they're just shadows searching for light

[flightpen]

CONTENT WARNINGS: character death, character being eaten


Ren's been here for weeks now, wandering Tokyo like a ghost, poking his head cautiously through doors into other places. The people are... well, anyway, most of them treat him better than he deserves. He can talk to them, and they can see him no matter how he feels. It's good. It should be good. But no matter how hard Ren tries to put on a brave face for Akechi, he's so worried all the time.

It's just, whenever Ren walks the streets of Tokyo, he can't help but think of what's beneath him. Akechi's Shadow, everything that was torn out of him, anger and betrayal and seething hatred. Hatred of Ren. Ren deserves it, he brought it on himself, he's the reason that Shadow even exists, but he can't—he can't just let it stay there, unacknowledged. He can't ignore it. He ignored Akechi once before, and look what happened.

The Shadow is dangerous, people have said. Deadly. But Ren has all his Personas again, the ones that were meant to take on Maruki; there's a chance he'll survive. And even if he doesn't, even if he dies... no one can honestly say that would be a great loss. And he'll have died showing Akechi, all of Akechi, that he matters enough to take the risk. Because he does matter. More than anything.

Still, he doesn't want to leave the Akechi in the real world without a word. Just in case it does go wrong. So he sits through an afternoon with Akechi, quiet and distracted, and when the time comes for him to leave and find food (or at least that's what he says), he turns back at the door of Akechi's apartment.

"Hey, um. Can I tell you something?"

Comments

[flightpen]

This is really, really fucking bad. Ren thinks, briefly, of the real Akechi, and is glad he said his goodbyes. But he can't bear what Akechi's Shadow is saying, what he seems to believe about Ren's feelings.

"I'm sorry. About what I did. I—I am." His voice cracks. "But Akechi, I would never sell you out. I just—"

[pheasantboy]

I would never sell you out. His face freezes. The words touch something that somehow still exists inside him.

It lasts no more than a moment, before his face twists and he throws Ren aside like a doll, making to follow him. "You fucking liar."

[flightpen]

Akechi's Shadow is stronger than he could ever be in reality; Ren hits the floor with a bone-bruising thud and gasps. Somewhere in his flight, he's let go of his dagger. Breathing hard from pain and adrenaline, he stares urgently at Akechi's Shadow as he tries to push himself to his feet. If he can't do anything else here, maybe he can at least make this known.

"It wasn't like that. I didn't want you to die. I couldn't—it wasn't because I didn't—"

He's losing track of his words again, now, when he needs them most. Fuck.

[pheasantboy]

"I told you I wanted to die!" Composure gone, voice distorting, the Shadow comes apart, impacting on the walls in a flash of black rage before snapping back together at Ren's side, with his shoulders in an iron grip. "What about any of this do you think I wanted?!

"All that shit you fed me about how you couldn't bear to let me die!" He shakes Ren as if he's wringing him out. "You were right. You could never be a traitor, Joker. You haven't got the balls! I'd rather be back with Shido than with you!"

His hands are still knotted in Ren's coat.

[flightpen]

The cruelty of it takes Ren's breath away, all the more so because he knows Akechi's Shadow means it. For a moment all Ren can do is stare at him, wide-eyed, bleeding grief and hurt into the space between them.

His mind is utterly blank. He has no idea what he can say, but he tries anyway. "Akechi..."

[pheasantboy]

"Don't call me that!" With a flailing sweep of his arm, he knocks Ren flying. "I'll never be Goro Akechi again! You took my name! You took my face, my body, and made them into a toy! This is all I'll ever be, and I can't even die to escape it!"

He sits on his haunches, coat draped around him, watching Ren with hate-filled eyes. A trace of calm returns to him, even of calculation. "So you got what you wanted, I guess."

[flightpen]

Ren's head slams against the floor this time, and for a second he blinks at the ceiling, dazed. He pieces together the Shadow's words after he fact as he struggles to sit up. If he weren't in the Metaverse, he'd be unconscious for... who knows how long.

