stealhearted | are you hurting the one you love?

It's a fake. [ It makes sense, now that he thinks about it: that's why there's only Arsene within him, that's why things seem a little off and their clothes haven't changed. ]

Probably from... the remnants of the conspiracy. I don't know if this is their idealized world or if they're trying to overwrite our reality. Futaba might know. [ Ever since Maruki, it's a little hard to judge if people are just fucking around with Palaces or if it's bigger than that. This sure looks like they're trying to rewrite history, though, which sours Akira's stomach.

He wonders where Akechi would be, in that false history. ]

[One of the posters with Shido's face has blown off its placement, and skuttles by their feet-- Akechi wastes no time in stepping away from the wall to stamp his heel neatly between his father's eyes. He grinds his heel there a moment, just for good measure, his face entirely without expression.]

[His eyebrows crease together once Akira is done speaking, and he raises his head, lifting his heel and letting the imprint of his shoe on Shido's face pull his shoulders square.] They did have access to the original research on the Metaverse, so that makes enough sense. Given we haven't been detected as a threat, it's likely fine for us to check it out on our own a bit. Gives us more to report back to Navi.

[ Akira nods, taking a look around again -- there's people, but only the vague outline of them, each one looking like the others. He imagines it's because they're unimportant to the cognition, a mass of voters and people under the sway of the popular party, but...

Well, hopefully two highschool students don't draw any attention. ]

We'll keep an eye out for shadows. Do you have any idea where they'd be conducting the research?

[He scans the shadows with a bland look, eyes narrowing. If they're all an assumed faceless mass of voters under the sway of his father... He needs a hat. Moving away from where they were standing, he walks down the street without sticking to the walls or sneaking in any way-- walking like a normal person without any need to hide or focus on where he's going seems to be a clearer way to blend in with the other "people", and gives them a better chance of actually seeing more of the city without getting noticed.]

Here, or in the real world?

Both. One usually leads to the other. [ It'll be easier once they have Futaba, but since Akira doesn't immediately know how to get out of this MetaVerse, they might as well do as much exploration as they can so they aren't going to her empty handed.

Akira seems to catch onto the same thread of thought as Akechi, and he stops after a second, offering over his fake glasses and a hair tie. It's green; it's one of Futaba's. Akira, for his part, steps over to buy a water bottle from a vending machine and uses it to slick his hair back a little on the side -- the effect makes him immediately look like someone different to anyone who doesn't know him. ]

I've got a couple of bandages left in here, but we should avoid fights if we can.

I'd figure it was somewhere in the Diet building, though I'm not certain if that stands true now. [He gives a briefly perplexed look to the glasses and hair tie before sliding the glasses onto his face (they look sincerely ridiculous) and finger-combing his hair to pull it back. It's only long enough for something of a rat tail at the base of his neck, but it's passably different enough. He still wants a hat, solely for the specific color of his hair and the fact that none of these shadow people share it.]

[He gives Akira a vaguely appraising look for his attempted hair styling, and then strikes back out onto the street.] Somewhere underground would be my next best guess-- especially once they understood more of Mementos.

Okay. We probably can't get into the Diet building. [ Not with just the two of them, not when they're not entirely sure what they're up against. Akira thinks they're both extremely strong, but Akira doesn't know how much of that strength is viable when they're both minorly handicapped.

Akechi, at least, is used to not having access to the Velvet Room; he's definitely stronger on his own merits than Akira is. ]

Should we start with the underground and see if we can find anything?

[Strength and unrelenting tenacity are two very different things. Akechi had little care for what happened to him in the Metaverse-- he could just heal and there would be no ill effects once he left again. He could just leave and go back another time, and wounds inflicted within would typically not follow him out. If they did, they were never half as severe as they were within. It hadn't been his best moments, but he would argue he wasn't stronger than Joker, just less bothered by things that might slow him down.]

[He didn't have a team to keep in mind the entire time, so he'd never really bothered with prioritizing safety.]

[Even now, he struggled to focus on the fact that he needed to not fuck up and get hurt. That was more for Akira's sake than his own, so he tried to keep the thought present in his mind despite the dull thrum of power from Loki tempting him to act up. He hummed around it, pausing and looking at his feet. Underground...]

Sewers, you think?

