Chapter Text
Goro has spent two consecutive nights on increasingly uncomfortable couches, pretending to sleep and not sleeping at all. He wakes up from a vague, incoherent nightmare about Shido literally kicking a puppy, and the smell of coffee is the only thing that keeps him from feeling flat out homicidal this early in the morning.
"Hey," Akira greets him, when Goro sits up. There's a blanket draped over Goro that Goro certainly didn't go to sleep with, and his clothing is rumpled and wrinkled, since he didn't initially plan to be sleeping over indefinitely.
He'll have to have Sae ferry him more clothing. This is intolerable.
"Hey," Goro echoes, with considerably more sarcasm. Akira huffs a laugh, tilting a frying pan down to allow another layer of tamagoyaki to ooze across the heated surface.
"Don't get your hopes up about the coffee," Akira says, as Goro slips his jacket off and steps into the kitchen in just his shirt. "The machine was from the eighties, and Kaoru brought us pre-ground coffee."
"Horrifying," Goro says. He takes the cup of coffee that's been designated his by way of not being next to Akira's hand and takes a sip. "I've had worse, I suppose."
"There's cream and sugar," Akira says, and Goro gives him a look that can only be described as 'aghast'. Akira laughs. "It's crappy coffee. No one's going to be offended."
Goro puts exactly two teaspoons of sugar into his coffee, and that's the most he can manage before he feels like the spirit of Sojiro Sakura will simply rise from the floor to give him a two hour lecture on beans.
"I hope you're not expecting me to eat all that," Goro says, eyeing what Akira has managed to work into some sort of makeshift bento. It's just several layers of tupperware -- some of which are definitely reused from the groceries Kaoru had delivered -- but it's certainly more than Goro could eat an entire day.
"It's for Mementos," Akira says. "If it's just the two of us, we're going to burn through our supplies quicker."
Goro has always known that he and Akira are very similar, at their core, which is usually something that he hates thinking about. But murder is behind them both, now, so Goro is free to ruminate on the fact that they're absolutely both the sort of person to stay up all night thinking about plans they can't yet set into motion when they're worried about something.
"Did you manage to sleep any?" Goro asks, because if they're to the level of packing what looks like an entire dozen eggs worth of tamagoyaki, then the rest of their physical health should be discussed.
"No," Akira says, dragging it out into multiple syllables like a child that's done something they shouldn't have. "Kinda hoping that the coffee helps with that."
"Ah yes," Goro says, "coffee, well known for being a sleep aid to the weary."
"You know what I mean, you jerk," Akira says, but the insult is easy and playful despite the context of the situation being about Akira's crippling guilt over being a murderer.
The ability of the human mind to attain something resembling normalcy in any situation is, frankly, both horrifying and largely dependent on not thinking about anything for too long. So Goro doesn't: he lets his tired mind skip over the entire situation for a long moment, simply sitting down to enjoy his coffee.
The coffee is terrible, but Goro can't say he wasn't warned. He's fairly certain he recognizes the blend as something from a common chain shop, and while he'd certainly settled for it in his earlier life when caffeine was merely a way of cheating sleep, he has to admit that his standards have been unfortunately raised.
Honestly, Akira is intolerable in so many ways.
"So, sneaking to mementos," Akira offers, once Goro has had enough coffee to make the concept of being awake moderately less offensive. "Ideas?"
Goro is quiet as he puzzles through it. As much as Goro thinks of himself as a fake detective, he's always enjoyed puzzles and the thrill of putting something together. It just happened to be more convenient to do things the easy way, at the time, when he was trying to be an assassin. It is a puzzle, though, trying to figure out the best way to get a wanted criminal to the entrance to Mementos without getting either of them caught or arrested.
"I don't think we can just put another disguise of yours on me and get away with it," Akira offers, a little half-heartedly, since it's a fact that both of them are already aware of.
"How does Mementos connect to the rest of the Metaverse?" Goro asks, which is largely a question he doesn't expect Akira to be able to answer.
"Uh," Akira says, predictably.
"There are certain to be palaces nearby that we can access, with the correct key words. There are palaces that encompass large sections of the greater metropolitan area – it would follow that there's a way, then, to travel between those sections," Goro says.
Akira is quiet for a moment as he considers it. He clicks the lid of the tupperware closed, and then adds it to the pile contained within a reusable shopping tote. It looks like he's attending a bake sale, frankly.
