Archive of Our Own

Midway upon the journey of our life
I found myself within a forest dark,
For the straightforward pathway had been lost.

(the first circle: limbo)

Goro closes his eyes as the world shimmers and shudders around him, the familiar disorienting swoop in his belly as he descends into the Metaverse for one last time. When he opens them again, he’s in the Palace of one of the most notorious criminals in Tokyo. He’s acting on Shido’s orders, if preemptively, but he’d do it anyway. 

This mental shutdown is personal. 

The bastard has it coming. 

He finds himself in an Ueno Park that looks very much like the one he left, nameless people wandering by, heads down in the cold. But a chill mist has gathered, hiding the ground within its shroud. The faceless people push through regardless, and the mist effortlessly parts for them, then seals again when they have moved on. 

Goro wanders through the anonymous crowd. Not a single one of them speaks. No one waves to a friend, locks eyes with a lover. Their expressions are dulled, their eyes dim and lifeless, as they move to and fro in an imitation of real life. They look like nothing so much as lost souls, hollow beings condemned to a purgatory of their own making for all of eternity. 

It’s unnerving to brush shoulders with such lonesome ghosts, but Goro presses onward. He’s never been one to hesitate when he has a goal in mind. Not when it’s as important as the task before him.

He makes his way through the mist towards the Ueno Zoo. He has vague recollections of being here, perhaps on some school trip or with a foster family. 

As he approaches the low, wide gates that provide entrance into the Zoo, he hears the soft thrum of music, barely more than a suggestion of bass in the soles of his feet and the brush of a melody against his ears. The Zoo gate looks different in this Palace, a seductive shade of red and lit by garish neon. A light in the shape of plush pink lips looms above the nearest gate, and upon it, barely visible in the rapidly descending darkness, is a lone figure in a long black coat. 

Goro’s heart gives the most pathetic little leap at the sight. And then he’s suffused with a flush of hateful anger at himself for that singular moment of weakness. 

Joker jumps down from his place atop the light, landing neatly like a cat, and gives Goro a lazy grin. 

“Miss me?” 

“You’re dead,” Goro tells Joker. 

But he’s not terribly surprised to see a cognitive version of Akira in this Palace, as Akira was well acquainted with the Palace’s owner. 

“I’m a ghost,” Joker says, and winks. “Boo.” 

Even as a cognitive being, Joker is insufferable. Goro sighs, rolling his shoulders. 

“Are you here to stop me?” he asks. 

“Stop you?” Joker laughs. “I’m your guide.” 

Goro scoffs. “I don’t need a guide.” 

“But you want one,” Joker says. “Or I wouldn’t be here.” 

Goro ignores him, striding up to the nearest ticket booth. Behind the glass, a beautiful woman watches him with glassy eyes, her shirt unbuttoned and her black lacy bra on display. 

“Did you even read the sign?” Joker asks. 

Goro glances at him like he’s an idiot, then looks up at the blinding neon lights set above the gate. Stark against the night, it reads—

ABANDON HOPE, ALL YE WHO ENTER HERE

“A little pretentious, don’t you think?” Joker says, standing nearby with his hands in his pockets. “Anyway, should we go in?” 

And while one spirit said these words to me,
the other wept, so that – because of pity –
I fainted, as if I had met my death.
and then I fell as a dead body falls

(the second circle: lust)

Inside Ueno Zoo, the distortion is stronger, the world gone soft and slippery at the edges. The animal exhibits have been replaced by enclosures cut off from the spectators by tall panes of colored glass, rich burgundy or the deep green of a wine bottle. Outside, night has fallen completely, but bright lights within each glass cage highlight the inhabitants in seductive silhouette. 

Tinny music drifts from somewhere distant, a bitter counterpoint to the sighs and moans of the people in the translucent glass cages who twine helplessly in their amorous embraces, ensnared by their sins. 

Goro looks around, disgusted by the blatant carnality on display. Lust is a weakness, a trap, and those who fall prey to it are foolish and pitiful and pathetic. 

“Apparently this Palace belongs to quite the degenerate,” he says, with an ironic sneer, as he stands beside Joker who is quietly taking it in. 

“I don’t know,” Joker says, casual and cool even here. “I think for a lot of people, it’s normal to want sex.” 

“If it’s normal, there wouldn’t be this level of cognitive distortion,” Goro reminds him. 

“I don’t think a sex drive is the reason for the distortion.”

Goro rolls his eyes. Akira always was a soft touch. Not that it matters now. Joker may exist here as a cognitive being, but the real Akira is lying on a coroner’s slab, body empty of the pure spirit that once gave it life.

“Let’s just go,” Goro says, striding forward. “I don’t want to be here all night.” 

He doesn’t pause or bother to look at the wanton scenes unfolding around him, ignores the soft whimpers and moans filling the air. Until a swiftly moving shadow catches his eye, too small to belong in a tableau like this. 

It’s a child, and although all he can see is the silhouette, Goro is certain it’s a little boy, five or six years old. The child clings to his mother’s legs, then scurries away as a tall, broad shouldered figure grasps her by the shoulders and shoves her onto a bed. The child hides in a corner of the room, hands pressed to his face, as the figures on the bed writhe in a hideous parody of love. 

If Goro closes his eyes, he can see the scene. Not in shadow behind a wall of rose colored glass, but real and vivid and bright. The soft whimpers of the woman, sounds that could be either pleasure or pain. The rough grunts of the man on top, his harsh, cutting words. 

He turns his face away and finds that Joker is still watching him, gray eyes gentle behind the mask. 

“What?” he snaps, narrowing his eyes. “See something you like?” 

Joker shakes his head sorrowfully. 

“You’re my guide,” Goro growls, low and threatening. “So lead me the fuck out of here.” 

Joker says nothing, but picks up the pace, threading between the exhibits that stand like bright, sordid lanterns in the darkness, until they reach one with an open door. It’s empty inside, just four walls of caramel colored glass and a bright light within. 

It smells like coffee, and a soft jazz song is playing from somewhere nearby. 

Joker steps inside, and after a moment’s hesitation, Goro follows. 

“There’s no way out,” he tells Joker, annoyed to have been led astray. “I should have known you were no good at this.” 

“You know the way out,” Joker says coolly, infuriating as always. 

“I don’t.” Goro feels keyed up, agitated by the disgusting Palace, by how pathetic its ruler must look with such weakness on display. “This has nothing to do with me.” 

“So you’ve never felt lust.” Joker eyes him skeptically. “Not once.” 

“Of course I’ve felt lust,” Goro snaps. “I simply have better things to do than bare my throat to some asshole just for a cheap thrill.” 

“Maybe that’s the real sin,” Joker says, the corner of his mouth quirking up into a smile. “Not the lust, but the lie. I know a way you can atone for it, if you want.”

He winks shamelessly.  

