Chapter Text
Will looks absolutely crushed as Akira gently pokes and prods him into the Velvet Room, and Akira thinks he'd be feeling the same way if he didn't have someone else to focus on besides himself. If anything, he might be even more freaked than Will, because whatever apocalypse he's talking about, his world has already survived it. Akira's the one living in a world that's still hurtling toward that.
But he has someone else to worry about, and the upcoming promise of explanations from the Velvet Room (or at least, something as close to explanations as they're actually capable of), so for now he can just pack any anxiety about future ends of the world into a little box in the back of his mind, and not worry about them for now. And, when they actually get into the Velvet Room, the familiar song washes over him and does, genuinely, make Akira feel a little bit better.
"Welcome," Igor says. "To the Velvet Room." And he actually smiles at Akira as he says it, the expression as unfamiliar to Akira as his real voice. But a welcome kind of unfamiliar, if that makes any sense at all? Compared to the imposter Akira's been dealing with all year, this is a lot better.
"Lavenza asked me to come here with Will," he says, and glances around the room until he spots Lavenza waiting patiently in Igor's Shadow. He has no idea what to expect out of this visit, and so isn't sure which of the two he should be asking questions of right now.
"Yes," Lavenza says, and to Akira's relief she steps forward and nods in an authoritative way. "And thank you for coming so quickly. I'm sure you have a great many preparations to make."
"Sure," Akira says. "Of course." He glances over at Will, who's staring at the ground like he's trying to glare a hole through it. Or maybe like he's not seeing it at all. It's a really sad sight, actually, and Akira has to force himself to stop staring so he can look back at Lavenza. "Was there a particular reason you wanted him here, though?" he asks. "I mean... I guess I knew other people could, after Christmas Eve, but I thought it was a one time thing."
"Yaldabaoth erasing you all from existence certainly was an unusual circumstance," Lavenza says, with a ghost of a smile. "But in truth, this room has seen many guests over the years, and I am certain it will play host to m any more in the years to come." She steps past him to face Will--the movement seems to take a while for him to process, but eventually he does, blinking and taking a deep breath.
"Sorry," he says. "I had a realization on the way here, and I'm still processing." He tries but fails to smile.
"Is everything alright?" Lavenza asks him.
"No," Will says. "Not at all." He takes another deep breath, and asks, "So what did you want to see me for? We had a chance to talk back in the nurse's office at the school. Why is it so important that we talk in this room, specifically? What is this place?" He still looks like he's barely holding himself together, and Akira has about a hundred questions he wants to ask Will, but it probably isn't the best time for that. He's not having a minor breakdown, so he can wait to have his questions until Will gets his own answers.
"This is called the Velvet Room," Lavenza says. She says it patiently, even though the name has definitely already come up. Will looks like he has other things on her mind.
Igor chimes in. "It's a place between mind and matter," he says. "Between dream and reality."
Will's eyes snap to him, and he frowns. "Is it?" he asks.
"It is," Igor says, eyes sparkling.
"That sounds a lot like somewhere else I know," Will says.
"Hard to imagine anywhere else being like the Velvet Room," Akira says.
"Tell us about it," Igor says. He smiles, which as always looks both reassuring and mildly concerning. He leans a little farther into the reassuring side of the spectrum than Yaldabaoth had while he was pretending to be Igor, but it's still the same face. "What is it called?"
"I don't think it has a name," Will says. "I never asked, anyway. It's just More's study."
"Your dad?" Akira asks. He tries to imagine what it would be like to go into the Velvet Room and find his dad sitting on the other side of the desk, and decides instead that he'd rather have Igor exactly the way he is, reassuringly not his father.
"It's really complicated," Will says, not for the first time since he got his memories back.
"Tell us about the room, first," Igor says.
Will nods, and says, "It doesn't look very much like this. It's not a prison. But there was a sort of... it had the same feeling. The colors were the same, and the way it felt to be here."
"And how did you get into that room?" Igor asks.
"Uh," Will says. "By reading a book, basically. Or sometimes I dream."
Igor nods seriously. "This room often makes itself into something new for various guests," he says. "It may even allow entrance through different means."
"But I'm not talking about this room," Will argues. "It's a different place."