"They must overlap," Akira says. "Right? Okumura's involved outer space, and Kaneshiro was the entirety of Shibuya. We don't know how many people have full blown palaces, but once they're large enough to manifest outside of Mementos, they're in their own… I don't know. Reality?"
"Something like that," Goro says. "So there must be a way to get from Mementos to a palace, which means there must be a way to do the reverse."
"Like… teleporting in a video game," Akira says, and Goro impolitely thinks multiple uncharitable thoughts about Futaba's influence on him.
"Sure," Goro replies, dryly. "Exactly like that."
The look Akira gives him is exasperated and tinged with something that Goro simply cannot accept as fondness, because the very concept makes Goro want to put a bullet through Akira's head all over again for being an absolute moron.
"If there's a way, Futaba and Morgana can scout ahead," Akira says.
Which will, Goro imagines, make them feel useful enough that they'll stay out of his way. The last thing Goro wants to deal with on top of everything else he's been dealing with is trying to babysit a group of thieves while they all tiptoe around Akira's obvious trauma and try not to induce a breakdown.
If he doesn't have to see Sakamoto's face ever again, Goro will consider this entire disaster of a mission a success.
Goro does not have his laptop, which is an oversight, but he could only pack so much into his bag.
Akira's gaze follows him.
"I have a few guesses on people in the area who might have particularly expansive palaces," Goro offers, by way of explanation. "It's far safer for me to go investigate alone "
"...Yeah," Akira agrees, even if he looks a little crestfallen about it. "Do you want to eat before you go?"
"No," Goro says, and then sighs internally when Akira manages to spiritually embody a kicked puppy even more than he had previously. As much as Goro is a murderer, he doesn't think of himself as a complete monster. "I don't usually eat in the morning, but if you're insisting, I can manage something light and small."
Akira doesn't quite smile – Goro is fairly certain that Akira can pick up on the fact that Goro is rather transparently trying to keep Akira from having a complete mental breakdown – but he does look back up at Goro and then nod.
Goro goes to get his jacket, and when he returns Akira has made him a very modest breakfast of toast and half an orange. Goro eats the orange and about half the toast, prioritizes drinking a second cup of coffee, and then hesitates at the doorway.
"I'll see if I can't get a burner phone of some sort for you," Goro says, finally. He doesn't particularly like the idea of leaving Akira here alone without a way to call for help, but he also needs his phone if he's going to be looking up targets, and even more than that he needs to get fresh air outside of the dusty apartment before he absolutely explodes.
"Thanks," Akira says. His foot is behind him, toes tapping the ground lightly in a rhythm that seems to be entirely off beat, and Goro recognizes it as a nervous tic that he does not have time to try and deal with. Goro can barely manage his own anxiety, right now, nevermind Akira's.
He's going to have heartburn before the week is out, dealing with all of this.
Goro lets the door close behind him and wishes it felt more final.
-
Goro has, once he has cleared everything of complete unimportance, sparing no guilt for the despairing television personalities trying desperately to get ahold of him, has very few actually relevant emails, texts, or missed calls.
One of them is the most important.
He's careful to hide it from Akira, using the army of junk notifications on his phone to bury the name Shido as low as possible until he's three blocks away from the apartment. It's a voicemail, left when Goro's phone was solidly off, and Goro shutters himself away in a public bathroom and tries not to touch any surfaces while he listens.
"Kid," a voice says, and Goro's mind whirs as he attempts to place the voice to one of Shido's specific associates. "You good for one last job? Payment's still good. No point in cutting our losses when we could go a little further."
That's it. That's the entirety of the message. The line disconnects, and Goro withdraws the phone and stares at it pensively.
"Idiot," Goro murmurs, more to make himself feel better than anything else.
He flips screens, clicking in to dial another number.
"Sakura," he says, the instant it connects. "Can you help me identify a voice if I send you a sample?"
-
Goro thought that he would feel better immediately upon leaving the apartment. He doesn't. He's worried and anxious, which is a set of emotions he left behind years ago, and he hates the idea that he's feeling them right now. It turns out that while he killed off any anxiety he had about his own fate, he has all sorts of hangups about other people. It's just that it never mattered before, because Goro was going to kill Shido and then that was meant to be the end of anything significant.
So that's going great, Goro thinks, and tries not to worry about Akira.
He buys the burner phone first, because it helps with the worry, and then he heads straight for Mementos.
He doesn't feel immediately better upon entering the Metaverse, but a few decimated shadows later and he's certainly well on his way to it.