Goro scowls at him, but his words are making a perverse sort of sense, the way that Palaces often do. It’s not the first puzzle he’s faced in the Metaverse, after all. Goro needs to connect with this room in some way, make himself a part of the cognition, before the path forward will open. 

His keen mind turns and turns, picking up clues from all around him, and from Joker’s words. Joker being, of course, a construct of the Palace ruler’s own making. 

“You want to know what I want,” he says to Joker, watching carefully. “What I lust for.” 

“That’d be a start,” Joker says. 

Goro hesitates, watching him. There aren’t words for all the things he wants with this boy who is already dead. He starts as simply as he can, a hand on Joker’s throat above his high coat collar, squeezing gently as he pulls Joker into a rough, desperate kiss. 

His fantasies have ranged from violently aggressive to slow and tender, but none of them could have prepared him for this. Although a ghost, Joker is real and solid beneath his grasp, parting his lips to let Goro slip his tongue between them the way he’s always wanted to. Joker whimpers, his hands clutching the front of Goro’s striped bodysuit like he can’t bear to let go. 

Behind him, Goro hears a great cracking of glass, and pulls away from Joker’s embrace. He turns quickly to see the wall blocking their way has shattered into sparkling shards of amber that litter the ground. Through the broken glass, there is a narrow pathway leading into the dark. 

Goro looks back at Joker, who is still a little flushed, standing with his hands in his pockets, patiently waiting. 

“Guess that’s our way forward,” Goro says. 

“Or we could stay here a little longer,” Joker says, with a fox’s smile, a hopeful tilt to his chin. 

Goro rolls his eyes and does not answer, or acknowledge the part of him that desperately wants to. He yearns to stay in this strange other world, where he can pretend that Joker is alive, and not in a cold morgue somewhere, his smiling lips slack in death. 

But Goro has a job to do. His last job, his most important. The ruler of this Palace has committed enough crimes. It’s time to put an end to it. 

but tell me, if you know, what end awaits
the citizens of that divided city;
is any just man there? Tell me the reason
why it has been assailed by so much schism.

(the third circle: gluttony)

They walk in the dark for an indeterminate amount of time, before bright string lights illuminate the way ahead, through a narrow passageway of hedges. From the other side of the shrubbery, classical music played by a string quartet drifts towards them. 

Finally the path gives way to an open space, roses and dahlias and tall hedges surrounding it, with paths branching off in different directions. Women in colorful cocktail dresses and men in suits or tuxedos mingle atop the perfect green grass, holding tall glasses of golden champagne. 

Goro recognizes the terrain. It’s Okumura’s garden, where Shido has brought him more than once to impress the rich and powerful who gathered there for Okumura’s infamous, decadent parties. 

“He’s something of a prodigy, despite growing up in foster care,” Shido would always say, a hand on Goro’s shoulder while Goro tried to hide his revulsion. “I sensed his talent and raised him from obscurity to where he is now.” 

Hearing that, people would always praise Shido for his kindness and benevolence, while Goro smiled politely and imagined innovative ways to slaughter them all. 

Now, he scans the area for Shido, but doesn’t see him. Okumura is standing in front of a line of tall rose bushes, the full blooms a violent red. Another ghost, in this strange Palace of mirrors. He has his hand on the back of Haru’s neck, and she is smiling graciously, flawlessly. Still, Goro can tell she wishes to be anywhere else. 

They are only cognitions, he reminds himself. There is no need for pity. 

“Swanky,” Joker says, standing beside him, hands in his pockets and tailcoats blowing in an imperceptible breeze. 

He reaches out and snags a glass of champagne from a nearby waiter’s tray. A napkin from the tray flutters to the ground and Goro leans down to pick it up. It’s printed with an image of wealthy nobles at a feast, but instead of food, a severed head sits atop each plate. 

“Here’s to being filthy rich.” Joker raises the glass with a wry smile.

Goro rolls his eyes, but before he can respond, there is an odd, eerie rustling noise, like leaves in a violent wind. Behind Okumura, the rosebushes ripple and distort, the branches uncurling and whipping like thorn-studded tendrils. They reach forward and wrap around him, sinking the sharp thorns into his skin until blood runs from the places where he’s bound. He struggles, calling for help as the vines drag him backwards into the waiting hedge, but the partygoers simply turn away, talking louder to drown out his screams. 

Even cognitive Haru does not spare him a second glance. 

Goro watches in horror as he slowly disappears into the vegetation, his screams replaced with unsettling cracking and chomping noises, as though the plants are devouring him. 

Finally, all is quiet, and the party proceeds as though nothing has happened. 

“Let’s go,” Goro says, turning to Joker. 

Joker leads him through the garden party, people trading favors of all kinds, indulging in every excess imaginable. Periodically, the shrubbery comes alive to devour another of the corrupt, gluttonous adults, and the others simply turn away, ignoring the screams. 

Goro and Joker wander through a maze of hedges, until they reach a dead end. The looming vegetation seems vaguely threatening, tall and leafy, dotted with roses the color of blood. Goro doesn’t particularly want to push through it. 

In the center of the small clearing, there is a table and a single wooden chair. Simple but elegant, the kind of Scandinavian design Goro favors in his own space. On the table, there is a familiar bottle of mid-priced whiskey and a single glass. 

There are no instructions, but it seems obvious enough. Goro’s own brand of gluttony, the weakness he’s always been desperate to hide. 

Joker says nothing, just stands with his hands in his pockets, waiting. 

“Not much of a puzzle, is it,” Goro says, picking up the bottle and filling the glass nearly to the brim. “Thought this Palace’s ruler would have a little more imagination.” 

Joker leans against the table, watching thoughtfully as Goro starts drinking. “I hate whiskey,” he says, finally. 

“Good thing this is my penance, and not yours,” Goro says. It’s strong stuff, and halfway through the first glass the world is already starting to soften at the edges, the hard lines relaxing into something with a little more give. 

“This whole place is a fucking nightmare,” Joker says, pushing himself up so he’s sitting on the table beside the bottle. Goro picks it up and fills his cup again. 

“This your home,” Goro points out. 

“No, it’s not. I’ve never been past the gate before. I usually just stay outside.” 

“You’re a cog...cognition,” Goro says. He’s starting to stumble over multi-syllable words, which is a problem if he’s going to finish the bottle. And somehow he knows that’s the only way forward. 

“Sure, I’m a cognition,” Joker agrees, easily enough. 

“Do you know that you’re dead in the real world?” Goro glances up at Joker, curiously. 

“Yeah, I know. I’m a ghost.” 

“A ghost.” Goro chuckles bitterly. “Of course.” 

“You’re gonna get sick if you drink that,” Joker says, brow furrowed in concern as Goro pours another cup. 

“Oh, believe me, I know.” 

Goro has plenty of experience with exactly how much alcohol his body can tolerate. Not, as his peers might, from parties where surreptitiously bought beer is passed around and chugged, but from long lonely nights spent running away from the many demons who live in his head. 

“I’d help you if I could,” Joker offers. 