"It may not be," Igor agrees, hands folding on the table in front of him, the picture of absolute calm. "Or, perhaps, it is. Perhaps, in the time or the place that you come from, the collective unconscious itself has shifted."
"The what?" Will asks blankly.
"Wait," Akira says. "So Will's also a Velvet Room guest? Can that even happen?"
"I'm not," Will says. "Whatever that is. I don't know anything about this place." He puts his hand over his chest, expression cracking a little. "And it doesn't really matter. That place wasn't ever..." He frowns, and turns away so he's at an angle that makes it harder for Akira to see his expression. "It didn't matter," he says eventually, more quietly. "It wasn't ever a real place, it turns out."
"Didn't you just say it was your dad's study?" Akira asks.
Will fidgets.
Igor says, "Regardless of your experience in this room, you are very welcome here. You may have experienced it differently, but for as long as you are here, you are a guest."
This seems to reassure Will, who says, "I suppose if this place really is the same as More's study, it's more proof that this is the same world as mine."
"Perhaps one day," Igor says. "But for now. It is simply a world in need of saving."
Will nods. Once, sharp, and matter of fact. Igor hasn't actually asked will you help, and Akira isn't even sure that Will should be trying without a Persona, but Will had clearly meant the nod as agreement.
Although actually, it's kind of strange that Will had been using this room without awakening a Persona. Maybe, since his dad had somehow or other ended up in charge of it, they'd been using it for something else. Akira isn't sure.
He doesn't think he likes the sound of this future.
"Is there a reason we need to be here now?" Will asks, as Akira is frowning over this realization. "I don't think there's anything I can do here."
"What did you use it for before?" Akira asks.
"It was just research," Will says. "More was locked in... well, apparently in here for a long time, and I only ever saw him researching when I visited." He smiles, a kind of ghost expression, some unknown memory changing his face. "He was always really excited to tell me about that. He hadn't seen anyone in a long time."
"I think you and your dad might need to talk," Akira says. "I'm not exactly sure what about, but there's something."
"I know," Will says. "We're going to do some traveling on Sunday?"
The phrasing strikes Akira as off, and he asks, "Where are you traveling to?"
"Not to anywhere, exactly," Will corrects him. "Just around. Somewhere in Tokyo. Seeing things."
"Oh," Akira says. "So kind of tourism?"
"No," Will says. "I think it's--very important that it's traveling. We were supposed to--but then--" The smile is very, very gone, now, and Akira decides this is probably enough Velvet Room for today. If Lavenza's point in bringing him here had been to test whether Will is a guest, then that's been proved and there's nothing else to be said. They might as well head home for the day, and Akira can get some fusions done another time.
He kind of points Will out the door, and gets him close enough to home that Will eventually snaps out of the vague distraction he's been walking around in since they left the Velvet Room behind. Then he apologizes, and says, "I know I've been quiet. But it's a lot to think about, and I..." he hesitates, then admits, "I wish I had my friends here."
"Everything's easier to face with friends," Akira says. "Don't worry, I understand. I worked really hard to help my friends remember, and... "It's awkward to admit, but will has been honest, and Akira hasn't had much to offer in return except for the impersonal facts of what the whole world has been going through. "I want to say I helped them remember because it would help them, "he says. "But I can't. I just missed them, and it seemed like the lies Maruki had them believing were only driving us farther apart."
Will stops, and turns to fully look at him. The intensity of his expression is more forceful than is polite, but maybe that's more acceptable in his homeland than in Japan. Or maybe this question is just that important to him. "How did you do that?" he asks. "That place you took me to yesterday, is that the only way to get someone to remember who they are?"
"No." Akira says quickly. "Definitely not. I wasn't even thinking about that yesterday."
"Then how did you do it for your friends?"
"I just asked questions," Akira says. "They did the rest."
"I want More to remember," Will says quietly. "He's the only one here from my world, and we left off in a bad place, before we both forgot, but I think he's the only one that could really understand. And maybe..." He shrugs, uncomfortable. "Maybe it wouldn't be a bad thing to try and fix things. I just don't think it's possible if he doesn't remember."
