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Chapter Text

Akira Kurusu’s first day of school was… eventful, to say the least. Wandering into a large castle under menacing red skies marred by black clouds alongside a supposed delinquent and awakening an untold power in blue flames in the same day — maybe the same hour, he wasn’t sure — was decidedly the oddest thing he had ever done.

But, well, on the bright side, now he had a friend. A boisterous, loud mouthed delinquent, but kind hearted and loyal in his own right. He smiled to himself as he walked back to Cafe Leblanc. Ryuji had treated him to dinner, fortifying their friendship over bowls of beef and conspiratory whispers of the castle they went into that day.

He really didn’t want to go back and face Sojiro-san, who probably had already heard of his tardiness in the morning. It wouldn’t go without repercussion, he was sure, and being late on his second day on probation was not a good way to stay under the radar. Nor was walking into another world, really, but what could he do? It wasn’t really his fault.

As the bells on the doors to the cafe jingled, signifying his impending doom, he was met with a surprising sight — maybe? It seemed to just be two customers, though why they were here so late, he didn’t know.

One of them held an air of cold sophistication. His Shujin uniform, embellished with a small ‘3’ pin, looked clean-cut and absolutely pristine . His senpai? Around the uniform was a long royal blue coat, with slight golden trims. Despite its flashy colors, it was quite modest and would probably blend in easily with a crowd, a testament to the designer’s skill, Akira supposed. The boy’s navy blue hair was maybe just the slightest bit wild, puffed with slight curls that Akira knew could be tough to comb out. A clear attempt was made though.

Finally, and probably the most interesting feature the boy sported was the black facial mask covering his nose and mouth. It was a common sight across Tokyo for people who were sick to wear masks such as this, though usually they were the standard baby blue of surgical masks rather than the black that adorned the boy.

What was interesting, rather than the way the boy dressed, was the person next to the boy, a younger child maybe 10 years old, if he guessed correctly.

The second boy, in contrast to the coldness of Akira’s blue-haired senpai, was warm. Incredibly so. The boy’s sky-blue eyes sparkled with joy, his every feature round and soft looking, from his pale pink curly hair to his pink, oversized, puffy sweatshirt. He was certain 50 percent of the volume was just air.

If the boy’s mouth wasn’t a smile, it was a neutral curious expression. Akira had the impression that this was the kind of child who lit up an entire room with a grin.

The blue-haired boy, his upperclassman, looked up from his fond tousling of the pink-haired child’s nest of curly locks, and met Akira’s gaze. Akira could tell how the golden-hazel eyes lost some of their little softness as soon as his eyes left the child, and hated to ponder what the boy would be like when alone.

“Nice to meet you. My name is Kishi Meta.” His voice was interlaced with confidence and all the sophistication that Akira expected of his appearance.

Akira tried his best to reciprocate the same cordiality he was presented. “Likewise. Kurusu Akira.”

Kurusu dreaded the face of realization and recognition that the third-year student donned in that moment. Kishi-san seemed about to say something, before the child next to him tugged on his blue sleeve.

“Same clothes as Meta. Go to school together?” His voice was youthful, cute, even. But with grammar more befitting of someone younger, and because of this, Akira was slightly taken aback.

Kishi-san seemed only fond though, giving the child another pat on the head. “I suppose so. Though we haven’t met before this.”

“Friend, then?” The child looked excited, with eyes twinkling more than before, if that was possible.

Kishi-san sighed. “No, Kirby. Just because we’re schoolmates doesn’t mean we’re friends.”

Kirby looked almost dejected when Kishi-san said that. Akira was left confused, but also mildly amused by this exchange, and he supposed the small uplifted corners of his lips gave it away when Kishi-san looked back at him. He half expected it to be a scowl, since he so obviously had heard of Akira’s reputation, but found his blue-haired upperclassman’s eyes neutral, maybe even narrowed slightly in thought. Maybe it was a trick of the light, but they seemed greener for the slightest of moments. Those eyes held no malice though. Perhaps he had been mistaken? Did Kishi-san not know of his record?

He was sharply aware however, of another pair of eyes observing him, sky-blue and piercing. It wasn’t analytical or cold, but still seemed to decipher the deepest darkest depths of his soul. The pink-haired child, he was observing Akira.

Then, Kishi spoke up, rousing him from his thoughts. “I apologize about Kirby. He’s a curious child, and does this to most people he meets for the first time.”