“I know.” But the rules of the Palace are obvious enough to anyone used to the Metaverse. This is Goro’s sin, and the atonement must be his own doing. 

In the end, he’s sick twice before he finishes the bottle, and Joker holds his hair back while he kneels in the corner of the garden, leaning forward until his stomach is empty and he can resume the task. Towards the end, his fingers are numb and uncoordinated, the garden blurred into smears of green and gold, and Joker has to help him lift the cup to his lips.

But he does it, and just before he passes out, he’s aware of Joker’s arms around him, Joker holding him upright and whispering something in his ear. 

A secret he can’t let himself comprehend. 

We had been sullen
in the sweet air that’s gladdened by the sun;
we bore the mist of sluggishness in us:
now we are bitter in the blackened mud.’

(the fourth circle: greed)

Goro wakes in a narrow bunk bed, the ceiling disorientingly close. There’s not enough space to sit up fully, so he slides carefully out of the bed and down to the ground to take in the familiar room. 

Ten identical bunk beds fill the room, five on each side with a narrow passage between. The sheets, pale blue and coarse to the touch, are left in disarray. Goro glances at the clock and realizes that all the children are at breakfast. 

“Where are we?” Joker asks, emerging from the bottom bunk. “This is kind of depressing.” 

Seeing it through Joker’s eyes, the familiar space does seem lacking, gray walls without decoration, only a handful of ragged toys left on the beds of the children they belong to. No windows, a single heavy door. 

“A child institution,” Goro says. “I grew up somewhere similar.” 

Between foster homes, when he had nowhere else to go, Goro was stored away with other unwanted and abandoned children in a cold, impersonal institution very much like this. He remembers being cold, being hungry, and being desperate for the attention of the few caregivers. They didn’t take much interest in him, as he was sullen, and cruel in the hard, reckless way only children who have been hurt terribly are cruel. 

“Huh.” Joker gets up, hands in his pockets as he takes it in. 

“You’re not going to say it explains a lot about me?” Goro snaps. 

“Nah.” As always, Joker is nonchalant. “We’re more than the sum of the places we’ve been.” 

Goro isn’t sure if that’s true, but regardless he leads Joker through a familiar hallway towards the dining hall. It’s eerily quiet inside, the children trained to exacting obedience. They each present a bowl to the cook, who doles out ladle-fuls of oatmeal that Goro remembers as being insufficient for the hunger of a growing boy. 

Joker says nothing, just watches with that infuriating compassion in his eyes. Goro is seized by an irrational fury—he wants to tear down these unadorned white walls and watch this structure burn to the ground. 

The children and guardians pay them no mind, as though their presence is nothing remarkable.

“Why are we here?” Goro asks impatiently. 

“C’mon.” Joker leads down another hallway, pausing just outside a doorway. Through it, Goro can see a young boy, his back to them, caught in the act of digging beneath one of the thin bunk bed mattresses by two other children.

“That’s mine,” one of the children shouts at him. “Give it back!” 

The two of them shriek at the boy as he clutches something to his chest, his head down and his face hidden by shaggy brown hair. One of them grabs his arm, fingernails scoring a long red line down his pale skin, but he jerks away and brushes past Joker, sprinting down the hall. 

The two children don’t try to chase the thief. They both look more resigned than angry, expressions that seem too old for their childish faces. After a moment, one of them bursts into tears, whimpering for his mother. 

Goro doesn’t see the point of any of this, and he wants to tell Joker as much, but when he turns, Joker has disappeared. His only hint is a flash of flared black coattails, darting around a corner. 

He follows at a more measured pace, dread in his heart as he makes his way back to the bed where he’d awoken. The boy is there, his back to Goro, something shiny clutched in his fist. He’s sobbing hard enough to make his entire body shake, and as Goro stands there, startled by the force of the child’s sorrow, Joker leans down and wraps his arms around him. 

“I’m sorry,” the boy gasps, his head buried in Joker’s shoulder. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” 

“I know,” Joker says. “I know you are. But you have to give it back.” 

Joker meets Goro’s eyes, still holding the child gently to his chest, and Goro realizes those words were meant for him, because he’s holding the locket in his left hand, fist clenched around the metal, a hard, cold knot against his skin. 

“Go ahead,” Joker says.

Goro slowly forces his fingers to unclench, so he can see the locket that belonged to Kaito’s mom, the little boy’s most important treasure. He bragged to the other children that it was solid gold, and while Goro, newly orphaned and ever skeptical, never really believed that, he had still wanted it. Craved its shine and the love that it signified. 

He hated that Kaito had something he didn’t. It wasn’t fair that Kaito had this to remember his mother by, while Goro had nothing—his one heirloom thrown away in a fit of blinding, debilitating anger. In those days, he had thought about it constantly, his mind boiling and churning even when he tried to sleep, until he could do nothing but take it. 

In the real world, he’d buried the locket in the dirt yard where they sometimes played, sick with guilt and anger and hate. But here in the Metaverse, it’s warm in his hand, winking golden at him. 

He takes a deep breath and reminds himself that he’ll get to kill the Palace ruler when this is all through. It’s some consolation, but not much. 

He wonders if a mental shutdown hurts. 

“You can do this,” Joker says, and Goro tucks the locket into his pants pocket and walks out before Joker can begin one of his ridiculous team pep talks. 

Down the bleak hallway, Kaito is standing right where Goro left him, sniffling and wiping his nose on his sleeve. 

Goro holds out the locket, settling it into Kaito’s waiting palm. He reminds himself that this is not actually the child he once stole from, but just a shadow, a cognitive construct created by the sadistic ruler of this Palace. 

Even so. 

“I’m sorry,” Goro says, after a long, awkward silence. 

Kaito nods, and the wall behind him opens up to reveal a portal, swirling red and black, just like the ones Goro is very familiar with in Mementos. 

“Good job,” Joker says. 

“Fuck off,” Goro replies, striding forward. Joker follows him into the unknown. 

Here, more than elsewhere, I saw multitudes
to every side of me; their howls were loud
while, wheeling weights, they used their chests to push.

(the fifth circle: wrath)

The portal lets them out into a familiar chamber in Mementos, dark and empty and unadorned by the pulsing veins that creep everywhere else in the Palace of the collective unconscious. Goro hears the clacking and woosh of a subway train nearby but it’s muffled in the closed off space. 

Even at a distance, Goro recognizes the shadow lingering in the darkness at the back of the chamber. His breath comes heavy in his throat and his blood heats with fury at the sight of Sato, smug as a peacock, strutting back and forth beneath the high ceiling. 

Goro reaches for his sword and finds it at his belt, notices for the first time the familiar weight of the black mask, the shadows it casts at the edges of his vision. 

“Who’s he?” Joker asks, leaning impassively against a wall. 

“A banker,” Goro says. “He tried to double cross Shido on some very high stakes investments.” 

“Ah.” Joker doesn’t say anything more, but his expression makes it clear he understands what happened to the Sato in the real world. 

