punctual.”
“…Of course. At any rate, make yourself comfortable.” She gestured to the chair across from her desk, resigned. “We’ll be here for quite a while.”
Make himself comfortable, huh. What a hilarious choice of words. One slip-up here would send him… well, wherever the ‘justice’ system thought he should go. And Shido would find some other idiot willing to take over his job.
Nevertheless, nobody else tended to come around this area of the office very often. And although he and Niijima were colleagues on a good day, he was fairly familiar with her. If there was anyone he could be a bit more at ease with, it was her.
Incredible. Other people his age had friends they went out with and texted until the early hours of the morning, while the person he spoke to most consistently was a prosecutor who thought he was an irritating upstart (and bought him cheap sushi if he pestered her enough).
If he made it out of these next few years in one piece, he’d have to write an autobiography. It’d be an instant best seller.
He took a seat on the edge of the chair. Then, after a moment of hesitation, he leaned back, settling in properly as he grabbed his own laptop. The chair looked like it had seen decidedly better days, but at least it was pretty comfortable.
“And shut the door, if you don’t mind. As far as I know, most of this is confidential,” she muttered distractedly, reviewing something on her screen.
He did as she asked and began combing through the files on his screen. Then, settling into a familiar rhythm, the two of them got to work.
Wednesday, 6:25 PM
Despite how many things were always going on at the TV station, Akechi often found himself with a decent amount of downtime whenever he went to make an appearance there. They’d just finished with his makeup and hair, but there was still about twenty minutes until he had to be on set for the program they were filming tonight (something involving a bunch of big name celebrities and some “fun minigames”). If you asked him, it was almost the stupidest thing he’d ever heard of, but it seemed like the kind of thing the detective prince would do. So here he was.
He leaned back in his chair as the studio buzzed around him with last minute preparations. Burying his face in his phone gave him a good excuse to avoid speaking with anyone around him, but he’d be lying if he said that was the only reason why he was on Instagram.
He made it a habit to periodically go through the comments of his posts—most of which were positive, despite the occasional brainless idiot arguing over nothing and a few spam messages. It was good to keep track of his account, especially since he ran it entirely by himself. He didn’t trust anyone else to do the job, frankly.
It made sense to read everything people said about him online. But he wasn’t really doing it because it made sense. He was doing it because every time he did, some deep part of him sparked and burst aflame, blanketing him in a fleeting sense of warmth. He knew the comments weren’t for him. Not really, anyway. They weren’t for the person who couldn’t sleep at night sometimes, who often felt so angry that he didn’t know what to do with himself, who headed home each night and ate shitty instant food like a loser. They were for the perfectly crafted illusion that put a hand to his mouth when he laughed, was exceptionally intelligent, and had a secret sweet tooth. Still, this was as close to true acknowledgement as he was ever going to get.
He despised it. He wanted more of it.
Careful not to make eye contact with anyone, he glanced up for a moment. The studio was still in a state of controlled chaos. Across the room, he spotted one of the celebrities that was apparently appearing on the program with him today. She was an up and coming idol, from what he’d found out beforehand. She projected a sort of cool, icy aura. The kind that was meant to make people swoon, he assumed. Right now, a couple of strands of hair were escaping her high bun, and she looked just the slightest bit frazzled. It didn’t matter, though. Nobody that mattered would ever see her like this.
And it wasn’t just her. From experience, he knew that everyone here was pretending in some respect. They were all hiding something to make themselves more appealing and more likable. In theory, that should’ve made him feel more at ease. It only pissed him off. He didn’t want to be like all of them. But that was just how the world worked. He couldn’t change a thing by himself, so he was letting the detective prince stick around for the foreseeable future. Other people loved him, after all.
He… hated him. He needed him, regardless.
“Would you mind coming with me?” a man with a clipboard asked, gesturing to him. “We’re ready to start setting up.”
The detective prince smiled, nodded, and got up to follow him.
Thursday, 5:11 PM
It was obvious just from a quick look around that this café was almost at closing time. The employee manning the counter was humming quietly to themselves, discreetly scrolling through something on their phone. The shelves that were normally stocked full of pastries were running out and hadn’t been refilled. Most of the customers had left by now: as he took his plate of cake and looked for a place to sit, he heard the door shutting soundly, the tinkle of a wind chime signaling someone else’s departure. But he hadn’t come for company. He actually preferred it this way: no noisy conversations or irritating scraping of chairs as people moved around. Just the muted sound of music playing over the speakers and quiet footsteps.