Akira himself was thinking of what to respond with. This didn’t seem merely like the gaze of a curious child, but he would accept it. “It’s fine.”

Akira felt the piercing gaze leave, and some tension in his body unconsciously loosened. The pink-haired child, Kirby, smiled up at Kishi-san. “Seems like a good person.”

Kishi-san nodded to the child, though Akira could detect the slightest eye roll from the teenager. His hearing wasn’t the best, but he could swear the blue-haired boy muttered, “said the same with Magolor and Marx...”

To which Kirby puffed up his cheeks, muttering back, “low blow. You thought so too.”

Alright. Akira could accept that, he supposed. Behind him, the bells on the door chimed, signifying Sojiro’s return, with a paper bagful of groceries. “Kept the fort down while I was gone, kid?” He asked with a gruff voice.

Kishi gave an affirmative hum, and took Kirby’s hand in his own. “Thanks again, Sojiro-san. We’ll be going back now.”

Sojiro still didn’t seem to notice that Akira was in the room, calling out behind his back as he moved into the kitchen, “don’t you dare, Meta. You haven’t eaten yet, have you?” It was more a declaration than a question.

Akira’s eyes widened in surprise. It was nearly 8 o’clock, dinner time was long ago.

Kishi-san seemed to abashedly scratch the back of his head, before finally saying, “I can cook for myself, you know.”

Sojiro sighed from the kitchen. “The question isn’t ‘can you,’ it’s ‘will you’. Stay for some curry.”

Akira almost didn’t notice Kishi’s silent shuffling towards the door. “Sorry, I’ve got homework to do. I’ll see you tomorrow,” Kishi managed to somehow say, with a tinge of amusement before making a break for it out the door, Kirby laughing on his heels.

Sojiro ran out of the kitchen and stared at the door in fond annoyance, an expression not uncommon for a father. Akira wondered what his caretaker’s relationship with the teenager and child was. “Dang brat… better feed himself,” Sojiro muttered.

It was then that the man finally noticed his new charge standing there. The gaze turned on him, hard and stern, with none of the warmth from before. Akira gulped.

“You have a lot to explain.”

The next morning, Akira awoke again to the harmonic smells of coffee and curry wafting up from the cafe downstairs. It was an unconventional breakfast, but nevertheless a good one. Greeting him when he went down the stairs however was not only Sojiro, but Kishi-san as well, uniform and jacket just as pristine as yesterday. His companion, the Kirby, had found a nicely shaded location in the corner booth of the cafe to sleep, head resting on the puffy sleeves crossed on the table in a makeshift pillow. Under his arms was a tablet, which now that Akira remembered, was with Kirby yesterday too.

Kishi and Sojiro seemed to be bantering lightheartedly, Sojiro grumbling, “This ain’t a daycare, you know.”

Kishi’s eyes narrowed a bit in what Akira assumed to be a smile, since he was wearing the black facial mask again. “And yet you take him anyways.” Kishi’s eyes softened into something more genuine. “I can’t thank you enough though.”

Sojiro sighed. “Don’t. He’s always welcome, kid.” He seemed to notice Akira come down at this moment. “Have your curry quickly, kid. Meta’s gonna accompany you and make sure you aren’t late again today.”

Akira supposed It was to be expected. Hopefully castle-exploring could come after school today, rather than during the first half of the day. He nodded in affirmation.

After he finished the curry and the two Shujin students nodded their farewells at Sojiro, they walked together to the metro station in silence.

Akira’s assumption had been correct. Kishi’s kindness seemed to exist only in the presence of his small companion or the cafe owner, for whatever reason. All the warmth seemed gone from his eyes, and he looked for all the world like an apathetic, antisocial teenager.

As they neared the school, Akira began walking farther and farther away from the blue-haired upperclassman. He could hear the low whispers and mumbles around him. Criminal, delinquent, assault, carries around a knife, all conversations seemed to revolve around these or something similar. Kishi probably didn’t want to be involved if he could help it.

Yet, instead of continuing to walk, Kishi merely turned around and stared at him until his slowed pace brought him close enough, before turning back around towards the school.

“Kishi-senpai… don’t you care about your reputation?” Akira couldn’t help but question.

When the golden-hazel eyes met his, Kishi spoke. “It matters not. Sojiro-san made a request of me and I’ll carry it out.”