“This Palace is a clusterfuck,” Goro mutters, “but I welcome the chance to slaughter this asshole again.” 

“Nothing here is what it seems,” Joker warns him, but Goro’s already on his way, striding towards Sato with deadly purpose. 

“Hello, Sato-san,” Goro says, and the shadow turns its eerie yellow eyes on him. “And goodbye, I suppose.” 

He thrusts his sword forward, but instead of neatly eviscerating Sato, the thrust is stopped just before it can pierce him, reverberations traveling up Goro’s arm like he just tried to stab a steel wall. 

“What the fuck,” he says. 

“Ah, Akechi-kun.” Sato grins widely, showing teeth. “Shido’s pet. I should have known you’d come for me.” 

“I’m not his fucking pet,” Goro growls, nearly incandescent with fury. He tries again, another wild slice of his sword that comes to a jarring stop just before it can connect with Shido’s face. 

“Oh come now. We all talk about it.” Sato smirks, completely unintimidated by Goro’s anger. “His little Detective Prince, trailing after Papa like a puppy. You had no idea you were disposable, did you?” 

Goro pulls out his gun and fires, but the shots are stopped in midair by that same invisible force. Desperate to do harm, to sink his teeth into this bastard’s throat and tear , he tosses his weapons aside and lunges with claws flashing. 

Again he is stopped, as though he had jammed his claws as hard as he could against a brick wall. His arms are starting to ache and tremble from the impact of each fruitless blow, but he scrabbles anyway, trying mindlessly to get at Sato, while the shadow only laughs. 

“I’m going to kill you; I’m going to fucking kill you, I’m—” 

“You fooled all those people,” Sato says. “They think you’re so clever, so important. They all want the Detective Prince. But if they knew you, they’d be disgusted. Just as I am.” 

Goro growls, beyond words, clawing away at the strange barrier that keeps him from his prey. 

A hand settles on his shoulder, warm and gentle, and a small part of him stills. 

“We should leave,” Joker says. 

Goro is panting with fury and exertion, trembling with the force of it. “I’m going to fucking slaughter him. I’m going to kill him!” 

Sato laughs. “You’re so pathetic. You’re lying to yourself if you think you’re in control. Shido played you; we all played you for a fool.” 

“You’re lying!” 

Goro’s arms are numb up to the shoulder from the continuous jarring blows, the claws of his gauntlets scraping away at nothing. But he can’t stop. He can’t, he can’t, he can’t, he—

“Why would he lie?” Joker’s voice, cool and logical, cuts through the haze of wrath. 

A bitter, broken laugh tears from Goro’s throat, and he pulls back, his back aching with the effort of a hundred thwarted blows. 

“This wretched place,” he says, cackling wildly, helplessly. “Of course it was made to punish me. Of course it was. How pathetic. I should have expected it.” 

“It’s not too late to turn back.” 

Goro shakes his head. He’s come too far, and he will see this last deed done. 

Joker looks resigned, sorrowful. He draws his gun in a single fluid motion and fires the moment it’s level with the shadow’s head. The bastard disappears in a puff of black smoke. 

“Let’s go,” Joker says, as the way before them opens. 

They’re still in Mementos—or rather, the Palace’s cognitive representation of Mementos. It’s eerily accurate, right down to the dark pulsing veins creeping along the walls and the oppressive sense of unreality shimmering at the corners of Goro’s vision. 

They walk along the track in silence, as feeling slowly returns to Goro’s arms. He wonders how accurate this cognitive Joker is, how well he represents the real thing. To Goro’s mind, he seems a very close replica, but of course Goro would think that. 

He wonders if he ever really knew Akira. Or if he only ever saw what Akira wanted him to see. 

But in the end, he won the game, and claimed the bitter victory for his own. 

“There it is,” Joker says, his voice quiet but still easily audible above the constant murmur of Mementos. 

Before them is a station, a train waiting patiently for them to board. 

“Shall we?” Joker asks, and leads him onward. 

(interlude: crossing the river styx)

It’s only the two of them in the subway, the tunnel outside the train dark and ominous. The Palace is truly dizzying in the size and scope of its distortion, rivaled only by Shido’s in its reach. 

“How much further, do you think?” Goro asks, peering out the window for any kind of clue in the darkness. 

“We’re going in a circle,” Akira says. 

Goro glances at him. Now that he’s paying attention to the curve of the tracks, he realizes Akira must be right. 

“A circle...and downward,” Goro says. 

Akira nods. 

“But we’re not in Mementos.” Goro frowns, puzzling this over. 

Akira approaches, standing too close. The fluorescent lights wash out his skin, shine on his hair, making him look even more the part of the ghost. 

“Will you turn back?” he asks, gently brushing his thumb over Goro’s cheekbone. “It’s not too late to change your mind.” 

Goro scowls at him. “You are a cognition. ” 

“So?” Akira pouts, adorably petulant. 

“So you exist to maintain this Palace. When it is destroyed, you will cease to exist.” 

Akira smiles, removing his mask and putting his arms around Goro’s neck. Without the disguise he seems almost unbearably sincere. “I want to protect you. The ruler of this Palace knows that.” 

“Protect me.” Goro’s eyes narrow in suspicion. They are standing too close, Joker leaning in with an almost unbearable softness in his eyes. “Why?” 

“Because I care about you.” 

“I’m not stupid enough to fall for that,” Goro says viciously. 

“Maybe not consciously,” Akira purrs. “But subconsciously you know that I’m in love with you. I’ve dropped too many clues for you to miss it, Detective.” 

Goro turns his face away, wills his feet to put some distance between them, but remains rooted to the spot. 

Akira closes the distance between them, burying his face in Goro’s neck. For a ghost he feels solid and real, so very alive. And Goro is overcome with a longing so potent and tangible it hurts. 

“Hold me,” Akira murmurs, hot breath against Goro’s skin. “Just for a little while.” 

Goro’s arms come up without conscious intent, wrapping themselves around Akira and pulling him that last half inch closer, until they are chest to chest and Goro can feel the soft rise and fall of Akira’s breath. 

“You’re just a cognition,” he reminds himself, because he feels like he is slowly losing his mind. Like this embrace is just as much a punishment as all the rest. 

Akira pulls away, eyes bright and playful. “But I’m your cognition.” 

Goro has no answer to that.

“Dis Station,” a disembodied voice announces, cutting through their embrace. “You are arriving at Dis station.” 

Of every malice that earns hate in Heaven,
injustice is the end; and each such end
by force or fraud brings harm to other men.

(the sixth circle: heresy)

Goro and Joker walk from the station through eerily abandoned city streets, towards the sound of a voice, booming in the distance. 

Shido. 

Joker glances at Goro with concern, but says nothing. They press onward, hard cobblestones beneath their feet and empty buildings on either side, beneath a ruined red sky. 

