Chapter Text
Sound was always the first thing to return to Akira’s awareness in those short, blurred moments of consciousness, and with how often he was passing out, having something constant, no matter how small, provided him some comfort. The near-constant arguing that echoed around the small, charmed interrogation room sounded muffled, as if he was overhearing a pair of strangers from down the hall, not two grown men standing just a metre from him. The haze clouding his mind was yet to waver in the slightest when Akira strained to make out at least a word or two, but he was learning not to fight it.
He'd lost track of the number of times both men had tried Legilimency on him, and while he was dazed, confused, and exhausted, Akira’s mental walls had not faltered. He’d have to thank Sojiro for that – for the long, gruelling training sessions after hours in Leblanc – for the fact he hadn’t revealed anything important that he hadn’t wanted to, despite the slow and harsh mental probing. That didn’t mean that the officers hadn’t seen things that were private, small glimpses here and there of time with his friends and confidants, but there had been nothing incriminating, and thus, nothing to worry about.
It was strange, considering how violating the whole ordeal was, that those glimpses of carefree days with his friends had almost felt like a reminder, like a motivator to survive, to make it out of here, to return to his teammates, his loved ones, the people who had helped him get this far.
Akira squeezed his eyes shut, telling himself to remember what they’d done for him and what they’d given him, while shielding their names, faces, and anything else that could link them to any of the crimes he was being accused of. Each of his friends, teammates, and confidants deserved that much.
“No one said he was a damn Occlumens! He’s just a kid, where’d he even learn that kind of magic?!”
“I don’t know, there was nothing about this in the reports-”
“Give me the damn file.”
But it was becoming difficult to think of anything at all. Legilimency had barely scratched the surface of what’d he’d been through the past couple of hours(?), and it was now a battle just to remain conscious. The men running his interrogation hadn’t even started with mind magic. After it became clear that Akira wouldn’t answer their questions, their wands were raised, and he’d been thrown across the room in a brutal hail of nonverbal spells. He’d curled up in a corner as magic he’d never even heard of had made him seize and scream like nothing else ever had.
Now, Akira’s Shujin blazer rested in a crumpled heap beside him, and a few discarded, empty syringes. The long sleeves of his turtleneck uniform shirt had been pushed back to expose the now-bruised crooks of his elbows, but at least the Veritaserum had dulled the pain of the rough, amateur injections.
The lingering taste of bile at the back of his throat indicated he’d thrown up at some point, he just wasn’t sure when, or when that taste had been overshadowed by all the blood in his mouth. It was hard to know how long he’d been down here, in what order the jumbled events in his head had taken place.
His throat was still burning from the screaming he’d done before he’d last passed out from the pain. Akira wondered if he’d torn his vocal cords, or if he’d sustained something internally. It was impossible to tell, and it wasn’t like he’d be receiving medical care anytime soon, so it didn’t matter.
Akira just hoped he wouldn’t die down here.
Peeking through his lashes, he watched as his torturers flicked through a somewhat-thin folder, muttering about the contents under their breaths. From what he could see of the front cover, it was the file on the Phantom Thieves, but Akira was certain that most of the pages held nothing but speculation. There wasn’t much official information about the members or their accomplishments that any team of law enforcement, magical or otherwise, had been able to gather, and it was clearly frustrating the pair.
Akira had nicknamed the more aggressive, outspoken man ‘Anger Issues’, and the other one ‘Glasses’, unable to recall if they’d had a proper introduction before the magic and the drugs had muddled everything up. Then, again, he couldn’t remember much to begin with, but that wasn’t his fault.
“Hey.” Akira flinched at the feeling of fingers sliding through his hair, roughly grabbing a handful to jerk his head upright. He grimaced as the man’s warm breath hit his face and squinted to focus through the fog clouding his vision. It didn’t help much. “Nice of you to join us.”
Akira’s heart was racing. He swore he’d been watching the men, but now, both had changed positions in what had seemed like an instant. Had he passed out again? How much time had he lost now?