He drew out a chair near the back end of the café, set his plate down, and sat facing the wall. Then, after glancing behind him, he slipped off his face mask and laid it on the table.
It was incredibly funny how far a regular t-shirt, baseball cap, and a mask could take you when you were trying not to get recognized. Merely by wearing a different outfit than usual and obscuring his face a bit, he went back to being part of the blur of a passing crowd. He was no longer someone that was worth sparing a second glance. Which was what he needed, this late in the day when he wasn’t sure if he could handle someone asking for a picture without throttling them within an inch of their life.
Laying the fork across the plate and adjusting the focus of his phone camera with a practiced eye, he snapped one shot after another of his cake. After about ten from varying angles—and one shot of the interior of the café for good measure—he put his phone away. He’d edit those later to post. He couldn’t remember when he’d started going to cafes and dessert spots exclusively to hold up his detective prince façade. It had been a while back, when he’d gotten fed up of seeing his own face so often on his profile. He still posted pictures of himself out of necessity, but it was nice to have something else. Something that didn’t involve coming face to face with that stupid smile he plastered on all the time for public appearances. Something simpler.
Also, according to some of the comments that he’d read yesterday, people found this habit of his cute. Nobody could ever accuse him of not catering to the fools that called themselves his fans.
He jabbed the cake with his fork and took a bite while glaring at the wall. It had looked nice in the pictures, at least. The lighting in this area of the café was excellent, and the decorations on top of the cake were meticulously done. He wasn’t expecting much from the taste, but it wasn’t as if it mattered. You couldn’t exactly eat pictures—oh.
He blinked and tried another bite, paying more attention this time. No, that hadn’t been a fluke. It actually wasn’t bad. It wasn’t the kind of dessert that used an absolutely sickening sweetness to make up for the other things it lacked. All the flavors and textures balanced each other out well, with the chewy cake tempered by the light, airy frosting. Almost unconsciously, he smiled to himself. He’d make sure to make the caption for this post extra flattering.
He made quick work of the rest of the cake, not wanting to overstay his welcome when the employees probably wanted to close up shop. As he threw out his napkins and laid the plate and fork on a table by the trash bin, though, he cast a sidelong glance at the counter. He made a habit of not visiting the same places twice, since that exponentially increased the chances of getting recognized. That was all well and good, but he might as well take something else to go before he left.
With the face mask back on, he didn’t have to smile as he approached the counter. The employee did smile politely at him, though, quickly slipping their phone into their back pocket and asking what he wanted.
Later that night, when he put the box of cake in his nearly empty fridge, he found himself looking forward to trying it later.
Friday, 2:54 PM
Somewhere down the hall, someone was laughing hysterically as another person shushed them, equally as loudly. Akechi glared down at his test paper, trying to focus on this final essay question. They’d covered the topic this question was dedicated to… at some point. There got to a point where all the days started to blend together, so he couldn’t remember when exactly, but it hadn’t been too long ago. So he should remember more about it, but he must’ve been preoccupied with work that day or something, because he couldn’t recall shit. Just the broadest main ideas, which was enough material to write a substantial response. Substantial if you squinted. And didn’t read too closely. But he liked to think he was an expert in bullshitting in more ways than one.
The wall clock ticked endlessly forwards in the empty classroom. At the front of the room, his teacher sighed deeply, rustling the papers he was looking through. He’d been busying himself with work this whole time, but it was clear his heart wasn’t in it. He kept looking from his phone to the clock to the window to Akechi, as if that would somehow make the time pass any faster. Akechi had never liked him all that much, but this was making him like him even less. Wasn’t he the adult here? Could he not at least pretend like he didn’t mind having to babysit him as he made up this test?
And he’d gotten distracted again. It was fine, he was nearly done. Just a sentence or two more so he could have some semblance of a conclusion… there. Surely he’d be satisfied by that.
His teacher looked up eagerly as he got up with the test paper in hand. “All done?” He asked, already shoving his things into his backpack. When Akechi handed over his test, he flipped through it idly, one eyebrow raised. “So you answered everything even though you’ve missed so much class. Well, I’ll be grading this later. Then we’ll see how many of these are correct.”
You son of a bitch— “Haha, I gave it my best effort.”