He stops at one of the rest points and reflects with a calculated level of vitriol on how much easier it would be if he had swallowed his pride and allowed the cat on this mission for the sake of transportation. Then makes a face.
"Perish the thought," he murmurs.
"Perish what thought, mister?"
Goro is a "murder now, ask questions later" sort of person when it comes to Mementos, so when he whips around with his sword, his reactions are blunted enough that he only barely registers that there is a child in front of him before he makes contact. He springs backwards, keeping his sword outstretched.
"Who are you," Goro says, because on a closer look, it is absolutely not actually a child. A child doesn't have bright yellow eyes and hair that more closely resembles an egg shell.
"Jose," the shadow informs him, cheerfully. He stretches a hand up in greeting.
"Jose," Goro repeats, flatly.
"Yeah! You're Crow, right?"
"What," Goro says.
"I saw you with everyone else when they'd come in," Jose says. "They didn't visit with you, though. I wonder why that is?"
"I wonder," Goro repeats, monotonously, wondering exactly how much the Thieves have managed to keep a secret from him even now. He hates how fragile Akira is, because he wants to pin him down and pick his brain for every omitted detail, every miniscule lie–
It wouldn't do any good, because Goro has already failed, but it might make him feel better.
"Well, it's nice to meet you now!" Jose smiles at him so brightly that Goro is genuinely too confused to reply in any meaningful capacity. "Are you here on your own? That's pretty dangerous."
"I'm used to it," Goro replies. The juxtaposition of what Jose acts like – a child – with what he actually is, which is a dangerous shadow of unknown power, is one that Goro is struggling with. Best to play his cards close to his chest, he supposes. "Do you live here?"
"Yup! I travel around looking for more of the flowers– oh, you can get the details from everyone else," Jose says, almost flippantly. "You don't seem like the kind of guy who would wander around picking flowers for someone."
"How astute," Goro says, and the smile Jose gives him is just as bright as before.
"But you never told me what thought you're perishing," Jose says, and the conversation circles back around so rapidly it takes Goro a second to refind his place in it.
"...the merits of driving a motor vehicle," Goro offers, which is, as all the best lies are, partially based in truth.
"Oh! You need wheels, mister?" Jose says. "Why didn't you say so?"
Goro didn't say so to begin with, and he almost states as much, but then there's a roar behind him and a car comes barreling down the train tracks with no one driving it. A second later, Jose does a flip the Thieves would find enviable and lands in the driver's seat, grinning.
"C'mon, I know all the best back roads," Jose offers.
"There is absolutely no reason for you to help me, or for me to trust you," Goro says.
"We're both concerned about Joker, right?" Jose says, and Goro swallows down the distinct taste of bile. "I'm not really sure what's going on out there… but there's been some dangerous shadows talking about him, and some of them are the ones you're looking for. I can help you, if you're helping him!"
Everyone is simply tripping over themselves to help Akira, and it's absolutely disgusting. He hates every part of it. Largely because he's also trying so hard to help Akira – and for what? Why bother, when there's so many other people helping him, who are far more experienced in being helpful and supportive?
But Goro has nothing better to do with his time anymore, and he is very good at investigation, and also murder.
So that's a niche, he guesses.
"Fine," Goro says, finally, because getting into a clown car driven by a sentient egg is not the weirdest thing that's happened to him in the metaverse.
He doesn't bother to try opening the door, because something as mundane as opening a car door and buckling a seat belt feels deeply antithetical to everything that the Metaverse represents. He just hops in, instead, and Jose offers him a pleased look, like it was the right decision.
Goro opens his mouth but doesn't manage to get terribly far into the act of speaking before they're hurtling down the tracks. It's even more terrifying than the worst rides he's had aboard the Monabus, which is certainly saying something, but it seems like there's some sort of specific gravity at work that keeps Goro safely within the generalized confines of the vehicle. Just… a bit shaken, perhaps.
Or scrambled, he thinks, with another glance at Jose.
They're two floors down, taking the floor changes without ever getting out of the car, before Goro thinks it's safe to speak.
"What, exactly, have you been hearing about him?"
There's no doubt who him is, of course, because Akira is the one being who wholly exists within the minds of anyone who has met him at all times.
"Hmm," Jose says, and cranks the wheel particularly hard to avoid a shadow with a glaring red aura. The shadow turns and makes a curious, stupid sort of noise, but they've rounded another corner before it can even think of giving chase. "It's weird to hear so many people talk about him at all, to be honest with you."