Well, that was admirable. As they reached the school gates, Ryuji ran up to him, a grin plastered on his face. “Akira!!” He shouted as he waved, just for good measure. Akira sighed. This boy didn’t know the meaning of subtlety.

From out of the corner of his eye, he saw that Kishi had left him, deigning to get into the school quickly rather than find a friend in the front yard in the time before the first bell rang.

When Ryuji finally got to him and followed his gaze, he quirked his eyebrow a bit. “What’s got ya interested in Kishi-senpai? He’s a bit of a stick in the mud if y’ask me.”

Akira hummed in interest. “Do you know him, Ryuji?”

“Nah man, not personally. But the whole school knows him. No middle school records, yet he’s got legendary grades. Top of the graduating class, right next to the student council president Niijima Makoto.”

Akira’s eyes widened. This person was quite impressive. Ryuji took his surprise as a gesture to continue. “Hasn’t got a single friend though, and barely speaks. Like I said, stick in the mud.”

“And he’s never been seen with a kid or anything?”

Ryuji was confused by the question, but answered regardless. “Dunno, man. Nobody really sees him outside of school. Why you so interested in him anyways?”

Akira shrugged in response, taking in the little information he got. Ryuji never got his answer, since the first bell rang soon after, signalling that it was time to go to class.

Exploring Kamoshida’s Palace was… odd, he guessed he could say. The things that it revealed though, were far worse than either he or Ryuji had expected. With newfound resolve, he found himself going back to Leblanc to rest after a long day.

The bells that rang with the opening door were accompanied by a gruff acknowledgement of his return from his caretaker, who seemed considerably more satisfied that he hadn’t gotten a phone call from the school today.

About to ascend the stairs to his large bedroom, Akira paused when he saw the pink-haired child in the corner of the cafe again. Out of simple politeness, he waved a small hello, which seemed to make Kirby’s day somehow, much to his amusement.

“Hello!” The child greeted back, with a broad smile. “How your day?”

Akira was once again struck by how young the child probably was mentally compared to appearance. “Good. You?”

Kirby grinned. “Finished all of Meta’s assignments! I’m happy.”

Akira looked to the tablet on the table, which was opened to a to-do list full of what one might find as homework in a school. There was an astounding amount, annotated with prioritization, difficulty, time consumption, and tips and tricks. It was like a meticulously planned out curriculum. Kirby’s words hit him.

Meta’s assignments.

Kishi-senpai was homeschooling a 10 year old while going to high school himself.

Alright, Akira was interested now. Still, he withheld himself from prying. He had manners, thank you very much. Waving a quick goodbye to the child, he went upstairs to his abode. Maybe he’d work on his homework.

It wasn’t until a few hours later that he heard Kirby’s excited voice, announcing the arrival of who seemed to be his caretaker, Meta.

The two of them left, leaving Akira to puzzle what his life has turned into. Talking cats, magical castles, alternate worlds, and an odd senpai revolved in his head, as he closed his eyes and went to sleep.

From that point on, a nice(?) routine had been established, where he would see the blue haired enigma and the child he had with him in the morning, Kirby sleeping in the corner and the mysterious masked Meta waiting for him. He’d accompany Akira to school at the behest of Sojiro, before leaving to not be seen for the rest of the day until the evening, when he came by Leblanc to pick Kirby up for the night. On weekends, neither Kirby nor Kishi-san would be seen in Leblanc, and that was fine with Akira. The arrangement for Kirby to be there everyday was probably only because Meta had school most of the time anyways.

On occasion, once or twice, both Kishi-senpai and his charge were not to be seen for the afternoon. When he questioned Sojiro, he merely received a shrug. “Not my job to keep tabs on him,” he had said.

Kishi-senpai remained stoic as ever on their trips to the school, preventing Akira from getting any closer to him. Meanwhile, Akira worked with Ryuji to figure out how to out Kamoshida covertly.

Eventually, with the time constraint added due to risk of expulsion and the welcome addition of Panther to the team, the group finally defeated Kamoshida’s palace.

What he didn’t see was Meta’s narrowed green eyes in thought when the blue-haired upperclassman saw the red calling card.

Kamoshida’s confession was a moment of glory for the trio of thieves. In celebration, they went to a high end buffet with the money they had made, and decided how to continue.

