CLOSED » it makes no difference

[uragiru]

» WHO? the phantom thieves (hearttheft, ryuji, boazjachin, mapsio) and akechi (uragiru)
» WHEN? about a week after arrival
» WHERE? crew quarters 4.28, ren & ryuji's room
» WHAT? akechi stops avoiding everyone for 5 minutes so they can discuss what the fuck is going on around here and nothing else no matter how much ren wants to talk about feelings
» WARNINGS? occasional mild suicidal ideation on akechi's part. intense passive aggressiveness, probably.

[ he's already regretting that he agreed to this before he even makes it to Ren's door. this isn't going to be at all like November, when everyone had an unspoken agreement to grit their teeth and make it through — or... maybe it is, now that he knows they had him figured out all along. they won't be lying this time, and they'll know when he is. but he refuses to sit around with no plan at all; the Thieves don't need to like him to work with him, and he doesn't need to trust or believe in them to rely on them.

if there's one thing he can rely on, it's that those idiots will do whatever is necessary to look out for each other. so all Akechi has to do is make himself useful to them again, convince them that it's a mutual benefit, that they can use him and he'll use them. (because it's worked out so well for him, hasn't it, being useful. he's certainly never failed at that lofty goal.)

he sends Ren a text ahead of time, just a simple: I'll come by now, if you have the time. Get everyone together if you'd like. doesn't look at the messages they exchanged last. he's going to make it absolutely clear that this is a relationship of convenience, and that Ren should stop getting the wrong idea about him, and that he's— he died. whether or not he's walking around alive and well here, the fact is that Akechi's life is over. it was over the moment Shido went down. if he looks too closely at himself then it feels like a pit he might not be able to claw his way out of: what the point is of going on day-to-day, if he would bother going back home given the chance, whether he even wants to live—

he raps neatly on Ren's door with his knuckles. ]

It's Akechi.

Comments

[boazjachin]

[The trouble with Akechi, at least for Makoto, is that even knowing what he's done, even given her own personal distaste for him in moments past before she knew what he'd done to Futaba's mother and Haru's father . . . there are still times when it's hard to remember to hate him. His innate curiosity is a point of frustration. It isn't faked, or at least a part of it is real. What does she do with that? She's a curious person herself. It's so difficult not to relate.]

[Her brows draw together in a faint frown. She looks down at her hands, then back up, and nods.]

Yes. And I'd be the first to admit that dismissing any theory as nonsense would be nonsense in turn, considering what we've all seen.

[If there's one thing that all of them can certainly agree on, it's that "impossible" may simply not be a relevant word, in their or any other reality. Rules were made to be broken and all of that.]

Still, this seems like an even bigger question mark to tackle than the cause of the effects we're seeing. It's all conjecture, isn't it? You say fork in the road. If we go the wrong way at this first fork, we could get very lost.

[mapsio]

[Sitting quietly in her place, Haru has been taking in all of the facts. Watching her teammates, watching Akechi. She glances over to Ren every so often, wondering what kind of theories that their leader had in mind.]

I don't disagree with your theory, Akechi-san. I am just having a little trouble wrapping my head around how large a catastrophe would have needed to be to cause such a severe distortion.

[She puzzles in her own head for a moment more before speaking up again, but this time her voice is a little softer. Almost like she isn't sure if she is speaking nonsense or not.]

My own thoughts regarding the earthquake that I experienced was that perhaps myself and the others who saw the same event were being shown something that happened in the past to the previous crew. If you think about it, a good amount of this station is in disrepair. I wouldn't find it too far off of the mark if the station had been in danger of collapsing during that big catastrophe.

[ryuji]

[Not being shot down for the kneejerk thought that he had is kind of weird- if Morgana were here, he'd find the holes in Ryuji's argument quickly and it probably would've been torn to shreds through the lens of a rational argument. Even if he was right, it was kind of expected, honestly... which, in a really, really weird and roundabout way, made him miss Morgana's presence at the table. It's weird holding a Phantom Thieves meeting without Yusuke, Futaba and the cat here.

Sheesh.

Letting go of his focus on the missing members, he turns his attention to Haru's conclusion.]

So you mean like... a giant hamster wheel of a time loop or something? So the earthquakes you were feelin' might've been strong feelings left behind of what happened to the crew... I mean, sounds kinda crazy but... shit, look at where we all came from back in our own times. My last memory is Christmas Eve.

[Is that even possible?]

So let's say that these are all giant distortions, yeah? If the corruption was that bad, why can't we summon our personas?

[Because to him, the Metaverse hasn't been closed off for good yet.]