He looks at Goro for a long moment, and Goro's grip on the car door tightens enough that his claws are certainly doing some damage to the car interior. Does Jose need to see the road to steer? They're about to find out.
The answer is inconclusive, because Jose looks back at the road just in time to swing them down another floor and avoid splattering them across the walls. Over easy.
"The shadows talk about the Phantom Thieves all the time," Jose elaborates, and Goro is suddenly busy wondering if he's going to develop carsickness in his old age, "but they don't usually talk about Joker. It sounds like there's a lot of people out to get rid of him."
"That's an accurate enough take on the situation," Goro grits out.
"You're going to stop them, right?"
"What?"
"The people that want to get rid of him," Jose says, with another long look that makes Goro feel like he's having his intelligence scrutinized by Humpty Dumpty.
"...Yes," Goro says, finally, because he is, technically.
"A few have disappeared," Jose says. "I think they have Palaces, now. But there's still some around here, if you– aha!"
He swerves in and stops just before a nauseating, rotating portal into encountering someone corrupted from the inside out.
"This guy is big on government," Jose says. "It seems like that causes a lot of trouble for you guys up there, huh?"
"You have no idea," Goro says, dryly, and gets out of the car. He uses the door this time, but he doesn't close it, because it closes behind him automatically as Jose kicks it into a higher gear.
"Well, there's more of him around here," Jose says, "but I've gotta go! We stirred up some trouble!"
Jose sounds absolutely delighted by this, and he speeds off. A shadow rounds the corner, so wholeheartedly focused on Jose that it doesn't spare a glance at Goro at all, which is… interesting. Goro listens until he can't hear the sound of the engine any longer,
Goro is so ill-equipped to deal with the entire event that he simply chooses to handle it like he handles most things that could be distressing: he folds it up and files it away in his mind and refuses to acknowledge it, turning his attention back to the problem at hand.
Goro steps inside the portal to find a business man that looks familiar. Goro is certain he's seen him in passing, but he doesn't know this specific one – he has an inkling that he's in some sort of government agency, but he couldn't begin to say which one.
"Oh? What's this? Have you come to worship at the feet of the great Daisuke Ogata?" the shadow says, and Goro is quietly pleased that shadows continue to be great sources of information.
"Yes," Goro says. He shifts his tone up to be pleasant and conversational, even though he doubts it matters. Delicacies like tone of voice are frequently lost on this kind of shadow, too high on its own narcissistic victories to care what anyone actually thinks. "I've come to tell you what a good job you've been doing."
"Well, of course I've been doing a good job," the man sniffs, as though even Goro's thanks are beneath him. Goro idly thinks about all the ways he could murder the man. "Now we're so busy with Shido-san's murder, I can't imagine anyone less talented than me could possibly have pulled through!"
"It's amazing," Goro drawls. "Could you tell me how you pulled it off?"
"Why?" the man asks, the suspicion of life leaking just enough into his Mementos self to give him pause.
"Oh, don't misunderstand me," Goro says, waving a hand. "It's only that I admire you so much. I can't hold a candle to your accomplishments, but I hope to one day achieve my own success."
As nauseating as the compliments are, it's a quicker option than fighting the man – particularly given that Goro doesn't want to commit to anything just yet. He's just gathering information.
It works, predictably. The man relaxes, smoothing lines out of his suit as though the previous tension manifested in wrinkles.
"Of course, of course," Ogata says. "I'm always one to help the youth. Well, you know, after that little criminal killed Shido-san, we had to do something! We'll need to make certain we can still control the country even if we're without a prime minister. It's unprecedented for it to happen so rapidly, and we're playing the destabilization angle, you know, but it's important to keep everyone focused on that murderer so they don't pay attention to things."
"Mm-hmm," Goro intones. "Riveting."
Shadows do not often pick up on sarcasm.
"I made sure Miura leaked everything to the internet right away. It sounds like Shido-san went too easy on the criminals, but I'm sure we can ensure that all of those… "thieves" disappear properly."
That is exactly what Goro was hoping they wouldn't do, because his ability to care about people simply cannot extend to encompass the entirety of the phantom thieves. He recognizes Miura, though – a known leak within the police, though he hadn't made Goro's short list of people to get rid of.
"Oh, you know who they all are?" Goro asks.
"Well," the shadow admits, some of the wind taken out of his sails, "not just yet, but we're looking for them now. Now that we know who the kid was, I bet a ton of people will come forward."
Goro does not think there is a single person that knows anything about Akira who would ever go to the police, actually, because Akira is simply that kind of person, but the futility works in their favor right now.