The Phantom Thieves of Hearts. Akira loved the idea, cliche and dramatic as it was. He would be making a difference in life, helping people. They all would.

Giddy at his newly found purpose, place, home, and friends, he continued life leading the double life of Akira, the meek student and Joker, the confident thief. It all happened so quickly, but it felt so right , like this was what he was supposed to do, what he was always meant for. The empty space that was his purpose and identity was no longer vacant, and he welcomed the changed wholeheartedly.

Morgana had even deigned to join him in LeBlanc, with Sojiro’s approval. Oddly enough, Kirby didn’t react with the same doting over the adorable “pet” as Sojiro had. There was no hostility, and he was comfortable with the cat. But at the same time, there wasn’t the same affection he would often find children treating Morgana with.

Morgana was fine with it. It just meant being treated more like an equal, and being truly human, of course he basked in it.

He’d seen Meta gazing at his bag with Morgana in it the morning he’d decided to smuggle the feline into the school, and sweatdropped. When Kishi-senpai finally said something, to Akira’s relief, it was “do not fret. I will not be the one to get you in trouble anytime soon.”

All in all, things were going relatively well, for being on probation. He wouldn’t mind if things continued this way.

“Kirby.”

The child nodded back in acknowledgment, a small knowing smile playing on his face. “Don’t speak back to the cat?” He already knew what his mentor would say.

Meta nodded proudly. Years drilling into Kirby survival instincts had paid off. His disciple was showing caution, an excellent trait.

The cat, dubbed Morgana, was the unknown. The unknown was dangerous until it was proven not to be. It couldn’t be a coincidence that only they could hear the cat, maybe even Akira too.

Meta sighed. Their bills for the apartment were coming in again.

“Kirby, ready for a Mementos run on Saturday?”

The mini Star Warrior nodded with enthusiasm. “Always.”

Chapter Text

Saturday came with a slew of dumb requests on the newly made Phantom Aficionado Website, much to Joker’s chagrin. There was maybe only one or two serious requests, and Joker supposed that would be sufficient for that weekend’s training. Stray shadows on the path gave good experience, after all.

The team was quick to gather after he texted them. They had only been in Mementos once or twice, and the excitement at the endless palace and the secrets it held still hadn’t faded. As the subway rippled out of reality to become veined, red, and somewhat of a hellscape, the team made their final adjustments to their outfits; Joker straightened his gloves, Skull adjusted his scarf, Panther puffed up her blonde twin tails, and Morgana checked the condition of his new slingshot.

They were ready. Traversing down the static escalators in sync, taking in their surroundings, the path of Qimranut, the unsettling way things morphed and twisted, the Phantom Thieves were amazed. Even though they’d been here before, Mementos was a sight that did not disappoint as the Palace of the common masses.

“There are only certain locations open to us, since availability depends on the people’s belief of the Phantom Thieves,” Morgana had explained after they first entered. “It’s a world of cognition after all. Either way, these few zones should suffice for normal training, with the stray shadows lurking.”

They could see the lurking Shadows in the depths, but were already accustomed to them. With a well-timed application of a weapon, they fell. It was almost cathartic, most of them would say. Exerting all force to down an enemy, working in tandem with people who shared similar situations.

It was even fun, maybe.

After maybe an hour or two of the same, they were exhausted, but the atmosphere took the form of something light, a veil of mental relaxation over the physical exhaustion. They were in Aiyatsubus after their 'Shadow hunt'.

And then they heard the voices. Bodies tensed in sync, minds in a panic.

Nobody was supposed to be down here. They were the only ones… weren’t they? If the powers were in the hands of people who could use them differently… the power to change hearts could be devastating.

All of them understood the gravity of the situation. Joker communicated with a nod that they were to proceed with caution.

The voices came as battle cries. There were two, one male and one either young or female. Mementos wasn’t quite a suitable place for a child to be though, so Joker assumed it was a male and female. There weren’t sounds of summoning, so were they using weapons to face it instead? There was a clear whinging in the air that could only belong to a sword. So one of them was using a sword. What about the other?

Hiding behind the corner edge of the turn that would lead them to their unknown individuals, they all watched intently at the pair of fighters.

All could tell that they were skilled. They moved in sync with each other, covered places that the other couldn’t. One of them was small though, and the Phantom Thieves has to revise their initial profile. It was a child. A child in Mementos. They weren’t experts, but they certainly didn’t think that was normal. All three humans sent a questioning look at Morgana, who shrugged with just as confused of an expression.