[intrusivethot]

[ There. With the flow of theories comes a reprieve in the atmosphere, something Ren had been hoping for but knew better than to expect. He allows himself a short, private inhale/exhale, a knot in his chest loosening after the better part of the newest exchange passes.

One problem at a time.

Absorbing most of the conversation passively, once he's relatively certain no one is going to bite another's head off Ren can then afford to put his energy into the situation at hand, the gears visibly turning as his finger is drawn underneath his bottom lip in thought.

They're out of their depth. Away from home, cut off from their Personas, their usual method of operation. This meeting could be all that they can salvage from How They Do Things, and if so they have to really put their heads together and make the best of it. ]

Because we can't access the Metanav. In theory the Metaverse should exist anywhere where there could be cognitive distortions, but that isn't to say that Palaces and Mementos can't be warped realities like what may have happened here.

The problem is we don't have an "in", so we can't confirm whether this distortion shares enough similarities with the Metaverse that allows us to move within it as Phantom Thieves.

[ So perhaps if there were a way to get the app back, that would be one thing. But they're making a lot of assumptions thinking this has anything to do with Palaces as well. If the answer is somewhere in between then really only time can tell.

The glare off his glasses blocks insight from enough angles, Ren's face tilting away. ]

My last memory of home is sometime after the end of my probation. And aside from the wire I spent a few hours chasing after voices screaming, ones that I swear I could recognize. It's not just cognitive distortions as we know it; time is also in flux, like Ryuji said.

[ Which reminds him... ]

Wait, what about the theory you floated to me over comms, Ryuji? The one about the usernames.

[ryuji]

[He didn't think it was really a revelation or a deeply impacting insight by any stretch of the means, but as Ren calls on him for it, he feels his cheeks get a little warmer. It was definitely one of the more out-there kind of what-ifs.

The metaverse question seems to be hinging on the inability for them to get their phones to navigate them into it, that much makes sense... but it did bother him that more than any weird displacements that seemed to occur... that it didn't seem like it was occurring in the right order. Shouldn't he have been taken out at the same time Ren was?]

Did you guys try to register a name on the network? My first instinct was to just take my name. But Ryuji turned back an already in use message. [The more he explains or tries to lay out his thoughts, the more flustered he feels, so he looks to Ren for a little bit of guidance here, or at least validation to continue and contribute this crack pot idea.]

So I guess what I'm gonna ask is like... how many Ryuji's are out there in the universe? Japan has a ton of em, but the only one I know of on this base is me. What if we were the ones who put our own names in 'em, but now we can't remember? Or it was some sorta time loop and we're back at the beginning again.

They said they messed up. What if we were the ones who messed up?

[uragiru]

[ that's a possibility he hadn't considered, actually. when he first registered a name on the network, it had been when they had no confirmation about whether this truly was a space station or not, and the name availability had struck his paranoia as a reason to suspect they were being played by someone. that's fallen on his list since then, but he hadn't revisited the naming issue.

he drums his fingers quietly on the table and watches the movement. ]

A little convoluted, but still not impossible. [ and he's surprised Ryuji put that theory forward without immediately accusing him of being the aforementioned traitor, which he won't point out because he is being someone empty and useful. ] We haven't seen any visuals of the previous crew, and it's unlikely that anyone would recognise the heavily processed voice of someone they consider a stranger.

[ it's another good idea to add to the pile, even if it doesn't quite click with Akechi's assessment of the situation. there's nothing inherently wrong with it; considering the time distortion they've already seen, both on the station and regarding their separation on the timeline back home, a time loop is something to keep in mind. but he can't shake the feeling that something malicious is happening here. and the time loop theory is a little open-ended, because— ]

However — in that case, something still has to have brought us here, deliberately or otherwise. Because I have a bullet wound to prove it.

[ for a brief moment, he looks at Ren and seems like he's going to say something. Yaldabaoth, on the tip of his tongue. not necessarily him, maybe, but they've been fucked by a god once before. they know it's a possibility now, and Akechi wouldn't expect not to get cosmically screwed over more than once, so something like that—? but he drops his gaze back to the table, where he's digging at it with one of his nails. ]

[mapsio]

[Haru continues to listen to these theories with intent, making sure to thoroughly go through them in her own mind to draw her own conclusions.

Ryuji's theory makes her think, "Haru" was taken. She ended up typing in "BeautyThief" in frustration, and then changed it once more to "Noir". But that thought sticks in her mind. How many people could be named "Haru" that would have been on this station.]

That would imply that we have been here much longer than we remember. That wouldn't make sense, would it?

[Haru has to step out of the box for a moment, nothing here is normal.]

We would need evidence to support that theory, but I don't think it would be completely impossible.