Pressure appeared against his pulse point, the tip of a yew wand digging into the bruised skin below Akira’s jaw. He struggled a little as Glasses stepped behind him, pulling the student’s collar down to expose more of his neck. Glasses’ free hand clamped down on Akira’s shoulder to keep him in place while the teenager fought against his magic-blocking handcuffs.
Akira tried not to let the panic show, but he didn’t know what was coming next. He wasn’t sure he’d survive another Veritaserum dosage, and he didn’t want to die in here. Not drugged, not defenceless.
Not alone.
“How about we start over?” Anger Issues asked, sounding almost kind, almost comforting beneath the clear amusement. “I mean, you’re just a kid, after all. This must be quite an ordeal for you.”
Akira gave a quiet hiss of pain at the flare of scorching heat at his throat, the tell-tale beginnings of a spell or hex yet to be cast. Akira knew from experience that Anger Issues was more than capable of non-verbal magic, but he didn’t know how far he’d go for answers. Surely he wouldn’t kill a suspect without answers-
Wouldn’t the true culprit? Some voice in the back of his head snarked. The traitor?
Akira closed his eyes, trying to think, trying to remember-
“If you cry,” Anger Issues whispered, smirking all the while, “we’ll go easy on you.”
Akira hated how tears immediately sprung to his eyes at the mere idea of mercy, even though he knew he wouldn’t receive it. He wouldn’t cry, Akira vowed. Not in front of these two. Not for anything.
“Well? Are you going to talk,” The end of the wand sparked with colour and static overtook the ringing in Akira’s ears as his skin began to burn, “or are we going to have a problem?”
He bit back a scream, eyes flying open as the tip was twisted into his skin, bursting with an increasing temperature. His breath came out in short, loud gasps while the official dragged the wand down the length of his throat, the hiss of searing, steaming flesh barely audible over the taunts sent Akira’s way. He writhed in Glasses’ hold, throwing his head back in a loud, piercing scream.
“Give me names,” was hissed into his ear, “or so help me, I will take them from you.”
Akira barely managed to catch his breath when the stream of magic paused. He choked, unsure if it was blood or bile in the back of his throat, shooting Anger Issues the best glare he could manage.
“Never.”
That earned him a smirk. “Fine.” Anger Issues shrugged. “Have it your way.”
Akira froze after noticing the familiar glint in the man’s eye, and tensed in a fruitless attempt to prepare himself for what he thought he knew was coming. When Glasses let go of him and took a few obvious steps back, however, and Anger Issues weighed his wand in his hand as if considering what to do next with careful consideration, Akira felt his heart sink into his stomach.
He wouldn’t, was the quiet, terrified whimper in the back of Akira’s mind, he wouldn’t, he can’t-
But that hadn’t stopped either of the men before, had it?
Anger Issues smiled when Akira’s tears finally did spill over, after one new, awful incantation.
“Crucio!”
Akira’s hand was caught in a desperate, white-knuckled grip. It didn’t startle Akira as much as he’d expected it to, in fact, he was filled with as much of a feeling of déjà vu as he felt relaxed, safe, even.
The blond that stood in front of him was wearing strange clothes, and his face was covered with a skull-like mask that made him seem tough and intimidating at first glance. Behind that, though, Akira saw warm brown eyes that were filled with unshed tears.
The rest of their surroundings seemed to be that of a blindingly bright Casino, but Akira didn’t care to look around to find out where they were or why they were here. All he could focus on was the boy with the kind, gentle eyes. Everything else was an unimportant blur, cast aside for this stranger that Akira swore he somehow knew, somehow loved.
It hurt to watch the blond blink back tears, and Akira’s own eyes watered at the sound of the boy’s voice catching as he spoke, sounding confident and scared all at once, “I’m sure you ain’t gonna die.”
There was no time to question his odd statement, not with the dull ache pulsing at Akira’s temples. He grimaced as a loud, shrill ringing assaulted his ears, making him stagger. Blood was pouring from his nose, his mouth, pooling at his ankles and rising. It was filling his lungs, and all that Akira could do was panic and choke on it. It was going to consume him, Akira realised, it was going to drown him.