“I’m sure,” he replied drily. “But, really.” Looking up, he fixed him with a judgmental stare. “I know I’ve said this before, but you have to make more of an effort to attend class, especially when we’re having exams and quizzes. Do you understand how much work it is for me to create new versions of these things every time? I understand that being a celebrity means you’re an exception to the rule, but… really now. I have to draw the line somewhere.”
Take it up with the TV stations, then! Argue with the SIU director and Shido, if you’d like! I’d love to see someone like you try to talk that way to them. They’d shut you down in an instant. But I'm the only one here, so I just have to sit here and take it.
He coughed, digging his nails into the palm of his hand. “Yes, of course. I understand… I’ll—I’ll try to make some changes to my schedule.”
From the look his teacher was giving him, he could tell how ingenuine those words were. Akechi had played his part, though, so he turned away, waving a dismissive hand. “Alright, see that you do. Have a nice day.”
“You too,” he ground out, turning on his heel and heading back to his seat. He gathered his things hastily, dumping them all in the main compartment of his bag, and rushed for the door, making an effort not to slam it shut.
The two laughing idiots—both boys—were still in the hallway, but they’d quieted down somewhat. One of them looked his way during a lull in their conversation. He must not have been hiding his anger as well as he would’ve liked, because the boy’s eyebrows shot up and he looked nervously back at his friend. Then they continued talking as if nothing had happened.
He needed to just… walk out of here. Go home. The week was over now, anyway. He had some homework and work related matters to take care of on the weekend, but he did have a little more time to spare. Which meant, as always, a trip into Mementos. Not for one of Shido’s hits, thankfully, but for training. He might’ve been nothing more than a puppet right now, but he did have power of his own.
Maybe someday, he’d get to use it for his own aims. But while he waited for that day, he had to become as strong as possible.
Saturday, 11:40 AM
Getting around Mementos was always somewhat of a chore without a vehicle. He could only move around on foot, so it was a lot slower than he would’ve liked, but it wasn’t all that bad. It wasn’t relaxing, like a long walk normally would be. It was more like… a slow and careful prowl. A hunt. He hadn’t seen other persona users around here yet, so for now, he reigned supreme over all of these shadows. It was boring, going uncontested, but it also gave him a sense of unparalleled power that made him smile.
Robin Hood and Loki kept him company, too. The only time he could hear them was in the metaverse, but once he entered the metaverse they wouldn’t shut up. Not that he minded. It had been off-putting to listen to them speak at first—it was like having someone read your mind and then tell everyone what they’d found out. Or having someone tell you what your innermost desires were before you’d even figured that out for yourself. He’d gotten used to it now, though, and now he always paid at least some attention to them, even if he was doing something else.
The steady dripping of water accompanied his footsteps, which echoed throughout the tunnels despite his efforts to keep them quiet. But if he played his cards right, he would still be able to take some shadows by surprise.
As if on cue, he peered around the corner and spotted a shadow sluggishly sliding across the ground. It began to turn with a low groan, but he was faster. Taking off and grabbing his sword, he slashed viciously through it. Loki cackled, loud and eager. Black, viscous liquid sprayed out of the cut, splattering his helmet as he grinned and stepped back.
The shadow glanced away as if to flee. Its feathered wings flapped agitatedly as it spoke. Do we really have to do this? Listen, I have some money if you want it—
“Crush it, Loki!” He hollered. Loki manifested beside him, raising its sword in a gesture that looked almost bored.
Foolish creature, it muttered darkly, sending a sea of flames towards the shadow. It was able to scream in agony for a second or two before it was incinerated completely, becoming nothing more than a few stray ashes. Akechi ground them under his heel as he walked past. Loki vanished once more but lingered at the back of his mind, along with Robin Hood.
Well done, Robin Hood said, a smile in its voice. But there’s still more work to be done. Shall we?
That was too damn easy, Loki snarled. Go find something that puts up a decent fight, or get out of here.
Yes… this was just the beginning. He still had a long way to go, but at least down here his path was straightforward. He didn’t have to deal with any of the bullshit that existed in the real world. None of the politics, none of the money changing hands, none of the arbitrary rules and regulations. Down here, the strong of mind and will reigned. Which meant that he had no problem doing whatever he wanted.
It was freeing, he decided after a moment of consideration. It was wonderful. He lived for this.
Leaving the first tunnel behind, he set off towards another area with a pleased grin.