"I don't know what to tell you," Akira says, apologetic. "It might be possible, at least. But all the advice I can give you is to just keep talking to him."
"Okay," Will says. "Okay, I can... try something. When we spend time together on Idlesday. Sunday, I mean." He shakes his head, visibly a little irritated at his slip.
"Maybe ask him some questions," Akira says, pretending he hasn't noticed either the slip or Will's reaction. "See what happens."
Will sighs. "Maybe I will," he says. As he gets more tired, his words take on the slightest hint of an accent. Something hard to describe, maybe because it belongs to a language that doesn't exist anywhere in the world yet.
"Thanks for seeing me home," Will says, and as it's clearly a goodbye, they part ways there.
-//-
More is inside, when Will reaches home. He's in the kitchen, frowning at something in a pan that smells... oddly familiar? Nearly everything he's eaten since waking up in Tokyo has been--strange. Unfamiliar food from an unfamiliar culture. It's fine, and anything is better than larvae. But this actually smells like something he'd eat at home.
(Home)
(When he started his journey a few months ago, home had been the vague idea of the eldan sanctum, a place packed with diluted memories from an imagined perspective)
(Now, home is the gauntlet runner, crowded into its narrow galley kitchen with Strohl or Basilio or maybe Hulkenberg if he's feeling adventurous, then everyone gathering together to share a meal together)
"What are you making?" Will asks, shrugging off his schoolbag and toeing off his shoes.
"Something your mother used to like," More says. "She introduced me to it a long time ago, before you were born." He sigs, and Will pads over to the kitchen to take a look at the mix of vegetables and spices. Some of them are ones that still exist in their world of the future. Others look and smell achingly close to the ones Will is familiar with. "I don't think I got it exactly right, but I did the best I could with what I could find."
Will wonders how much of that is true. It... might be something More had learned from Will's mother, years and years ago. Will has never really considered what that courtship might have looked like, but they must have truly loved each other, right? There's no logical, political reason for the King of the United Kingdom of Euchronia to have a child with an exiled eldan queen, especially in secret and out of wedlock. That must have been a scandal, for an actual King. And the other elda he's met, who still talk about his mother in a respectful, reverent way, hadn't given Will any reason to think she hadn't returned that feeling.
And it's not some arbitrary Tokyo recipe that the two of them could never have actually eaten together. Will breathes in through his nose, taking in the smell again, and feels a little bit closer to home. The family he doesn't really know, and the family he's made for himself. Euchronia. Home.
"[It smells like you got it right]," he says, and is too tired and homesick and hurt after everything that's happened today to even really register that he's given up on Japanese for the moment.
More doesn't comment, though. He makes a little humming noise, and says, "[It should be done in a few minutes.] Can you go get the table set?"
It's just a snatch of his own language. More doesn't seem any more aware of the language he'd replied in than he had been when Will slipped into it first. But it's something. And it gives Will a sliver of hope that when they actually take that trip together on Idlesday, he'll have some vague chance of bringing More's memories back.
He doesn't know what he'll say, if it works and that happens. Maybe it depends what More says to him. Because Will is angry that More had sent them here. But he is also homesick, and tired, and full of questions that no one else can answer.
But most of all, he just wants to look More in the eye. He wants them both to really see each other.
Everything else, they can figure out after that.
Will finds dishes and glasses and cutlery in the kitchen, side stepping around More as he finishes the cooking and shuts off the heat. Once, More steps back, onto Will's foot, and apologizes. A few minutes later Will drops a fork. It's just--it's incredibly normal. Apart from the setting, this strange... other world, ancient history of a city.
But it's Will's first real chance to experience daily life with either of his parents. Not that he needs it, especially after everything More had done to drag them here against his will. Of course he doesn't need this. It's just...
Just.
Just hard to explain, hard to look at More and not feel like he's lying just by existing, hard to have to hold himself back in a way he'd never felt the need to when they met in his study and talked about archetypes and his journey. This is still More, in a way, but with false memories superimposed over true ones. Will knows how that feels, and it's not fair. Not even for someone that had apparently asked for this.