Somehow, none of it was enough to drown out the quiet, breathless laugh that followed.
“It’s you we’re talking about.”
“Ryuji-” Akira was sobbing, pleading, begging, “Ryuji-”
When he tried to wipe the blood out of his eyes, the haze lessened enough for him to see that the Casino was gone. Akira was back in that small, dark room, in the bunker that he’d likely die in.
He couldn’t move. It hurt to even breathe. He didn’t want to be awake for a moment longer, not here. He’d long lost the will to fight or even come up with a snarky remark in response to his questioning. Whatever responses he’d managed to come up with, sincere or not, were coming out broken and slurred. It wasn’t even due to all the blood in his throat, but the fact that he couldn’t even understand what he was being asked or focus long enough to form anything resembling an intelligible sentence.
Akira knew that prolonged exposure to the Cruciatus Curse meant horrific, lasting damage for victims, physically and mentally. Memory loss was already enough of a risk with his Veritaserum overdose, but Akira knew he was more likely to be driven to insanity by the Curse than he was to get out of here at all, in one piece or otherwise. Either that, or he’d die from Curse-inflicted internal bleeding.
Part of him wondered if he’d even manage to live through this. If he did, would he ever be the same?
When Akira dreamt next, he saw a bright, vibrant red that overtook the same surroundings as his last dream. It reminded him of blood at first, but he didn’t feel afraid. No. The clothes, the full body suit, he knew one person who wore something like that, just like one boy clad in a skull mask.
“I’ll never forgive you if you don’t make it back.”
He caught glimpse of tearful blue eyes, their gentleness a stark contrast against the red cat-like mask that covered the girl’s face. Her voice wavered mid-sentence, but she stood strong and resolute as their gazes met. The fierceness in her expression hid the way her lips trembled, how she shook with small, anxious tremors. He felt like he was breaking her heart, and he hated himself for doing so.
He hated even more that he was leaving her, that she’d never know what truly happened to him if he didn’t return to her and tell her. It felt wrong. It made his insides turn. How could he ever hurt her?
(I’ll never forgive you.)
I’ll come back, Ann, he’d wanted to tell her, but he hadn’t found his voice in time, I promise-
He hadn’t been able to say anything to any of his teammates, anything at all. His nerves had triggered his mutism in full force. Perhaps that was the best. It meant he hadn’t made a vow he couldn’t keep.
“-you’re going to kill him-”
“-I’m going to get answers-”
As he came to, it took Akira a few moments to realise he was no longer in his seat, but instead lying on his side, his cheek pressed against the cold, scratched floor. He blinked, confused, but even then, the room wouldn’t focus. His vision remained cloudy, as did his thoughts, and scattered memories.
Hadn’t he been sitting up, before? Where was his chair? Where was he, even? Why was it so cold?
He felt a thin trail of blood seep out of the corner of his mouth, but even if his wrists hadn’t been bound behind his back, Akira wouldn’t have had the strength to wipe it away. He couldn’t even flex or stretch the cramped muscles in his hands, and the rest of him was so uncooperative that he felt afraid.
Someone took hold of the chain linking his magic-blocking handcuffs, tugging his arms up at a painfully unnatural angle that produced nothing more than a quiet whine from the back of his throat. There was a quiet jingling, the sound of a charmed key hooking into the restraints, and then his battered wrists were released. His arms fell to his sides, limp and boneless.
The second of relief was fleeting, cut short by a firm kick to the chest that pushed him onto his back. Akira coughed at the sudden strike, that sound becoming strangled as a boot promptly crushed his shoulder into the cold tiles. A dark figure loomed over him, sneering at his attempts to shove them off.
“Give him another shot.”
Akira wheezed pitifully, squinting under the harsh glare of the ceiling lights as the figure moved, an arm outstretched and waiting to be handed another vial of Veritaserum.
The second man stuttered, flabbergasted by the order. “W-We’ve already given him more than anyone his age can even survive-”
“Then that means we have a fighter on our hands.” Laughter. “Do it.”