The larger one had an outfit befitting a knight, and wore plated armor covering select parts of the body without being bulky. Namely, he wore a chest plate, shoulder plates, hand guards, arm guards, knee and shin guards, and metal boots. Otherwise he wore a simplistic black turtleneck sweater and fitted black pants. Over his form was a large cape, in familiar dark royal blue and gold trim, ostentatious and billowing in the shockwaves of the fight.

His face was obscured by a full mask, with only a chevron-shaped slit splitting it horizontally, with glowing yellow eyes beneath it. Four modest but sinister-looking protrusions on top of the mask were barely covered by wisps of blue hair, also a familiar color.

He moved with grace fitful for a seasoned fighter, but slammed his sword down with the strength of a bear, as evidenced by the shockwaves reverberating even to where the Phantom Thieves remained hidden. A twirl in midair evading the large claw, and a graceful landing on his feet led seamlessly into a slash of his golden pronged blade, surrounded with the yellow glow of tamed lightning.

His partner was no less impressive though, if only by virtue of the skill shown at such an early age. The other one was small, nimble, and moved with practiced ease, though not as gracefully as their partner. If the partner was a master, the child could be considered an apprentice. Powerful on their own, but not as much as the master. They worked perfectly together though, one’s slash leading to the other’s, constant switching almost indicating a telepathic link. They understood each other perfectly, and the Phantom Thieves could only stare in awe at their synchronization.

The younger one was also dressed significantly more modestly than their counterpart, in a half-sleeved sweatshirt that had a knee-length trail, and red knee-length shorts. It would almost look like a normal civilian’s clothes if not for the maroon silver-trimmed arm and shin guards, quite reminiscent of their partner’s. The mask they donned was similarly covering the entire face, though instead of the angular and more sinister spikes and slit, it was simplistic in fashion, round and a kind of pink-toned off-white, with two comical blushes on the cheeks and two large eye holes, from which glowing sky-blue eyes not unlike their partner’s yellow ones peeked out. The top half of the mask was hidden by pink curls, puffier than but similar to their counterpart’s blue locks.

An irkingly contrasting hat sat on top of the pink child’s hair, green and pointed, but with a yellow sphere on the end. In the child’s hands was a purple-hilted aqua and silver sword.

Pink and blue. A child and teenager. Sky blue and yellow. The ever so slight flicker of green in the yellow. Their closeness, their synchronization. It all hit Joker at the same time. What hit the nail in the coffin, however…

“Kirby! Straighter stance, tighter grip!”

“I know!”

Those voices, though muffled behind masks, were easily recognizable. Not to mention, the names. There was no coincidence.

“...Kishi-senpai?” Akira couldn’t help but mutter out, bemused.

The other two Shujin students gaped at Joker.

Ryuji was the first to say something. “Kishi, as in Kishi Meta, the top student at our school?”

As the two downed the large Shadow using just their swords, they heard the voices around the corner. Landing lightly on their feet, they looked over to the corner, dropped money from the Shadow all but forgotten.

All the Phantom Thieves ducked behind the corner, but the damage was done. The recognition that flashed in Kishi’s yellow eyes was proof enough that they had been revealed. It was proven true when the knightly teenager walked towards them calmly. “Akira.”

The thieves jumped at the mention of their leader’s name.

“What are you doing here?” It was more a statement than it was a question. The voice was colder than Akira had ever heard it before, even in Kirby’s presence.

Akira took a gulp, and steeled his nerves. Here he was Joker, here he was on home territory (the voice at the back of his brain argued it was just as much Kishi-senpai’s as it was his, but he drowned it out). “I could ask you the same,” He retorted with the bravado of Joker.

The two exchanged stares with each other, both sizing up and analyzing the other. Tension was palpable in the air. Joker didn’t feel as brave as he looked. He had seen the way Kishi-senpai and Kirby fought, and both were far more skilled than anybody on his team, even the experienced Morgana. It was clear they had experience fighting, and they had the upper hand.

Kishi-senpai’s eyes flickered green again. Joker filed away the information as another odd part of his senior.

And then, as if it melted away, the tension disappeared as soon as the little pink blur appeared between them.

“Meta, not enemies. Don’t fight,” Kirby pled. His voice was firm, his eyes sad but determined.