Eating dinner with More like this is a strange balance to the shocks Will has already been through today. He's learned that this is likely their world, a few thousand years too early. That the study they'd first met in used to be something different and stranger. Those things had connected Tokyo to Euchronia in ways that make Will viscerally uncomfortable, but this--eating a close approximation of the food he knows, in this unfamiliar but book filled apartment--links them together in a more quietly reassuring way.
Will needs that right now.
So he takes a deep breath, eats his dinner, makes conversation, and resolves to do what he can to help More remember before this world and theirs separate again.
-//-
Will is tired of needing to be walked around through Tokyo, so he makes an effort to learn where it is they're going to fight, and how to get there alone. On his way to school the next morning, he asks around until someone is able to tell him where to buy a full map schedule of the city's trains. The woman who sells him the map--more of a book, thick with guides and information--clearly thinks there's something wrong with him. First because he only smiles and tells her he'd rather not when she tells him he can get all this information on his phone, and then because he hands her the wrong amount of money the first time he tries to pay.
(Will has no idea what the conversion rate would be between here and home, but it seems to take an insane amount of yen to buy anything)
But he gets his book, and when he later hears that they're meeting in a place called Odaiba, he spends his lunch hour poring through it until he figures out the route. It's trickier than just getting into a gauntlet runner, but at least he can manage it himself. After school, he takes the trip on his own. and isn't even the last one there. He settles in to wait, watching the rest of the group as they start to trickle in.
It's... different from the way they'd go to into fights back home. Usually they'd all be at an Inn or on the gauntlet runner together anyway, so they'll arrive at their destination, make sure everyone's clear on what they need to do, set the frontline fighters, and make sure they have the archetypes they need for their current situation.
This group filters in, one at a time or in the odd pair. There are two or three separate conversations going on simultaneously. Talking about homework, teasing someone that apparently has a habit of showing up slightly late, or complaining about the cold. One boy, who Will doesn't think he's been introduced to yet, is talking about art, for some reason?
There are more people here than Will is used to fighting with, but for the most part they seem comfortable with their crowd. People move easily in and out of conversations, in no apparent hurry to get started. Akira, Will's pretty sure, is the group's leader, and he's not here yet--that probably explains why everyone else is content to wait around for him instead of making plans for what they'll do when it's time to fight.
Sure enough, when he does finally arrive--running from the direction of the nearest train station, panting slightly and apologizing for being late--that seems to trigger a shift in everyone else. Before, they'd been waiting, doing nothing much, just catching up with friends. Now the conversations stop, and everyone's suddenly listening to him.
Good to know.
"Sorry," Akira says.
"You're late," says an unhappy looking boy at the edge of the group. Will doesn't think he's heard his name yet, but remembers noticing him during the meeting at Shujin's nurse's office. He'd been unhappy and hanging around the edge of the group then, too.
"I had to make an Untouchable run," Akira explains. "I think we need better equipment before we take on the rest of this Palace."
This mollifies unhappy boy, and the next few minutes are a fairly straightforward process of distributing weapons. Will recognizes a lot of them, because apparently there's only so much you can do to a knife or a sword, even with hundreds of years between this time and Will's. They look like they've been made with a patience that no blacksmith in Will's time would ever be able to match, flawless and perfectly symmetrical, but that description could apply to just about anything here. Other than that, they're normal weapons.
Or so Will thinks, until Akira offers him a sword. He holds it up with the explanation, "I got the idea you're used to using a sword. Is that about right?" and Will notices for the first time how obviously light the sword is. When he takes it for himself, he realizes that the sword isn't a sword at all.
"What kind of weapon is this?" he asks, carefully running his fingers along the sword's age. It certainly looks sharp, but they barely make an impression against his skin, and certainly don't break it. "How is it supposed to hurt anything without an edge?"
"Palaces don't really exist in reality," Akira explains. "They run off cognition--the way we think. As long as the Shadows we're fighting believe that the weapons are real, they can be hurt by them. And as long as we act like the weapons are real, that's enough for them to believe it."
Will tries hard to keep the skepticism off his face. He really does. But he's spent a lot of time with weapons over the past few months, trying to balance weapons for seven people using twenty different kinds of archetypes, every single one of which lend themselves to different weaponry.