For the umpteenth time, his sleeve was pushed back, and Akira winced, hissing through his teeth once the needle pierced skin. He sank his teeth into the inside of his cheek, squirming at the sharp, familiar pain shooting through his arm.
The haze settled in rapidly, and Akira’s eyes burned at the hopelessness of his situation.
It didn’t matter, though. He no longer had the energy, nor the fluids in his system, to cry.
“You know one of my favourite things about this drug?” The man above him asked, resting his heel on Akira’s thigh, idly increasing the pressure as he spoke, “It’s how quickly it takes effect.”
“We want names and information.” His partner said, carelessly discarding the syringe he’d just used on the floor nearby. It clinked against the others, and Akira had long lost count of the number of injections he’d had. If the man was to be believed, well, it seemed like Akira wouldn’t survive another, if he even survived the latest dose by some miracle. “It’s in your best interest to give us what we want.”
Akira bared his teeth. “Fuck...you...”
“Guess that’s another no.” the noise that sounded from Akira’s throat after the next Crucio sounded like the screech of mortally wounded prey begging for a hunter’s mercy. His body spasmed while the Curse tore through him, shaking in violent, horrific tremors that made his back arch and his limbs lock up. The screams that came out of him sounded like nothing he’d ever heard in his life, as another wave felt like it was boiling the very blood in his veins. “I don’t think you understand your situation.”
Akira didn’t understand anything at all.
The boy with the dark blue hair studied him with fascination in the small pauses he took from painting. He murmured to himself as he worked, about how pleased he was that Akira had finally, finally agreed to let him paint him. Akira was glad to, he thought. He’d always loved spending time with his artist friend, people-watching, sketching, traversing through the Metaverse, whatever it was.
There was a quiet kind of comfort he found with the other boy, in the fact they could spend hours together without speaking, and it wouldn’t feel anything other than right.
When he asked to see the painting, the artist smiled, stating that while it was unfinished, Akira was perhaps the one person he would allow to witness the first draft. It made Akira feel special. Loved.
The canvas didn’t show Akira in the pose he’d been asked to show off for the painting, nor their current, blurred surroundings. Instead, Akira saw himself curled up on his side like a wounded animal, choking on his own tears and blood, in a small, dark place that no one would ever find him.
Akira turned his head, and Yusuke grasped his wrist hard enough to bruise, tears sliding down his face. “I had to paint the truth.” He insisted, anguished, as if he’d been forced to create the awful image that was now burning a path into Akira’s psyche. “Forgive me, Akira. Please, please forgive me-”
He opened his mouth to respond, but he began to retch, bloodied Veritaserum flooding his mouth. Yusuke just sat there, watching him with despair as Akira collapsed, clawing at his chest and throat.
“Forgive me.”
Akira awoke at the sudden chill of ice water seeping through his hair and clothes.
As the temperature registered, it alerted him to a multitude of injuries that he wished he couldn’t feel. His throat burned, as if he’d screamed himself hoarse, and he tasted dried blood at the edges of his mouth and on his busted lips. Worse than that, however, was the way every inch of him felt as if he’d been stabbed all over with a thousand knives, before whatever flesh remained had been set alight.
He tried to look around, to blink through the fog that had swallowed him, but he couldn’t make sense of what he was seeing. Akira didn’t recognise the small, dark room he was in, or the stern, suited men in front of him, nor did he know why they were scowling at him like that with clear malice.
“No dozing off.” He could barely hear the man’s voice, but that was the least of his concerns as feeling continued to return to him. He could tell his wrists were heavily bruised after a mere heartbeat of fighting his charmed restraints, and he regretted the action immediately at the waves of near-unbearable pain it sent rippling throughout the rest of his muscles. “Still don’t get it, so you?”
Get what?! He wanted to demand, but his tongue was heavy, bloody, and uncooperative in his mouth.
“Give it up!” He crashed to the floor in a heap, coughing raggedly to recover from the abrupt, aggressive kick to his stomach. Akira faintly wondered why he could taste blood, bile, and something strange and bitter in his mouth, why everything hurt so much, why he couldn’t remember-
“Cooperate.” The man was digging his deep into Akira’s temple and all he could do was breathe through it, struggling to piece together why he was here, why this was happening to him. It was hard to string together a single thought with everything burning. “Or what, you want another shot?”
