Memory Tape (personavelvetroomdr)

[undyingcrow]

When the light of Maruki's collapsing reality flooded his vision, Akechi braced himself for death. He'd made peace with his fate, going out on his own terms, doing the right thing for once in his miserable life...

But then his eyes opened to a wood ceiling. The weight of blankets covered his body. A splash of green from the windows outside...

Was this a form of afterlife, or...

No. He knew this place.

Hissing through his teeth, he slowly sat up. How?

His head throbbed, and his left hand flew to his temple on impulse. He was supposed to be...

Gunshots. They shot him. He should have died, but somehow...

Ren's face flashed before his eyes. The glove. Their duel... He never got the chance to...

"This is how your justice ends. Good night..."

Stillness followed. He couldn't open his eyes. Too weak. Too heavy...

You cannot die here, Prince of Fools. You must persevere.

The next thing he recalled, he lay flat on the ground, staring up at the sky, his body healed.

But he couldn't stay. If Shido believed he had died, the cognition would die too. If Shido believed that he lived, that would only reinforce the cognition's invulnerability. The Phantom Thieves would never be able to see it through...

So Akechi left, sticking to the Shadows. He didn't even return to his apartment. Didn't even pack his things. With only the clothes on his back, he left. He had enough money in his wallet to persist for a time.

Then, on Christmas Eve, after the world went to hell and bones reached into the sky, he checked in at a shelter that had served his mother well when he was little...

And he had stayed there ever since.

His phone lay on a bedside table. He checked the date. February 4th.

But he remembered all of it. Walking up to Ren in Shibuya, turning himself in, getting released far too easily, and everything that transpired in Maruki's reality.

Then the gap in his memories...

He flashed back to Leblanc, on February 2nd. Everything that Maruki said. The way he used Akechi as a bargaining chip.

Haha... ha... Of course. Of course it was all a farce!

Then, what? Akechi fumbled his phone. The urge to throw it at a wall reared its head, but, no... The people here deserved better.

He set it down, pounding the pillow instead.

"Fuck!"

He must have rewritten reality so that Akechi had died, and Maruki 'saved' him. His assumptions created that damnable gap in his memories.

If he'd known...

Would he have acted differently?

What was he supposed to do? How was he supposed to move forward?

He didn't expect to be alive, yet here he was.

After some time of staring aimlessly at the garden outside, he picked up his phone, scrolling through the messages.

All there, despite the reality collapsing, but he was no longer part of the group chat. After all, they had removed him in the previous reality. It made sense.

He could contact Ren, perhaps, let him know that he was alive, but... No. Ren was likely in juvenile detention.

The one person he wanted to talk to, now more than ever...

He had to do something. Anything...

So he slowly got up. He took a step forward. It was... a start.