As they get closer, Goro can make out the familiar words. It’s not one of the speeches Shido gives in public, about Japan’s future and hard work and the strength of a nation united. It’s the crazy bullshit Shido spews in private, about God and destiny and his chosen path. 

They step into the city square, an expanse as vast as Shibuya crossing, but without the cars or streets or sleek modern architecture. The square is surrounded by ancient buildings made of stone or adobe, gaping windows to reveal the hollowness inside. All around Shido is a sea of people, prostrated before him with their arms outstretched and their foreheads nearly touching the dusty stones of the square. 

One of them tries to rise, with an aborted jerk and a strange jangling. Goro approaches and sees that they are all chained to the ground by their wrists and ankles, bloody welts showing beneath the manacles. They’re wearing sackcloth, their skin grimy with dirt and the ash that slowly falls from the sky like snow.

As Shido bellows, they groan their agreement, and he continues blithely on, like he doesn’t know or doesn’t care that his audience is literally captive. 

Goro turns to Joker, who is watching with sorrow in his eyes. 

“They’re just cognitions,” Goro snaps, though the tableau is unsettling. 

Those soft gray eyes turn towards him, worry and pity and kindness all mixed together. Goro realizes his Metaverse outfit is gone, replaced by the same ragged sackcloth everyone else is wearing. Manacles have appeared on his arms and legs, chains dragging on the ground. A heavy iron collar sits around his neck, cold against his skin. 

“Come, my child,” Shido says, his attention now on Goro. “Come forth and receive my blessing.” 

“Fuck your blessing,” Goro snarls, but the chains on his arms tug him forward, long enough now that Shido, across the square, can hold them in his fist. 

When Goro resists, Shido jerks harder, and Goro falls to his hands and knees. The stones are rough and unforgiving against his palms, as he crawls forward to avoid being dragged. The skin of his hands and knees is scraped and bloody by the time he reaches the platform where Shido stands elevated above the rest. 

“Get up, my child,” Shido says, and offers him a hand. 

Goro spits in his palm, and Shido laughs. 

“Very well,” he says, and jerks hard on the chains, pulling Goro upward as he stumbles to his feet. 

“This one has spirit,” Shido says to the crowd. “Wouldn’t you agree?” 

Groans and whimpers answer him, but he seems satisfied with the response. 

“What do you want from me?” Goro hisses. 

“I want you to tell them,” Shido says. “Tell them I am God’s chosen one. Tell them that to rule them is my divine right. Tell them to obey me.” 

“I won’t.” Goro clenches his fists, bares his teeth. “I won’t do what you want.” 

“Then what use are you?” Shido says disdainfully. “You’re a worthless brat—I should have known better than to rely on you.” 

Even though this is just a cognitive version of Shido, Goro’s heart fills with hate and the heavy sting of rejection. 

Worthless. 

It’s a chorus he’s heard his entire life, but it never fails to get under his skin. 

“Say it,” Shido growls, low and threatening. 

As Goro shakes his head, the collar around his neck begins to tighten, pressing into his skin, the vital column of his throat. He claws at it, terrified and trembling, but his fingernails merely scrape against the cold iron. 

The pressure on his throat releases and he leans forward, coughing. 

“Say it.” 

Goro considers it. He could refuse, could end things here. The result would be the same. But his pride prickles at him. He’s not going to lose to Shido, not even to a cognitive version of his own making. 

Standing tall and strong among the abased, Joker watches him with infuriating compassion, devastating tenderness. Goro looks away. 

He puts on his best Detective Prince face and addresses the crowd. 

“Shido-san is chosen by god,” he says. The words feel like poison in his mouth, like the thoughtless, angry things he said to his mother the morning she died. It was a young child’s tantrum, nothing more, but he has never forgotten it, never forgiven himself. 

“Go on,” Shido says, obviously pleased. 

“He has a divine mandate to rule,” Goro says. “Under him you will find peace and prosperity.” 

“Very good,” Shido says, and releases his hold on the chains. As they clatter to the ground, Shido begins to crumble, as does the crowd around him. In a few seconds, they’re reduced to nothing but ash, soon swept away by the wind. 

“Don’t say a fucking word,” Goro tells Joker, alarmed to find that his voice is shaking. 

Joker nods, holding out his hand. After a long moment, Goro takes it. Joker intertwines their fingers, his skin warm and comforting. He tugs gently for Goro to follow him. Weary and aching, Goro does. 

When the savage spirit quits
the body from which it has torn itself,
then Minos sends it to the seventh maw.

(the seventh circle: violence)

They walk the city streets together, hand in hand. Goro could pull away, but he finds he doesn’t want to, finds that he’s afraid. They come to a stop in front of an old stone building, the roof sagging and the doorway gaping open. A wrought iron gate blocks off a small courtyard, an elegant, curving design etched into the metal. 

“Are you ready?” Joker asks softly. 

Goro nods, though he doesn’t feel ready in the slightest. 

They walk through the foreboding doorway into a reception area with an empty eyed woman sitting behind the desk. She doesn’t acknowledge them, and Joker doesn’t speak to her as he leads Goro further in. 

When they push open heavy double doors to the adjacent hallway, the faint sounds of moans and screams echo through the walls. 

Joker opens the door to the first room. 

Inside is a young man, thrashing wildly against a straightjacket that has been pinned to the wall. It’s difficult to recognize him in his agitated state, but after a moment, Goro does. 

A small time politician who had nevertheless dared to challenge Shido. Goro had used Call of Chaos to drive him mad, and he’d gone on a rampage at work, stabbing three people. It was the first psychotic breakdown Goro caused, but far from the last. 

The man begins to keen something, an awful, piercing sound. It takes a second for Goro to realize what he’s saying. 

“You….You did this to me. You…” 

Joker crosses the room, unafraid despite the man’s violent thrashing. He puts his hand on the man’s forehead, a gentle caress. 

“Dormina,” he whispers, and the man slumps against his bonds, taken by sleep. 

They walk through the halls of the mental hospital, stopping in each of the padded-wall rooms to greet the poor soul thrashing and groaning against their restraints. Goro remembers each of their faces easily, remembers everything their Shadows said to him. He remembers what it was to cast Call of Chaos on someone else, raw, unfiltered power surging through him like electricity. The strength to sow destruction and devastation in this ruined world, which deserved nothing less than to be burned to the ground and remade into something better. 

Joker puts each suffering shadow to sleep, and even though they’re not real people, just cognitions, it’s a relief when their screams cease. 

Finally, they quiet the last of the victims, a young woman writhing in madness and torment, begging for something Goro can’t understand. Mercy or death, or perhaps they are one and the same. 

With a tender hand on her forehead and a murmured spell, Joker quiets her as easily as he did all the rest. 

There’s one more room in the hallway, and Goro opens it with no small measure of trepidation. 

Inside is a contraption that looks like something from a mental hospital several decades ago—a wooden table with straps to hold down a patient, electrodes and a metal headband attached to a sinister looking board of dials and meters. 

It’s obvious enough what’s supposed to happen. 