(Once, Strohl had mad an offhanded comment that it might be worth trying to win the crown just to be able to finance their armory)
(Will, fresh from an Idlesday shopping run that had spanned half a dozen cities and three times as many shops, had nodded in exhausted agreement, and it had taken him several embarrassing minutes to realize Strohl was joking)
The point is, he knows weapons. And the one he's holding now is a lot closer to the training swords he's used for practice with Hulkenberg than anything that could actually hurt an enemy.
"It'll be fine," Akira assures him, and Will realizes he's not doing enough to hide his uncertainty. It must be stamped pretty clearly across his expression. "We've never had an issue with this."
Still not quite convinced, Will asks, "Are you sure?"
"Yeah," Akira says, and his absolute confidence is a reassuring contrast to Will's doubt. "I mean, most of us don't use actual, real world weapons regularly, but Akechi definitely knows what a gun is, and he can still use ray guns in Palaces."
"And those are about the least real guns you can have," his sister adds, as Will is wondering whether it's worth asking what a ray gun is. Then she adds, "'course, he's not that good at telling the difference between an actual person and a cognition when he tries to use the gun, so--"
"Alright," the unhappy boy Will had noticed earlier snaps at her. "I get it. You don't have to keep mentioning it."
"It is kind of funny, though," a blonde boy volunteers. "You know, that you couldn't tell the difference between--"
"Okay," Akira interrupts. "We don't have to get into that. We all know Akechi didn't shoot me--"
(What is going on in this world, Will wonders)
"--so we're fine. Worst case scenario is that Will can't fight Shadows with a replica sword, we'll cover for him. We already don't know if he'll be able to fight without a Persona, so this is just one more thing."
Will has heard Akira mention Persona before, and he's still confused about that. He'd noticed Akira wearing a mask during the encounter with his memory of himself-as-the-prince in Shibuya that reminds him of the ones he'd had to painstakingly track down for the Masked Dancer archetype. That had also led to the Persona Master archetype, which... well, it might be related, but since magla doesn't seem to have been discovered in Tokyo--yet--Will is reserving judgment until he sees this Palace for himself.
He keeps his thoughts to himself, and just says, "I agreed to h ang back if it turns out I can't fight. I'm not sure how training weapons are supposed to do any actual damage, but I'm not planning to throw myself into a fight I can't help with." That, if nothing else, he understands. Whatever else is going on, he can tell that the Phantom Thieves are used to serious combat. And Will's seen enough of that in his own time to know a fight is no place for someone that can't fight back.
He'll try to fight, but if he can't...
Well, he'll cross that bridge when he comes to it.
The mood of the group has started to shift, now that Akira's here. Conversations go quiet, trailing off into an expectant, ready silence. This is much more like what Will is used to before a fight, and when Akira starts laying out who's going to be on the frontlines, Will feels reassured. This is combat, and apart from the confusingly useless weapons, it's the same as it is back home. It's strange being an observer, but he can live with that.
Unsurprisingly, he's not picked as a frontline fighter. Since no one here has seen him fight before, it's probably a safer move to leave him as a rear guard until he's needed. He can understand that, and so for now he sheathes his (training) sword, and focuses on the strange feeling of reality shivering away into a Palace. It isn't quite as unexpected as when Akira had accidentally forced them both into his Palace, now that he knows what's coming. But he still has to blink hard and give his head a quick shake before he can refocus on the shining white building that has sprouted from nowhere in front of them.
"What is this place supposed to be, actually?" he asks, squinting up at it.
"Labs," Akira explains.
Will considers this, and decides that this is probably a kind of building that he just doesn't have a reference for. And whatever it is, he's about to see it for himself, so there's not much point in asking.
Instead, he stays silent and keeps his eyes open as he trails after the others into the lobby. It's as bafflingly white in here as it had been outside, and Will finds himself wondering if anything in his time could be made this white. He doesn't think that even scrubbing at a marble wall for a month could match it. This Palace is a fantasy within a fantasy, and Will isn't sure what to think of the fact that this place is somebody's fantasy.
Then Akira's sister says, "Shadows incoming!" and Will gets his first glimpse of combat.