Who are you, then? What do you want? The questions rise to his lips, but he doesn't ask them yet. Before anything else, he has to... Fuck, it's such a bad idea to argue about this, even Raoul cautions against it, but he hates how people talk about Akechi. When his own Shadow is the one saying that stuff, it's unbearable.

"I never wanted you to be a toy. And he's not one now."

[pheasantboy]

He stares in disbelief, the simple plan he'd begun to lay out forgotten. "You see? You see?! You don't even want me! You like him better, the way he is. A pretty little thing that eats from your hand. Doesn't murder anyone, or piss on the rug.

"You got exactly what you wanted!" His voice pitches up to a scream. "And you're making me pay for your cowardice!"

[flightpen]

"I don't prefer him!" For the first time, he raises his voice to Akechi's Shadow, glaring across the control room even as the walls tilt and spin around him. He props himself up on one arm. "You're just making stuff up now! I miss you every fucking day—"

His voice cracks again. He swallows hard. "I can think he's a person and miss you at the same time."

[pheasantboy]

The whole world turns black.

"Shut up!" The voice is like nothing human; he flies apart, expanding, impacting on the walls and still screaming. "Shut up, shut up, shut up! I hate you! I hate you!"

He has, somehow, got around Ren; he lines the whole of Maruki's control room, with Ren pressed against his inside wall. The screaming comes to an end, but he doesn't recoalesce. There's a tiny spark of life left in his darkness, and he wants to keep it.

[flightpen]

Well. He was warned.

It's like nothing he's experienced before, or even seen: a Shadow flying apart and swallowing someone. He can't see, or hear anything besides his own breathing, and every time he inhales he takes more of the despair and guilt of Akechi's Shadow into himself. Why does the Shadow feel guilty?

He isn't sure he could fight back right now, or even stand up. Blood trickles down the back of his neck. But it doesn't matter. He doesn't want to struggle. He deserves this. He belongs here, in the dark, soaking in the reality of what he did until Akechi's Shadow does whatever he's going to do. You're making me pay for your cowardice. The Shadow had been wrong about the rest of it, but that's the truest thing anyone's ever said to Ren.

He thinks of Akechi, the one on the surface, his constant concern and his voice, calling frantically for Ren on the street in Kichijoji; and he thinks of the way Akechi talks about his mother now. It'll be like that with Ren. Out of sight, out of mind, except when someone brings him up. He went when it was his time. Maybe Ren's doing him a favor, honestly. Not sitting in front of him being sad all the time, where Akechi can't distract himself. He'll be better off once Ren passes out of his memory.

"I'm sorry," he breathes, to Akechi and to his Shadow. With steady hands, he takes off his mask and sets it down beside him. It doesn't make any practical difference, in terms of whether he can fight; he could call it back with a thought. But the gesture speaks, nonetheless.

[pheasantboy]

Shit. Shit, shit, shit! Trapped outside his form against the wall of Mementos, by his stupid nature and his own endless rage, the Shadow twitches, and tenses, and tries to think.

He didn't mean to swallow Ren. Not yet, at least. Not like the smaller Shadows that misadventure close to him, tiny distractions from the bleak eternity of his days. If only he would have been worth it all—if only I hadn't been such a goddamned fool all along—

No wonder he spends so much time screaming. Ren's apology doesn't help, either. He can't catch his breath, for he has none, but there's a shudder in the walls of the bubble as Ren chooses to stay. His mind, what's left of it, whites out. stay, stay with me, oh stay—part of him wants it more than anything. But the rest of him is louder by far. He won't be stupid any more. He won't be trapped, and he certainly won't trust.

Rejecting it—rejecting Ren—he screams, "No! Never!", not making much sense but shaking all of Da'at. He needs to move, to thrash, but he can't, not in this monstrous form.

So he snaps back to his human shape and size, where he contorts in agony on the floor. Of Ren Amamiya and his mask, there is no sign. And when the Shadow understands this, he begins to wail.