“No fucking way,” Goro says, his stomach turning at the thought of climbing onto that table and letting himself be strapped in and electrocuted. “No. No way.” 

Joker says nothing, but takes Goro’s hand and laces their fingers together. Goro turns to him, reading the almost unbearable affection in Joker’s eyes. 

“This Palace was made to punish me,” Goro says, his voice taut and trembling. “How can you exist here?” 

“I’m a piece of you too,” Joker says. “I’m the proof that you can still be loved. Proof that you can love.” 

Goro turns violently away, his hands shaking. “Let’s get on with it,” he snaps. 

He climbs onto the table and lies down, his head on the rubber padding at the top. Joker attends to the straps, wrapping each thick tongue of leather around Goro’s wrists and ankles and buckling them down, testing the fit to make sure it’s not too tight. 

“Do you pull the switch too?” Goro asks, and he means for it to come out fierce, mocking, but he just sounds frightened. 

Joker shakes his head. He finishes with the last strap, Goro’s left ankle, and then leans in to press a kiss to Goro’s forehead, brushing his fingertips along Goro’s cheek. Goro is immobilized by a strap across his forehead, but it doesn’t stop him from trying to chase that caress. 

And then Joker steps back into Goro’s peripheral vision, and it’s Loki that looms over him, all jagged, dissonant stripes and white flash of teeth. 

Loki grins its savage grin and puts a single clawed hand on Goro’s chest, and a familiar red-hot surge of power flows through Goro, awakening every nerve, setting his mind alight with a blinding fire, filling his muscles with unnatural vigor and strength. 

Like this, he could do anything. 

He tears himself free of the bonds that tie him to the table, leather and wood giving way with a groan and wild crack. Grinning, he sits up and flings the straps away, then strides off down the hall. He has his sword again—he always has it when he needs it—and right now he’s dizzy with the need to kill. 

He throws open the first door he comes to, striding in like the grim reaper come to collect his due. The creature in the straightjacket on the wall cries and struggles helplessly but she has no more chance of escape than a fly in a spiders’ web. 

“Goro,” she calls out. “My son. Please don’t do this. Please!” 

Her words evaporate meaninglessly against the solid force of his rage, no more than droplets of water flung at heated steel. In the space of a single breath, Goro’s sword is through her chest, cutting through skin and bone and heart as easily as butter. 

Her eyelids flutter rapidly, and she whispers something too soft to hear, and the haze of madness lifts away just as she slumps forward in her straightjacket, still bound to the wall. 

When Joker appears in the doorway to the room a few minutes later, Goro is kneeling on the floor, clutching her corpse— no more than a shadow; she is nothing more than a shadow —his body wracked with horrible keening sobs. 

Joker says nothing, not even to offer more of his unbearable kindness, but simply waits until the storm has passed before offering Goro his hand and leading him out of that terrible place. 

“Art thou, too, of the other fools?
Here pity lives when it is wholly dead;
Who is a greater reprobate than he
Who feels compassion at the doom divine?”

.

(the eighth circle: fraud) .

Goro feels numb, a vast, aching emptiness as he follows Joker down a narrow hallway with mauve carpet and wooden doors leading off to the sides. At the end of it, Joker opens a metal door that leads into a familiar open space. 

Rows of folding chairs fill most of the room, and the audience is already seated in them, talking softly amongst themselves. A ripple of excitement crosses the gathering when someone catches sight of him at the door, the kind that used to give him a strange, queasy thrill, but now only makes him feel weary. 

“There he is,” someone whispers. “The Detective Prince.” 

“He’s so well-dressed,” another person murmurs. “And the way he carries himself. It’s hard to believe he’s still in high school.” 

This part, at least, is familiar. Goro crosses the room, ignoring the crowd, and climbs onto the stage where the talk show host, a woman in a pale pink pantsuit, is already waiting for him. She smiles, her eyes warm and lovely, and he relaxes just a fraction. 

“Welcome, Akechi-kun,” she says. She presses her palms to her thighs and smiles, showing too many teeth. There’s something eerie about the expression, so sinister on such a sweet countenance. 

“Thank you for having me,” Goro says automatically. “It’s a pleasure to be here.” 

“Well. I think everyone knows who you are, so let’s take some questions.” 

She looks out into the audience, keen as a hunter. 

“You, young man,” she says. 

Ryuji stands up, looking like a punk in his bright clothes, blond hair beneath the stage lights. He hefts something in his hand and grins. 

“Hey Akechi. How come you dress like such a fucking nerd?” 

Goro blinks at him. It’s not what he expected at all, and he opens his mouth to say something derisive, but the truth falls out instead. 

“If I do everything right,” he says, falteringly. “If I dress correctly and talk correctly and act in all the right ways, adults will want me around.” 

“That’s pathetic,” Ryuji says, sneering, and hurls the stone in his hand. 

Goro dodges, and the stone grazes his shoulder, then crashes against the set behind them. Dull pain blooms from the impact, but Goro ignores it. He has to push through. He has to get to the end of this Palace so he can put a bullet in the head of the one who rules it. 

The ruler of a Palace like this deserves the worst Goro can do, many times over. 

“Who’s next?” the talk show host asks, scanning the crowd with hunger in her eyes. 

Ann stands up, her hard blue eyes lacking the kindness they have in real life. 

“Why did you lie to us?” she asks, something clenched tightly in her fist. 

“Because I knew you would fuck it up,” Goro says.This much, he doesn’t mind sharing. “You could never have handled the truth.” 

“Then why did you lie to Akira?” she asks. 

Goro clenches his teeth, but the words slip out despite his best efforts, coming from somewhere deeper than his throat. 

“Because I didn’t want Akira to hate me.” 

“Well, he does,” Ann says, tossing the stone in her hand and catching it quick as a whip. “Or he should.” 

She hurls the small projectile, and it hits Goro in the chest with a hard, painful impact. It falls into his lap, craggy obsidian the size of his fist. 

“Well, I think that’s fascinating.” The talk show host writhes like a snake, her skin catching the light like nothing so much as iridescent, flesh-colored scales. When she smiles, Goro can see pearly white fangs. 

“I think I’ve had enough,” Goro says.

“Leaving already, are you?” A forked tongue slips out between the host’s glistening teeth. “You’ll never get to the ninth circle if you don’t play the game.” 

Goro takes a deep breath and closes his eyes. He wonders if a mental shutdown hurts. If he’ll even know it’s happening before it’s over. 

“Fine,” he says, scanning the crowd. “Who’s next?” 

Yusuke, as always, only looks half-present. And then his eyes land on Goro and narrow, laser focused. 

“Why are you,” he pauses for emphasis, “so very ugly?” 

“I don’t know,” Goro’s mouth says, before his mind can call the words back. “It’s easy to think the world twisted me into something horrible, but I don’t think that’s right. I think this is just who I am, in any reality.” 