He's already noticed the way the Phantom Thieves change their attitudes when they realized they were about to go into a Palace. And he sees how their outfits have changed the way Akira's had in that first Palace. But what he sees now, when the so-called Shadow--a faceless man in a long white coat--approaches the group, is not the kind of fighting he'd been expecting.
There's a little bit of weapon fighting. Niijima goes in with her fists, at one point. And there's some decent amount of gun usage. But most of what they fight with are summons. Like the ones Will associates with the Summoner archetype, except that each summoning is accompanied with a shouted, "Persona!" that just makes Will confused about the Masked Dancer archetype all over again. This feels like something in between those two archetypes, while also having absolutely no clear connection to either.
Is this magic? Can it be? He hasn't heard anything about magla since coming to this world, and if nothing else, there's no sign of anxiety in the Phantom Thieves as they leap into battle. If anything, they're confident. No anxiety to be seen.
Will watches for several seconds, trying to take in the more than unconventional fighting style playing out in front of him. But then, while he's still trying to wrap his mind around that, Akira's sister sucks in a sharp gasp, and says, "Another group of Shadows coming at us from behind!"
There's a certain amount of scrambling from everyone not already fighting. Will turns too, and sees more of those faceless Shadows in white coats. He's just watched the last one split into a group of more monstrous (close but not quite humans, from his perspective), and he doesn't want these new Shadows to have another chance to split.
So he strikes first.
He might not be in his own world, but he doesn't have to be, to access his archetypes. They're still there in his should-be-metal, beating-too-hard heart. He doesn't know if it's going to be easy to swap to a different one than what he was using before he tore his own heart out and found himself exiled here, but the Prince archetype should probably be enough for now.
Anxiety. Will lets the fear of what he'd lose if the Shadows were able to get past him to the Phantom Thieves wrap itself around him. Anxiety is the fear it takes to fight for what's important, and right now he has a real sense of needing to do what he can for this broken world that will someday become the one he knows.
By now, it's second nature to let the anxiety, that need to protect, wrap itself around him. Even as he moves to face the oncoming Shadows, the Archetype--the Prince, his Royal Archetype, the last one he'd fought with before waking up in this ancient world--solidifies around him. Becomes him. The archetype is many things. A kind of magic, a weapon, a manifestation of his anxiety. It wraps around him like armor, and in return he possesses it like a second skin.
But all this flashes through his mind in a second of well practiced movement. Then it's just him and the Shadows. Will isn't used to fighting alone, and no one else is near enough to immediately join him. So the attack has to count, and Will has no idea what kind of magic the Shadows are going to be particularly susceptible to.
But Shadows are darkness, aren't they? At least, that's the reason he'd start calling something a Shadow. And if they're darkness, it's possible they won't do well against light. Will raises an arm, hopes for the best, and casts Radiance.
-//-
Akira doesn't catch the first half of the ambush as a second group of Shadows comes running at the group from the opposite direction as the ones he's already fighting. He's distracted enough by the immediate threat that he really only hears Futaba's gasp of warning, and then there's a flash of light that startles him into looking out across the wide open room for the source--it might have been dangerous, except that the light is enough that even the Shadows seem distracted by it.
For a frozen second, everyone in the room just stops, staring at the giant of a specter that has just disintegrated a group of Shadows. At first Akira thinks it's a Persona, but there's something too different about it. Beyond the almost translucence, and the glowing runes seared into its chest and arms, it's just...
It's just different. Akira has been summoning Persona for months now, for almost a year, summoning and fusing and fighting. And that, even if there might be similarities, is not a Persona.
Then the moment passes. The Shadows remember they're meant to be fighting, and Akira has to quickly fall back to avoid getting attacked. By the time they've taken out their group of Shadows, and Akira has looked back across the room again, the almost-Persona has shivered back out of existence. Will stands in the place where it had just been, a blaze of runes fading across his skin, looking way too calm for a person that had just shapeshifted, destroyed an entire group of Shadows, and then gone back to normal like nothing weird had happened at all.
Akira lets out a breath, trying to regain his mental sense of balance. Then, when he feels pretty sure that he'll be able to get the words out without the surprise showing in his voice, he catches Will's eye and calls, "Well, you did say you can fight."