"Amazing," he says, instead, and contemplates his claws as though they're actually his nails.
"We doubt the psychopath will show his face, but we were thinking if we can find a friend of his or two, he might try and rescue them," Ogata says, and Goro clicks his claws together in disgust. "He seems to like that kind of heroic garbage."
"Well, I wish you the best of luck," Goro says, because that's about all the information he needs.
"Thanks, kid… Hey, what did you say your name was again?"
"I didn't," Goro says, and surveys the portal that lead him from the greater Mementos area into this tiny room with one arrogant occupant. He considers, and then steps past the man, moving to inspect the back wall. It's… fleshy, which isn't terribly unusual for Mementos, but Goro has never considered –
He stabs it. With his sword, of course; the very thought of digging his claws into the room temperature flesh of a Mementos wall is enough to make him want to give up on being present entirely.
"What are you doing? You have a weapon?" Ogata says, and Goro clicks his tongue, because the last thing he wants to deal with is the shadow going ballistic behind him.
"For your enemies," Goro offers, halfheartedly. The sword is meeting some resistance, but not nearly as much as it should. Goro leans his weight in on it and watches the wall tremble.
"Security! Security, this boy has a weapon!"
Goro grunts faintly as he rips the sword out and saws down as violently as he can. He's not getting anywhere fast, so he rips it out. The gash he's made in the wall does not heal itself, which is promising.
"There, you see him? Get rid of him!"
Goro glances behind him to see two new shadows that have drifted into the room. The room is warping all around him like shadowed veins pulsating from the wound he's made, but Goro has no time to regret his actions or reflect on the idea that he shouldn't have done that.
Instead, he simply casts Laevateinn.
The shadows focus drifts away from Goro as the entirety of Mementos seems to shriek like metal folding in a hurricane, and when everything clears there's a clear hole in the wall. Ogata's shadow lets out a scream that Goro hopes he'll make in reality one day and runs all the way to the other side of the room to cower, and even the shadows summoned as security seem unsure of how to progress.
"Well then," Goro says. "Thank you for the information."
There's nothing on the other side of the hole that he can see. He steps through it anyway.
There's a strange, sickly feeling, not dissimilar to entering the Metaverse for the first time – and then the world rights itself… sort of.
It looks like Shibuya, if Shibuya was affected by some absolutely bizarre circumstances. There's what looks to be a ribcage raising up through the streets, and along the bones pulse more strange veins, thrumming in time with a heart that Goro can't see. The street looks almost normal, save for the lack of people.
Goro vaults up to the top of the grocery store he's standing next to and scales to the balcony of the nearby apartment building, and everything stops resembling Shibuya at all.
He can see the palaces.
There's a brightly lit circus in the middle of one of the roads. He gets the impression that it's huge, but he can't look straight at it for too long or the fact that it's such an expansive area crammed into a tiny pocket of this reality seems to give him an instant headache. He presses his palm to his temple and keeps looking.
There's two corrupted police stations; one is decorated in white and gold, and the other is a hideous, jagged building with skulls lining the fence. They're on opposite sides of Goro's visible range, but he thinks they might translate, more or less, to the real locations.
Goro has to get higher.
He scales the apartment building. There's a woman inside one of the buildings, and he pauses for a moment when she looks his way, but she doesn't seem to really see him. She's pacing around her apartment, the walls plastered with images of the same man, overlapping each other at the edges, the man's eyes scrawled out with marker.
Goro isn't touching that. He makes it to the top of the building – he can see a good amount now, even if it's hardly Tokyo Tower (which he can also see, and it doesn't look like it's escaped unscathed either).
There's an area of Tokyo that looks like it was flooded recently, and when Goro realizes how close that area is to the Diet building, he feels something like nausea roll up in his stomach again. It's left flood damage, but in its wake lie more slowly building palaces.
That's what they all must be, but Goro never realized how many of them there were. Hunting them down one by one was an entirely different feeling than looking out at a Tokyo with the bright lights turned into a bloody sepia, spotted with hundreds of palaces, run by thousands of individuals committing so many crimes without ever being caught.
There was never going to be any justice from the Metaverse, Goro thinks.
"Little trickster," a voice says. Says doesn't do it justice: it booms so loudly it could displace buildings, but it seems like the only thing affected is Goro. Goro goes down to one knee and braces himself to stay stable. "You should not be here."
The voice is deep, and – familiar – but it's so loud that Goro can't even think around the words. They stick to him. The cadence of the speech feels like it's altering Goro's heartbeat if he focuses on it too much, and so he turns all of his concentration back onto himself.