Yusuke leans back, then hurls his stone with all his might. Goro tries to dodge, but it catches him in the shoulder with such force it sends spikes of pain down his arm. The stone clunks against the fake wood floor of the set, resting idly by the feet of the host. 

Next Makoto stands up, the line of her shoulders straight and defiant. “If you hate Shido so much, why are you always kissing his ass?” 

It’s for my revenge, Goro doesn’t say. Shido will pay for it in the end, Goro doesn’t say. He can’t say it, no matter how hard he tries. 

“He’s my father.” The truth is wrenched from him like a bolt that has rusted onto the surface it’s holding together, tearing open something tender as it goes. “He’s all I have.” 

“That’s so sad,” Makoto says, poison in her voice. “You poor, poor thing.” 

She hurls her stone and Goro barely dodges it. It clangs hard against the wooden set behind his head, nearly toppling it. 

“Oh, it’s my turn!” Futaba hops up on the seat of her chair, standing tall above the rest of the crowd. “I want to ask...I want to ask if you’re sorry that you killed my mom.” 

“I am sorry,” Goro says. Even his voice is honest, that low, hangdog tone he hates. “But I would do it again.” 

He jerks to the side, but Futaba’s stone still hits him painfully on the side of his chest, hard enough to make a sickening cracking sensation as one of his ribs probably fractures at the impact. 

“I hope you burn in hell,” Futaba says, eyes blazing. 

“This is certainly getting lively,” the host says. Her tongue flicks out and waves in the air like she’s trying to taste him. “I like to see pretty boys like you cry.” 

“Excuse me.” Haru is standing in the aisle, heavy stone in her hand. “I have a question.” 

“Yes, yes, go ahead,” the host says. 

Haru stands straight and looks him in the eye with chilling indifference. “Why do you want to die?” 

Because I hate being alive. Because it would only be just. Because it’s what I deserve. 

But those things have always been the truth. Only one thing has changed. 

“Because Akira is dead,” Goro says. “He was the only thing that gave me hope, but even hope was not enough to save him. So why should I linger when he’s already gone?” 

Haru’s arm moves as quickly as a slingshot, whipping the stone forward. Just before it can break Goro’s teeth, a red gloved hand plucks it deftly out of the air. 

“That’s enough,” Joker says, stepping forward. 

Goro glances at him, disoriented. Has Joker been here the entire time? Has he heard the entire, terrible truth? 

“You have your pound of flesh,” Joker says to the talk show host. “Will you let us pass?” 

“Oh, I suppose,” the host hisses. Her tongue flicks out once, and she reaches for a small lever at the base of her chair. She pulls it and the floor beneath Goro and Joker folds downward into darkness. 

As soon as a thin ray had made its way
into that sorry prison, and I saw,
reflected in four faces, my own gaze,
out of my grief, I bit at both my hands;

(the ninth circle: treachery)

Goro wakes on the shore of a frozen lake. They are in a cavern, somewhere deep underground, and a strange blue light fills the room, emanating from somewhere beneath the lake, as though a fallen star is trapped beneath the ice. He pushes himself groggily to his feet, looking around for Joker. 

“What now?” he asks, his voice weary and ragged. 

Joker doesn’t smile. He’s standing at the edge of the ice, his hands in his pockets. 

“Treachery,” he says, softly. “The ninth circle.” 

Goro looks past him, out onto the ice, where a familiar metal table is sitting in the center of the lake, a single chair placed behind it. 

“No,” he says. 

“It’s the last one,” Joker says, holding out his hand. 

Ice in his lungs, Goro takes the offered hand and follows him onto the lake. His shoes slip on the slick surface, but Joker holds him steady as they cross the frozen expanse, strange blue light emanating from beneath them. 

Joker leads him to the table, then lets him go. 

“No,” Goro says. “I can’t do this again.” 

Silently, Joker sits down in the chair. He looks up at Goro, serene tenderness across his face. He reaches up and removes his mask, so all Goro can focus on is the startling pale gray of his eyes. 

A gun sits on the table between them, silencer already screwed onto the barrel, elongating the sinister shape. Helplessly, hopelessly, Goro reaches for it. His hand shakes violently as he wraps his fingers around the grip. 

“Why are you just sitting there?” he growls, his cheeks wet and his knuckles white, his long fingers gripping the weapon violently. 

He raises the barrel and presses it to Joker’s forehead. 

“I can’t,” he whispers. “I can’t do it. I can’t. I—”

Joker reaches out and covers Goro’s left hand with his right. He says nothing, simply molds his hand over Goro’s like a glove, holding him, steadying him, guiding him. The two of them working  effortlessly in tandem, like they were always meant to do. 

“I love you,” Goro whispers, as Joker threads his finger through the trigger, resting atop Goro’s. “I do.” 

“I know,” Joker says, and together they pull the trigger. 

The gunshot is deafening in the cavernous space, and after a moment of blank limpness, Joker’s body disappears in a puff of black smoke like any other shadow. 

At the very center of the lake, where Joker had been sitting, the ice begins to fracture. 

I did not die, and I was not alive;
think for yourself, if you have any wit,
what I became, deprived of life and death.

(the star at the center)

Goro scrambles to the edge of the lake, cutting his hands on the jagged ice, slipping and sliding wildly. Behind him, he can hear a wild cracking and shattering as the frozen surface fractures and unfurls. 

When he finally reaches the safety of the shore, he turns to see that a creature is emerging from the center of the lake, rising among the shards of broken ice. Dark chains, glistening dully, hold down his limbs with sinister weight. 

The creature raises his head, and Goro sees his own face, yellow eyed and crazed with grief and fury. 

A fallen angel. 

How fitting, that he would rule over this Palace of Hell. 

Shadow Goro’s wings unfurl, three sets of them, dark and webbed. The lower ones are torn and ruined, as though destroyed in violent struggles for escape. The Shadow keens, sorrow and anger twining together in a sound like the moaning of a violent wind. He jerks forward, but the chains hold him steady in his place in the center of the lake. 

Goro takes a breath. His heart beats slow and even, his body cool and ready. He sinks, little by little, into the trance-like state he enters when he’s about to kill. A place in his mind where the world is sharper at the edges and hollow at the center. 

The gun that he shot Joker with is waiting on the ice just before him, silencer jutting from the barrel. Dark metal that matches the chains binding the Shadow to the glowing lake beneath him. 

He lifts it, and marvels at the perfect way it fits in his palm. As he approaches the fallen angel, the Palace ruler, the Shadow residing in his twisted heart, he feels nothing but relief. Before long, it will all be over. Before long, he will be nothing but a mindless corpse, eyes rolled back in his head, black bile dripping from his mouth, a fortunate creature who knows nothing at all. 

Shadow Goro watches him approach carefully across the ice, yellow eyes full of suffering and madness. 

So this is the shadow my heart casts. My very own distorted desires. 

Goro stands only a few feet away from the shadow. At this range, it’s impossible to miss. 

He raises the gun, finger resting on the trigger. 