Guess we were going to the bath anyway tonight. [ Not that dirt from the MetaVerse really transfers, but the thought of it does, and Akira has absolutely no intentions of being covered in cognitive sewer gunk even in the real world.

That said, he pauses, looking around for a moment and down the alleyways with fewer of the shadows. ]

So, manhole covers? [ Akira asks, idly, stepping over towards one of the alleys that clearly has one -- and very few "people" around it. ]

[He's glad Akira mentioned that so he didn't have to, nodding and meandering after him.] Before that, it might be beneficial to congregate somewhere and people-watch a bit first. Make sure there isn't surveillance we aren't noticing.

Hmm. I've got a plan you're going to hate. [ Which is all the warning Akechi gets before Akira reaches out to entangle their hands, automatically stepping closer to Akechi. Some of the other shadows going about their daily business don't look dissimilar; couples and children, all in vague shapes, making their way through the city.

Akira uses his Third Eye again, glancing down the street. ]

There's a lot of cameras, but that's not unusual.

[He doesn't hate it as much as Akira might assume, but he doesn't state that, either. He doesn't step out of his personal bubble, tilting his head conversationally while he scopes out the area and just watching him. Seeing Akira, still visually the slender teenager who shakes over unplanned run-ins with cops, behave with Joker's confidence is doing things to the pit of his stomach, and he's not sure he likes the warmth settling there.]

Busy area of town, there would be. Where's that water bottle? [Assuming Akira still has it, Akechi carefully uncaps it in a way that removes the plastic ring under the cap as well. Rolling it between his fingers for a while, he folds it in on itself and then slides it over his ring finger.] Even someone voting for the worst prime minister Japan has ever seen would be upset if a beloved's ring fell into the sewers, am I wrong?

[He absolutely saunters away from him, then, every bit the Detective Prince.] Come on, then, walk with me. [He speaks with his hands, surreptitiously flicking the plastic ring around his finger until it's loose, so when he drops his hand to his side just over a manhole, it slides off and slips through the gap in the center of it.] Oh! How awful. [His tone is equal parts convincing and excessively put-upon, and he throws himself at the manhole to wrench it out of place.]

Edited 2021-04-16 01:16 (UTC)

[ It's so jarring it might be off putting if Akira wasn't already so thoroughly entrenched in Joker's nearly unflappable personality. When the "ring" drops, Akira drops down to help get the manhole cover off.

He looks at Akechi with fake honesty, lips twitching as he tries not to smile. ]

Don't worry, honey. We'll get it back. [ He says, reasonably straightfaced and more for the benefits of any shadows that might have enough intelligence to think it would be weird otherwise. Then he gives a casual look around and drops down into the manhole cover with a theatric grace born of too much time jumping off buildings. ]

[A startling thrill crawls rapidly up Akechi's spine as Akira drops into the manhole before them, and he's a bit more careful in how he sits and dangles his feet, calling down into it.]

Step aside, I wouldn't want to land on you. [He fully expects Akira to joke about catching him, but hops down after him anyway. He lands with a catlike grace, just crouched instead of dropping into a roll to soften the landing, and stands up quickly to pivot a full 360 so his eyes adjust quicker.] And don't get used to calling me "honey".

[ Akira just shoots Akechi a grin in the dim lighting. ]

Isn't "Crow" just your pet name, anyway? [ It's not, because everyone calls him that, but it sure sounds different when it comes from Joker when it's just the two of them. Akira doesn't have a flashlight on him -- despite his best efforts he isn't prepared for everything -- so he just turns the flashlight on his phone on the lowest setting, giving everything a dim illumination. ]

It's... cleaner than I'd have expected. [ Which is to say, it looks less like the depths of Mementos and more like a futuristic lab setting with a fake water system abovehead. ]

[He rolls his eyes, scoffing, but it's definitely different to have Joker and just Joker calling him Crow. He hadn't quite had enough time to get used to the moniker before Maruki's reality, and most of that had felt like the world's worst fever dream, anyway. He waves a hand dismissively in favor of focusing on the surroundings, and his eyebrows raise under his fringe, which made absolutely no attempt to stay pulled back with the rest of his hair at his nape.]