"This is a place not meant for you," the voice continues, "though I am impressed you managed to find it."
It starts raining, and Goro ignores the droplets in favor of staring at his hand as it goes transparent for a moment. He concentrates – and then there's a white glove on his hand, which is better than nothing, except the rain rapidly dyes the fabric the bright, deep red of fresh blood. When nausea rolls through Goro this time, he knows it isn't from his own thoughts, but it doubles him over anyway, makes him gag against the concrete of the apartment roof.
"Perhaps the game would be more interesting if I allowed you to continue in this way," the voice says, sounding almost amused. "But, alas. Now that you've seen it, you–"
Goro doesn't get to hear exactly what it was that he has to do now, because his attention breaks, and his entire forearm disappears through the concrete. A butterfly flutters in front of his eyes – the golden wings reflect light that doesn't exist in this darkened corner of the world. Goro stares at it, riveted in a way he can't explain.
The voice growls as the butterfly lands on Goro's remaining hand, and then the entire world collapses in on itself like a palace after the ruler is defeated. Goro plummets with the wreckage of the building, but nothing seems to hit him. The butterfly remains on his hand, and he doesn't hit the ground: when he turns to look, the ground comes at him fast, and he slams into it–
Standing upright just outside the Shibuya station, in the clothing he'd put on that morning.
Goro stares at the bustle of reality for a long moment before he turns on his heel and rushes back inside.
He spends ten minutes hating Akira for everything Akira has ever fed him as he's forced to experience it all in reverse in a public restroom, but by the time his stomach settles, his hands have stopped shaking.
Goro has no idea what the fuck just happened.
-
"I found a way to get from Mementos to the greater Metaverse," Goro says when he closes the door, before he can think the better of saying it, "but there's a chance it will kill us. Disguise might be the safer option."
Akira is cooking again – he appears around the corner in an apron, holding a ladle, and looking mildly concerned.
"Are you okay?"
"I'm fine," Goro says. Snarls, really, because the last thing he can deal with today is Akira's delicate worry over Goro when Goro is the least important piece of this fucking puzzle.
"I made–"
"I'm not hungry," Goro snaps, and refuses to feel guilty when Akira's eyes widen. Except then Akira's face transforms not into the hurt look that Goro expects, but into a sort of resigned, fond exasperation.
"Okay," Akira says. "Then do you want some coffee?"
Yes, Goro thinks.
"No," Goro says. He's aware that he's being childishly caustic for no reason, but he had the world's worst encounter with butterflies that he doesn't actually want to talk about. Moreover, he feels like he shouldn't talk about it.
"So how'd you get to the Metaverse from Mementos?"
"I broke a hole in a wall," Goro intones, which makes it sound so much easier than it was. Akira looks bewildered.
"Just a hole in a wall?"
"I found someone likely to expand into a Palace soon, and broke one of those walls," Goro elaborates. "And found myself in–"
Goro goes quiet, but it isn't by choice. He simply can't manage to say what he's trying to. It's like there's no air in his lungs when he goes to speak, and he feels like he's smothering, drowning underwater, pressed in so tightly he can't inhale –
And then the warning passes.
"--somewhere I shouldn't be," Goro finishes, somewhat more tentatively than he intends. "I can't explain it."
Akira doesn't look satisfied by this, but he doesn't pry.
"I do have some leads for Sakura to follow up on," Goro says, and as the conversation moves swiftly away from that – place – he feels more and more normal. It's disconcerting. "If one of your many friends can deliver a disguise for you, then that will certainly make it easier to investigate the parts I think she should stay away from."
Largely, the parts that involve actually murdering anyone, or anyone who has too much to tell. Goro's past is an open secret, at this point, but that doesn't mean he wants Sakura scouting around some politicians who will tell everyone at length all the things he's done.
"Do you want to do it tonight?" Akira asks. "If I can get a disguise?"
"As quickly as possible would be ideal," Goro says, slowly, because his life has been a series of bad decisions and worse circumstances ever since he met Akira, and adding more on top can't hurt. It's too quick and too rushed, but if he can scout himself with Akira and then send Sakura up on the other leads, it'll work all the better.
"Sure. Let me borrow your phone?"
"I bought you a burner," Goro says, and passes it over. He, frankly, does not even want to look at his own phone screen right now, because the Metaverse Nav has never seemed quite so disconcerting. If he looks at it too long it almost seems to pulse in time with those awful veins, spread across the Metaverse.