“No!” Someone darts into his line of sight, black coattails and blood-red gloves, held out beseechingly. “Don’t do it, Akechi.” 

What a bothersome cognition. Goro gives it a scathing glance. 

“I killed you,” he says. 

“No,” Joker replies. “You didn’t. I thought you would have figured it out by now. Remember, the phone? The one that Sae showed you?” 

The phone. Sae’s strange demeanor. The moment of nausea. The eerily quiet, docile Akira waiting for him like a little lamb inside the interrogation room. 

“Of course,” Goro says harshly, and the world loses its crystalline focus. All the emotions he hadn’t dared to feel come rushing back in, leaving him wretched and desperate. “You tricked me.” 

“To be fair, you tried to kill me.” 

“Then you’re not a cognition,” Goro says. “You can’t be, if you know something I didn’t.” 

“That’s right,” Akira says. “I came to find you.” 

“In that case I recommend you leave this place.” Goro’s voice is cold, merciless. “It’s going to come crashing down in a few moments.” 

“No,” Akira says. He moves to stay between Goro and the shadow, blocking the trajectory of any bullet Goro might fire. “Not unless you come with me.” 

“I have a job to do here,” Goro says. “Don’t get in the way.” 

Akira darts at Goro, striking as quickly as a mongoose, snatching the gun from Goro’s hand. In an undeniably showy move, he quickly fires several bullets into the ice at the shadow’s feet. The Shadow roars, lunging forward as the newly broken chains come loose, streaming behind him as he surges out of the ice. 

He grabs Akira by the throat, his other clawed hand clutching the front of Akira’s vest. 

“Why?” he growls, his voice unbearably resonant. He glows from within like a fallen star, ruined wings spread wide. “Why won’t you let me die?” 

“It’s simple,” Akira rasps, his hands resting over the hideous, clawed fingers at his throat. “I don’t want to lose you.” 

Goro still holds the gun limply by his side, but he simply stares, unable to do more than watch in shock as his shadow self gently releases Akira. And then, slowly, falteringly, the Shadow gets to one knee on the ice and bows his head. Akira runs his fingers over one of the horns—so reminiscent of Loki’s—and lower, gently caressing the shadow’s hair.

“I can’t,” the shadow says, his voice filling the cavern with its dissonant melody. “You’ve seen what I am—what’s at my heart. You of all people should know I deserve only death.” 

“I tried not to love you,” Akira admits. “I tried really hard. I knew you were going to kill me, so I didn’t want to feel anything for you at all.” 

The shadow begins to weep softly. Goro finds his own cheeks are wet as well, that he’s on his knees just like the shadow, watching Akira through the blur of tears. 

“But if this is really you...If this is what’s at your heart…” 

Goro’s breath catches as Akira brushes away the tears on the shadow’s cheeks, and he can feel a ghost of that tender touch on his own skin. 

“You’re beautiful,” Akira murmurs. “How could I not love you?” 

Akira is—he’s insane, reckless, foolish, beyond reason or help. He must be, to love such a sinner as Goro. Even after traveling this cognitive hell, trawling the depths of Goro’s depravity, he sees something to love. 

Goro turns his face away, disgusted. But his Shadow is more honest, leaning his face into Akira’s palm like he’s desperate for every lingering touch. Goro can feel the faint trace of Akira’s caress against his cheek. 

“Do you hear that?” Akira asks, stepping back. 

Goro tilts his head, listening. A haunting melody, twining its way around the jagged spires of ice, filling the forlorn cavern. Although it’s distorted and unearthly, the tune and lyrics are familiar enough from their evenings at the jazz club. 

“Goro,” Akira says, holding out his hand to—

Goro doesn’t know who Akira is reaching for, if the red-gloved hand is extended towards him or his Shadow. As he stares at it, the strangest sensation takes him over. Like he’s coming unraveled, light and careless, and then woven tight again, into something more whole, a stronger, fuller self. He feels the press of Akira’s fingertips on his palm, and opens his eyes to find he’s in the Shadow’s place, fully integrated into a single being. His desires might remain distorted, his heart unhealed, but somehow he has drawn his Shadow back into himself. 

He’s standing, facing Akira like an equal, like the partner he always wanted to be. And somehow, he knows exactly what to do. He puts his arms around Akira and pulls him close. The music floats around them, eerie as the voices of the dead, but it doesn’t matter because Akira is here and he is so alive. 

As they embrace on the edge of the frozen lake, the Palace begins to crumble. But unlike the violent destruction that usually follows the disappearance of a Palace ruler, Goro’s Palace of Hell simply falls away into gentle nothingness, a little at a time. Like the peeling away of a hard rind when the fruit inside is ripened and ready. 

Goro notices none of it. He only sees Akira, close and dear. The thief who turned out to be the good guy, the hero come to rescue the dark-hearted villain. The angel, braving the depths of Hell to save the demon trapped within. 

To get back up to the shining world from there
My guide and I went into that hidden tunnel;
. . .
Where we came forth, and once more saw the stars.

(the end)

They are standing outside the gate to Ueno Zoo, on concrete washed out by luminous moonlight. 

“Tell me,” Akira says, so close his breath ghosts along Goro’s jawline. “Did I steal your heart?” 

“I didn’t see any treasure there,” Goro says. 

But then he realizes he’s holding something in his hand. He lets Akira go and slowly uncurls his fingers to see a simple diamond ring, a modest stone in an elegant setting. 

“I…” He bites back a wave of scalding emotion. “This was my mother’s wedding band. She never wore it.” 

Akira watches him, quiet and thoughtful. 

“Right before she died, she gave it to me,” he says, watching the treasure in his palm glint in the light. “She told me to hold onto it. To give it to someone I loved.” 

He sighs, closing his fingers around the ring. 

“Not long after she died, I threw it into a river. I was so angry at her, for dying, for leaving me, for all of it.” 

Akira nods, no condemnation in his gaze. 

“Later, I thought it was probably for the best,” Goro continues. “I swore to myself I would never be like Shido. I would never do to anyone what he did to my mother.” 

“You wouldn’t,” Akira says, soft but fervent. “You could never be like him.” 

“You really believe that,” Goro says. Watching Akira closely for any sign of deception or foolishness. 

But after all that Akira has seen in Goro’s Palace, he must know what kind of person Goro is. And yet he’s still here, standing close enough to touch, his eyes wide and soft in the glow of the moon. 

“I suppose there’s only one thing left,” Goro says. 

He reaches for Akira’s hand and settles the ring in Akira’s waiting palm, closing Akira’s fingers around it. Akira clutches it close to his heart, his other hand lingering at Goro’s waist. He leans in, and Goro meets him halfway. 

Above them, the stars glitter like gems nestled in their bed of black velvet, and the city sleeps its uneasy slumber, and all is still and quiet and dark except for the sweet words they whisper to each other. The sunrise catches them unaware, still curled into each other, half asleep and wholly in love.