...Shot? What the fuck? Akira’s eyes slid to the camera trained on him.
This was being recorded, too?
“Huh? What about the camera?” His head was jerked upright by his hair, an all-too-familiar feeling, he realised, and Akira felt it slowly coming back to him as dark, hateful eyes bored into his own. “Are you thinking it can be used as video evidence?”
As if that would help him now. His throat hurt too much to answer.
“Didn’t you hear my question?! Answer!” He slammed Akira’s head back down against the soaked floor, and after the impacting crack there was nothing but painful, endless ringing.
With the next kick to his bruised abdomen, Akira’s own coughing and wheezing sounded muffled and distant. It flooded him with panic as the official(?) listed off his various false(?) charges.
Obstruction of justice. Blackmail. Defamation. Possession of weapons. Manslaughter.
The worst part was Akira couldn’t remember whether or not he’d been involved in such crimes. He knew he had assault on his record, but that was it.
And the rest was just a blur...
He only refocused when his wrists were freed of their restraints, and a clipboard was shoved into his face. Akira batted it away after hearing the word ‘confession’, adamant not to sign something that he hadn’t admitted himself, and he was rewarded with a heel grinding into his already bruised thigh.
“I need your hand to sign this,” He was told as he choked and struggled under the pressure and confusion and pain of it all, “but I don’t care if you end up losing a leg.”
Then the weight was gone, and he was handed a pen. A wand was pointed at him when he dared to look up, the tip of it beginning to glow as if in warning. Signing was not optional if he wanted to live.
“Don’t expect to walk out of here in one piece.” The man sneered.
Akira didn’t.
“You haven’t been getting enough sleep lately.” The voice was chiding, but gentle. “You should rest.”
Akira would have laughed if he had the strength to. He couldn’t even manage to open his eyes.
“Get some rest, Akira. Seriously. You deserve it. The others will understand.”
Would his friends understand if Akira just gave up and died down here?
He could barely remember their faces, but he still knew they wouldn’t.
“Just…stay with me?” Akira whispered. “…just until I wake up?”
There was a thoughtful hum. It almost sounded like purring.
“…Okay.” That quiet, boyish voice decided. “I’ll stay.”
Akira smiled, relieved, and closed his tearful eyes.
Part of him hoped he’d somehow survive this.
Another part of him hoped that he didn’t.
“Kurusu-kun?” the next voice he heard was female, someone older than him, who sounded somewhat irritated to speak with him at first. As her somewhat familiar voice faded in and out of Akira’s fragile awareness, it became laced with concern that sounded a little less concealed with each failed attempt at eliciting a response out of him. “Kurusu-kun, can you hear me?”
He was certain that he’d lost consciousness again at some point, as, when he was awake next, he felt somewhat more alert. While his surroundings were still blurred and unfocused, it was a little easier to keep himself upright, even if it was still a challenge to keep himself from slumping onto the table he was seated at. At least he was in a chair this time, and not left on the blood and bile-soaked floor.
“There,” the woman across from him said, the light from her raised wand fading as she sat back down, “you’ll have to excuse me, I’m not well-versed in healing magic, but I did what I could.” She said, and Akira blinked, recognising who it was. “As far as I’m aware, you should be stable, but I can’t be certain what magic was used on you, or what diluted potions are in your system.” Sae looked irritated as she checked her watch. “We don’t have a lot of time, so I apologise, but this will have to do.”
It was hard to focus as she explained his situation and began to question him, but Akira did his best.
On Sae’s end, however, it was a struggle to understand what Akira was saying, aside from the weird nonsense he was spouting about strange, other worlds where magic didn’t work like it did in this one.
Akira was slurring his words and coughing on his own blood when he answered her questions, and that was after repeating herself and rephrasing her queries multiple times to help him understand what she wanted to hear. It seemed hard enough for him to comprehend where he was or what was going on, and now he was being asked to recount the past seven or so months of his life in Tokyo. It was obvious that the person she was interviewing, the leader of an internationally wanted crime ring, was still a second-year high school student. A high school student that had clearly been drugged and tortured and left here to rot in some underground facility, regardless of his age, regardless of the law.