To the rest of the thieves’ surprise, the piercing yellow gaze softened at the sight of Kishi-senpai’s companion (protege? They didn’t even know anymore). They weren’t as soft as Akira usually knew them while they were in the warmth of Leblanc, but some sharpness was to be expected when they were in the middle of a Shadow-infested mimicry of the subway.

“Right, Kirby, thank you,” Meta placed a hand on Kirby’s shoulder and gently positioned the masked child at his side. “That doesn’t change my question though,” he continued, without any of his prior hostility. “Why are you here, Akira?”

Akira nearly sighed in relief at Kirby’s intervention. His teammates certainly did, but he had to keep up appearances. His mask was his strongest weapon, after all (both figuratively and literally). “You won’t tell anyone?”

The knightly teenager nodded. “We all have secrets. It’s not my place to reveal them. I only ask that you don’t say anything about me and Kirby to Sojiro.”

Akira raised an eyebrow. Perhaps this was a chance for leverage. “Only to Sojiro?”

Meta shook his head. “Don’t tell people within reason, but especially Sojiro. He doesn’t need to find out that this is how I support me and Kirby, especially when his cafe is getting emptier by the day.”

Well now that made Akira feel bad for leveraging that over him. “Alright then. I’ll take it that you won’t reveal us then.”

The other thieves were still somewhat stunned, so it was Mona who had the sense to shout, “Wait, Jok-”

“We’re the Phantom Thieves of Hearts,” Akira blurted. It was too late. Morgana facepalmed.

Meta, to everyone’s surprise, nodded. “I imagined so. Confirmation is always appreciated though.”

“Wait, how? We were careful about hiding our identities!” Blurted Ryuji.

Meta’s eyes turned a shade of pink, making all the thieves jump backwards. “Being discrete means not shouting out loud about an alternate world at the school gates, even when it looks like all the students are gone.” This was pretty obviously  directed at the skull-masked thief, who sputtered in indignance.

“You were listening?! Shit, dude, not cool!”

Akira sighed as Meta continued. “Regardless, my point still stands. I wasn’t even trying to eavesdrop, I merely left school a bit later than usual due to cleaning duty and extra work for teachers.”

Mona facepalmed for the second time during this conversation. “You idiooottt…” He mumbled, voice trailing off in disappointment.

Skull, ever eloquent and skilled with his words, retorted with, “uhh… No! You!”

Mona, to his credit, at least tried to hold back for a few seconds. Within a few seconds though, the two thieves broke into a veritable catfight, with Ann shouting behind them, “Skull!! Withdraw! Mona has claws!!”

Joker was the one facepalming this time, to the amusement of Meta and Kirby. And he was sure now that pink eyes meant amusement. So much for a team of thieves. However, there was more information to be gleaned from the two new individuals.

“Do you get here the same way we do? With the Meta-nav?” He asked first. If there were other people in similar situations, they might have been able to explain things better than Igor, Caroline, and Justine.

“No,” came Meta’s short reply. Kirby cut in, questioning, “Meta-nav? What’s that?” Before Meta quickly shushed him with “I’ll tell you later.”

Just how much had Kishi-senpai been eavesdropping on the team? Was Ryuji being too loud really the truth? Joker hated that there were so many unknown variables, each question and answer just piling on even more. Before he could ponder on that though, Meta continued.

“We don’t need an app to travel into the Metaverse, as you call it. We’re here under… odder circumstances.”

So were they like Morgana? Joker frowned. What could be considered odd to a Metaverse traveler? A long pause accentuated this, making Joker pause before questioning further. Kishi-senpai was being pretty forthright with all his other answers despite his usual stony silence in the mornings, so it was safe to assume that he wouldn’t answer if asked about the circumstances.

A shame, really. Joker really wanted someone to talk to about everything that had happened prior to Kamoshida’s Palace, with Igor, the wardens, and the room that appeared both in his dreams and in reality, albeit invisible to the others.

A quick look to Kirby, who averted his eyes to the ground, told Akira that he wouldn’t have any luck asking the child either. Well, he supposed as long as the pair didn’t interfere with their job or anything, crossing paths wasn’t an issue. He’d offer to let them join the Thieves for protection, but with how well they were fighting, it was likely the offer would be unnecessary.

Eh. Maybe he’d offer just in case. “Would you maybe like to join us?”