Akira disappears into the kitchen to fuss over whatever dish he's making while he texts everybody, and Goro simply doesn't have the energy to follow him. Goro has been doing remarkably well at holding things together, but he feels like if things continue down the path they're on, he's going to absolutely lose his shit soon.
Goro has nothing to do while he waits. The apartment they're in is stiflingly small, and for all that Akira has been visibly, obsessively tidying the space, that doesn't actually make it any larger. Just less dusty.
If he'd been thinking clearly when he left, he would have stopped at his apartment and gotten more of his things. There's no reason he can't do it later, he supposes. He's, shockingly, not the person on the run for murder.
In fairness, Goro doesn't think he'd run if he'd been the one to murder his father. He'd planned to gloat, mostly. After the gloating came a lot of question marks, as Goro had never gotten much further than that in the plan he'd concocted when he was fourteen years old and only ever mildly restructured in the years since.
Retrospectively: a mistake. But he's good at those, isn't he?
Goro can't stop himself from thinking in circles, so he turns on the racing movie from before like it'll distract him in the slightest.
It doesn't.
-
"I need to go back to my condo," Goro says, over dinner, later, when his phone is back in his possession and all of Akira's texts have been wiped before he can see them by a little green emoji ghost.
Akira blinks at him. He still doesn't have glasses, and it makes every expression that much more transparent. He could weaponize it, if he wanted, but someone as righteous and upstanding as Akira would never–
Even Goro doesn't want to listen to himself anymore.
"Okay," Akira says. "Tonight?"
"We're going to Mementos," Goro says, "are we not?"
"Well, yeah. But I've gotta get my disguise before I can leave anyway, so we can just meet there… Right?"
Akira is unflinchingly confident in the concept of a disguise, and Goro is decidedly less so, but he also is willing to allow that Akira has made it this far – Shido's death aside – on his own ingenuity and confidence, so. Goro doesn't like the idea of Akira being on his own for that long for a variety of reasons, but it makes the most sense, and it's a good trial for Akira existing on his own once this is all over. Whenever that is.
Everything has been moving too quickly and too slowly ever since Akira showed up at his door, which is partially because Goro's life has transitioned into a series of small goals revolving around Akira's well-being, and his future is a vague concept he can't even touch.
Really, they've both managed to ruin each other, at this point. The thought leaves Goro strangely cold.
"Alright," Goro says, a little reluctantly. He stares at his plate of the noodles that Akira must have made by hand, given how lumpy they are. "When will you have your disguise?"
"Around eight," Akira says.
It's later than Goro would like, but he's given up all hopes for his sleeping schedule these days.
"Fine," Goro says. "We'll meet as soon as you're ready."
Akira offers him a cheerful thumbs up, and then resumes eating.
-
Getting to his apartment without anyone seeing him is relatively easy; getting inside and getting the things he needs is moderately less so. Sakura's installed something that detects cameras on his phone, and there's no less than three pointed at his front door, but she seems weirdly to help him out as long as all requests are presented politely via text – so he gets in.
Goro packs the majority of his life into one bag. It's a sobering sight: some clothing, the few things he's saved from childhood, and his laptop. That's really it. Everything else can be easily replaced; nothing else has any real value. He doesn't know if they're going to make it long enough for him to even bother trying to rebuy anything, so he just doesn't care about them.
He hides the bag in Mementos and waits for Akira.
Akira's a little later than Goro would like, but he hops into Mementos with the signature Joker smile, tugging at his gloves to make sure they're on correctly.
"Shall we?" Akira asks, cheerfully, and Goro feels deeply dubious of that cheer, but simply pushes himself off the wall.
"Let's go," Goro says.
They don't run into Jose, which Goro counts, frankly, as a good omen. It means they're on foot, which is annoying, but it also means that he doesn't have to deal with another uncontrollable variable being added to the mix. There's still so much up in the air that Goro explicitly does not want to deal with even more questions being thrown on top, like what the hell Jose even is.
Akira seems to be fine, alongside Goro: they fight their way through the shadows they need to, but they're both grossly overpowered, at this point, with Goro not bothering to hold back at all.
"Shit," Goro says. "There was supposed to be a portal here, but it looks like he's already turned into a palace."
This is annoying, because it means they'll have to speedrun an entire infiltration to take him down, but it isn't as bad as it actually could be.
"I wonder if we can get to the bottom of Mementos and just… take down everything," Akira says.