It was sickening to think about what had been done to him while she was on her way. It was even worse imagining what would be done to him after she left, and Sae knew it was unlikely that any Healer would be brought in to assess him, let alone treat his injuries. His parents likely wouldn’t even be notified if he were left to die down here, given his status as the Leader of the Phantom Thieves. While she’d do almost anything to guarantee a win in court, Sae didn’t think of herself as a monster.
She still saw Akira as a high school student. She saw him as a kid. She saw him as Makoto’s friend.
It was those thoughts that stayed with her throughout Akira’s strange, slurred, otherworldly story, and well into his tales of the start of November, and the Casino. Those ideas remained with her as he described the next stage of his plan – his team’s plan – and how he’d get out of here alive.
Akira was just a kid who’d been through a lot and deserved a hell of a lot better than this, she thought.
So, with a few more basic, hurried, half-remembered healing spells, Sae was hauling his arm over her shoulder, one arm around his waist, and Apparating them to Leblanc as soon as she could manage to.
Sakura Sojiro regarded her with shock soon overtaken with horror as he surveyed the condition of his charge. He rushed across the room and took Akira into his arms in the short amount of time it took Sae to cast several frantic protection and concealment charms on the café. Then, she returned to Akira’s side, surveying him, somewhat grateful that he wasn’t any worse, like she’d expected him to be. That meant that, in a stroke of luck, he’d Apparated before, and was not at risk of a first-timer’s sickness. It was one less thing to worry about in terms of his health, a small comfort amongst it all.
“I’m not sure what spells were used on him,” Sae said to Sakura in a hurry, who looked agonised as he cradled the boy in his arms like he was his own son, “but I know that he was drugged, likely with a diluted form of Veritaserum. I don’t know how much he was given, only that there were several empty syringes on the floor when I arrived. He needs medical attention, or he-”
“Don’t say another word.” Sakura hissed, with more fire in his eyes than Sae had ever seen from him. “He’ll live. I’m not going to lose him. I won’t.” He cradled Akira against his chest, got to his feet, and looked to the door. “I’m taking him to the clinic down the street, there’s a Healer there that I trust. While she’s looking after him, you’re going to tell me what the hell happened to my kid.”
Sae would have scowled and refused to listen to an order like that under any other circumstances, but for now, she did no such thing. Instead, she followed behind Sakura, a man she had caused so much anger and grief, and watched him fret over someone else’s kid like he was his own flesh and blood. It made her feel sick, in hindsight. A lot of things did, now that she had a moment to think about it, in the quiet that followed throughout their short, panicked journey to Takemi’s little clinic.
Both adults had cast quick charms on themselves and Akira, just in case, and undid them as soon as Takemi had ushered them inside and locked the door behind them. From there, it was a blur of protection and concealment charms, just as Sae had cast in Leblanc, before Akira was set down on a bed, and Takemi got to work.
Sae did her best to explain what little she knew about his condition, about the Veritaserum overdose and her own assumptions about what spells were used to torture him, but the tension in Takemi’s shoulders worsened with each passing second while she surveyed Akira with a diagnostic charm.
Then, she swore, gripped her wand so tight that Sae was surprised it didn’t splinter, and hissed, “The bastards used the Cruciatus Curse on him.”
Sakura sank into the nearest chair with a weight of grief Sae did not wish to witness. Rage fuelled his words, however, as he vowed, under his breath, that he would track down the bastards that had done this to his kid, and he would perform the same Curse on them, as many times as it had been cast on Akira, to even the score. Sae knew that he meant it, and for some reason, felt relieved when his expression softened as he joined in the blur of movement in the small room, retrieving potions to help Takemi work, and casting whatever healing spells he knew when she asked him to.
Sae rolled up her sleeves and readied her wand, eager to help while also dreading the fact that this would be a long, exhausting night, one that Akira might not even survive.