[He looks up and follows the faux water system with his eyes, narrowing his eyes as part of it curves directly into a wall. There's a seam just under where the pipe disappears into the wall, and he looks from it to Joker and back before advancing toward it. There's a difference in his gait-- he's moving like Loki, dropping fluidly into a crouch and laying a hand palm-flat against the ground just under the pipe's abrupt turn. The grin on his face pulls maybe a little wider than looks comfortable.] Funny, there's a draft here.

[ Ahh, that's the personality Akira was expecting to start shining through. He doesn't comment on it, though -- the things they do in the MetaVerse generally need to stay there for all of their sakes, just as no one comments on how Akira changes in to become Joker on multiple levels. ]

They really never expect anyone to come looking. [ Akira says it, faintly amused, because even in the odd cases where people have been waiting for him, with cognitive and traps and manipulations, it's... never really worked. On any of the thieves. ]

[He stays crouched, folding around one knee and lacing his fingers together over his kneecap, resting his chin on his hand and looking sidelong up at Akira.] They're rarely used to those of us who do. [He looks back to the "wall", then stands, stretching in place.]

So? Do we progress on our own, or find a way back to report to Navi?

[ They should head back. Akira knows that. But there's a certain thrill to this that he's missed -- a beginning infiltration, with the whole puzzle out before him -- and he gets to do it with Akechi.

It's like a better version of Maruki's palace infiltration. ]

Let's go a little further in.

[His grin pulls just that tiniest bit wider than looks comfortable again, and he steps aside to gesture to the wall that isn't a wall at all.]

Then by all means, Leader.

[ There's a little more of a flourish than is strictly necessary in the way Akira summons Arsene back up and calmly -- but accurately -- cracks a hole in the wall so they can get through.

It's a little reckless, since they don't really know what's on the other side, but at the same time, Akira is ready for it. He presses to the side, out of sight, after the initial burst.

Sure enough, when the dust settles, there's a very confused shadow patrolling the other side -- and, as Akira reaches out to pull his gloves up, there's also the knowledge that the two of them are now considered a threat. ]

[Akechi steps to the side out of view of the hole created by Arsène as well, but the grin never leaves his face, even as he leans on the wall and closes his eyes to settle the exhilarated hum in his veins. He doesn't know to associate it with Loki entirely until he glances sidelong and Akira is in a domino mask and red gloves, and it feels a bit like Arsène has set off an Agi in his gut.]

[Of course it registers a moment later that he's looking at him through the visor of his Black Mask helmet, and he raises a clawed hand to tap against it in a stunned moment of confusion before he laughs, pivoting to toss himself through the hole made in the wall.]

[ Akira has just long enough to admire that, yes, Akechi's ass really does look fantastic in that outfit before he's jumping forward, flinging a casual attack forward to start in on physical damage with Arsene backing him.

He really doesn't have any of his good weapons, so he falls in spell heavy, which works well enough: by the time the battle ends, they're both fine, and the shadows... aren't.

Akira reaches out for the shadow, attempting a negotiation -- but the shadow swirls, losing shape and coherency. Its voice comes out layered, like a hundred people speaking through a room fan, and then it collapses in on itself. ]

... huh. I guess since it's fake...?

[Akechi has never really known how to not go in spell-heavy-- the rush of power that comes from abusing Megidolaon, especially, is veritably intoxicating. He's fine, sure, but his chest is heaving when they're through because he's just that exalted, Loki looming behind him like a weird zebra overlord.]

[He stands straighter from where he'd been hunched down as he is when he fights, and he's glad his mask covers his entire head, because it means he doesn't have to bother trying to school the wild grin on his face that he can't seem to lose. He licks his lips, cracks his knuckles, and then rolls his shoulders.] Who cares, at this point. It just makes them easier to kill.

[ They're not Akira and Akechi right here, they're Joker and Crow, and so Akira doesn't reach out, doesn't pull Akechi to his side and tell him to breathe. This kind of madness -- Joker thrives on it, the chaos of it, and it makes it easier to slowly feel the way the layout of the place they're in unwinds in his mind.

So instead he just looks at Crow, and tosses him one of the remaining bandages from his bag. ]

I did say I missed being able to work things out here. [ Which is all Akira says before he's leaning around to attack another shadow from a corner. They're still in a long hallway -- maintenance, Akira thinks -- but in truth:

the where is less important than the cheerful fighting. Akira has missed the feeling. ]

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