Goro looks at him like he's grown another head.
"Mementos is the root of everything, right? And we've been trying to get to the bottom this whole time," Akira offers.
"The idea isn't without merit," Goro says slowly, turning it over in his head, "but it'll take too long to be effective in trying to clear your name right now."
Akira nods, like this is fine: like it doesn't bother him that he's killed a man, like it doesn't bother him that they have to go change hearts so Akira can venture out as a free man again, like it doesn't bother him that one misstep might end Akira's entire life.
"Then who else do we need to check on?" Akira asks, and Goro considers him for a moment before heading onto the next target.
This time, he is small enough that he hasn't become a palace yet.
"You're not," Akira hedges, carefully, "going to kill him, right?"
Goro had been considering it, but if Akira is asking in a tone like that, even Goro can acknowledge it's a bad idea.
"Not unless I need to," Goro says, instead, and Akira bites his lip but accepts this. "We're here to find out any other names we can get, and investigate those, and get any keywords we can for Ogata."
"Sure," Akira says, and he sounds a little distant. Once they're interrogating the shadow, though, Akira seems to kick back into action, and it's reassuring to see him deftly ask the right questions.
It turns into a fight, because of course it does – it always does – and it takes Akira a few extra seconds when he tries to summon Arsene, the first time. It's just long enough to make Goro suspicious, but it doesn't last long enough for him to comment on, and when the fight is done Akira slips so easily back into interrogation mode that Goro feels like the subject is neatly sidestepped.
They don't change his heart, but only because Goro needs to make sure everything is timed right.
"I'd say we know who to prioritize now," Akira offers, as they head back, the route unimaginably more arduous now that they're trying to leave.
"Yes," Goro says. "We'll rest, and then I'll do some reconnaissance tomorrow. No, you can't come, it'll be faster if it's just me."
"We made really good time on this," Akira argues.
"Because there's no sneaking involved in Mementos," Goro shoots back.
"Yeah, but," Akira says, carefully, letting his gaze go distant as he takes the stairs to the next level two at a time, "I really hate being alone right now."
Goro has never missed Akira's cursed cat before in his life, but he finds himself wishing that Morgana was around just so he could stick him on Akira's lap and insist that he was a good enough friend for Akira and that Goro was thus freed of all obligations to keep Akira company.
On the other hand, Akira would probably just grab his sleeve and insist that he needed Goro's company too, which would be genuinely intolerable.
"Fine," Goro says, between gritted teeth. "We'll infiltrate Chiba's palace tomorrow. I'm less worried about Ogata, even if he's a palace now. If we get Chiba and play our cards right, we won't need anyone else. At worst, it buys us time to change anyone else we need to."
Akira visibly brightens. "Great."
It is not great. Nothing about any of this is great. Goro does not bother to fake a smile, and he hopes his eyeroll can be seen even behind his mask, but Akira seems content enough with the decision and doesn't try to make any further small talk.
"Oh," Akira says, when they hit the exit to Mementos. "Hold on."
"What?" Goro asks, as Akira goes still, staring intently at a wall – and then staring vacantly at a wall. "Kurusu. What?"
He gets no answer, so he reaches out and grabs Akira by the shoulder. Akira whirls around, eyes wide, and his entire costume flickers for a second like he can't get it stabilized. Then he does, and he settles, looking away from Goro.
"Sorry," Akira says. "I'm fine."
"What was that about?" Goro asks, because there shouldn't be anything to trigger that kind of reaction.
"It's nothing," Akira insists. Goro doesn't push any further than that, because Akira has no reason to trust him, but it still grates at his skin like sandpaper.
"Fine. Don't let it distract you again," Goro says, and Akira nods as Goro storms out of Mementos. Once they're out, his clothing re-materializing and his packed back over his shoulder, he looks back at Akira and stops dead.
"What?" Akira asks. Goro continues to stare at him, aware that he probably looks furious, but he'd rather look furious than any other reaction. Akira is dressed in a business woman's outfit, long hair curling all the way down past his shoulders, glasses back on, classy flats letting him stay only moderately unreasonably tall for a woman. "Oh. I figured this would be the best disguise."
Goro has no idea what to say. He reaches into himself for anything appropriately scathing, and comes up with absolutely nothing.
"Just don't talk," Goro snaps, finally, because Akira's low voice is a dead giveaway even if he manages to pull off an incredibly convincing woman. How–?
What kind of friends does Akira have?
Goro feels another headache coming on, even as Akira falls into step next to him, a small smile on his face.