[fogbornphantom]

That's when Crow charges into the room. Princely white and red distort to blacks, blues, greys, and a sharp helmet with red-tinted lenses. He skids to a stop, saber trembling in his grasp, the bright blue glow at odds with his more intimidating appearance.

He sees the wailing Shadow, and he glares.

"Where is Ren?"

[pheasantboy]

The Shadow's howls cut out, and he stares up from the floor, silent, staring and limp. Black ichor streaks his face like tears.

[fogbornphantom]

Wrong answer.

Crow stomps closer, looming over the Shadow. He grabs him by the front of that scarf, glaring into his eyes. "Where is he?"

There's so much fire in his voice, it's uncharacteristic. Crow can already suspect what happened. He just hopes that he's wrong.

[pheasantboy]

He goes. Why bother to do anything else? Looking up into his own face, sick and distorted, he starts to laugh.

"He's mine now. Mine forever. I won."

1/2 - cw alusions to death/suicide

[fogbornphantom]

Those clawed fingers curl tightly around that scarf. Crow's hand quivers. A sharp, pained gasp escapes as the realization sets in.

He was too slow. Too late.

Sparrow trusted him... and it wasn't enough.

He wasn't enough.

It's just like—

His mother's lifeless form, dangling, swaying, limp. Never again would she answer his calls. Never again would she smile, never again would she—

"No!"

Saki Konishi, consumed by long nails, claws, teeth, Shadows, writhing, screaming, utterly devoured, and he could only watch as the tears flowed and flowed and flowed...

Until they ran completely dry.

2/2

[fogbornphantom]

Without even thinking, Crow throws the Shadow at the terminal. It won't change anything. It won't fix anything.

It doesn't matter.

He does it anyway.

"You will pay for this."

[pheasantboy]

He doesn't fight, just flies across the room to impact on the terminal with a dull thud, pooling on the ground for a moment before he's again staring up with a dull hope, quickly quenched.

"You won't kill me. I've been trying to get you all to do it for months." Or rather, to kill "Sparrow", his ego, and close the book once and for all.

[fogbornphantom]

Laughter slips out of him, unsteady and raw. "Whoever said I planned to kill you?" And still, Crow steps closer. "You honestly believed this would bring you happiness? I saw those tears. You got nothing out of this."

His grip on his saber tightens. He stands there, as if he could strike at any time.

[pheasantboy]

He stares blankly at the incongrous blue sabre, then back to the furious eyes behind the black mask. There's still no sign that he will fight; the tearstains cleared when he lost his form as he hit the ground.

"I thought you were going to make me pay," he says, flat and lifeless. "If you meant you were going to give me therapy, then perhaps I'll fight you after all."

He does not move an inch.

[fogbornphantom]

Crow's hands shake. His back arches. Normally he's more composed. More rational.

Now?

Now he's rushing in, pouncing at the Shadow again. Even without intent to kill, nobody ever said he couldn't blow off some steam.

[pheasantboy]

And he doesn't move at all. The blows hurt, metal claws tear at the Shadow-stuff he's made of, but he just lies there, feeling the warmth and the loss and the absence of hunger, for the first time in so long.

1/2

[unfoggedlotus]

Yeah. Like hell is Ren just watching this happen.

"ARSENE! MEGIDOLAON!"

2/2

[unfoggedlotus]

The spell rips through the not-air of the Metaverse, crackling power echoing through the halls with a vicious bite. The ball of condensed spell energy slams down between the two Akechis and detonates, throwing the two apart from each other.

"Listen up, bastard." The instant after it detonates, Ren swoops down, grabbing his Goro. "I don't know and I don't give a FUCK what's happened with you and your fucking shitbag of a Ren. Drag my Goro into it again, and I'll make the self-made hell you're burning in hotter than the goddamn Sun. Goho-M!"

Less than a moment after he's said those words and smashed the little ball in his glove, they're back in reality, Ren clinging onto his boyfriend tight.