He received a blank stare in reply and suddenly felt the need to justify himself. “Not that I’m assuming you can’t work alone or anything,” he blurted out. “But maybe it’d be better if each of our teams were watching out for each other? It’d certainly be reassuring on our end.”

It was a bit disconcerting that Joker couldn’t tell what the knightly teenager was thinking, through the full-coverage metal mask. The eyes seemed to flash green though, for the slightest of moments.

Just as Meta’s head bobbed upwards minutely as if about to answer, he heard instead the youthful voice of Kirby behind the blue-haired teen, surprising him a bit. “Sure! Let’s go!”

Meta seemed to lose some of his usual calm composure as he whirled around to face his protege. “Kirb--”

“Shouldn’t be any problem, right Meta? We can use help after all,” the pink child quickly added. “And, um,” Kirby looked over at Joker. “We can keep money we find, right?” The child’s full mask didn’t help with interpretation of emotion, but Joker could tell that the sky blue eyes were pleading.

Joker nodded. Letting them keep anything they found was more than enough in exchange for the possible manpower they could gain. Either way, though he was essentially the team treasurer, he didn’t think the two would need weapons bought for them.

Was that a sigh from Meta? Maybe he made the wrong decision. Meta didn’t seem to want to work with them.

A moment’s pause of Joker’s hindsight was interrupted when Meta said succinctly, “Fine.” Kirby jumped up in the air and whooped in joy, and Joker was again struck with how young the child was, who would be joining them on expeditions to hellscapes, filled with shadows of people’s worst secrets. Now that he thought about it, this really wasn’t a good environment for Kirby to be in.

Meta seemed to notice Joker’s conflict, looking at the leader’s downturned mouth instead of his protege as Kirby ran to the rest of the Phantom Thieves, who were still occupied with the petty fight.

“You needn’t worry. Kirby is more resilient than he appears, and has been exposed to Mementos for years now.”

Joker was a bit perturbed, but tried not to let it show. Just how had the two of them lived that he needed to bring a child with him to Mementos of all places? No matter Kirby’s skill or ability, surely Meta, as Kirby’s caretaker, would know a bit better. Then again, Meta had shown nothing but impeccable judgement since they had first met, and he and his protege had a certain kinship that Joker guessed wasn’t something as simple as that of a mentor and disciple only.

From the background, various sounds of incredulity and surprise were heard as the Phantom Thieves were informed of the new arrangements.

“Besides,” Meta added as an afterthought, “We have our own purpose down here anyways.”

Joker let the words sink in for a bit. Was their purpose not to make money? That’s what Kirby’s main concern seemed to be at least…

Meta continued, disregarding Joker’s pensive look. “But, while I agree with your goal of bettering society, do not expect us to join you in actually stealing people’s hearts. Change is good but should come from a person’s own willingness to, not from forcibly having their hearts changed. Even knowing your methods, I cannot fully condone them. Therefore, I ask you to excuse us from any heart-changing activities.”

Joker took in Meta’s once again hardened gaze, and nodded, despite feeling the pang of sadness and anger come along with it. He thought Meta was an ally. He still was, but the camaraderie that Joker felt was possible had been crushed with that line. And who was Meta to judge how they changed people? It wasn’t forcibly changing them so much as it was making corrupted people see where they had gone wrong by shoving the evidence in their face. It was the person him/herself who felt the actual regret, who turned themself in. They weren’t the people making them suffer; they were merely the catalyst for their change of viewpoint, change of heart.

No further words were spoken on this topic.

Chapter Text

Meta and Kirby proved to be worthy additions to their team, easily decimating most of the Shadows in their path. They both seemed astonished by Morgana’s bus form, Kirby more so than the ever contemplative Meta. Joker could only guess that they had gotten as far as they had on foot, since what else would they have used?

As the two added honorary members rode along in the significantly more cramped bus, they passed the time with small-talk. Ann and Ryuji were both still relatively unfamiliar with Meta, and even Akira didn’t know much about Kirby, deigning to spend most of his time in the cafe up in his cozy attic. Nothing much new was revealed though, beyond what they could glean from being around him for a day.

And then, Panther piped up. “Hey, I know they aren’t official thieves… But what about codenames? It’s probably better to exercise caution, since it’s a world of cognition, y’know?”

Mona didn’t complain about having the words stolen out of his mouth. How could he, to Panther of all people?

Anyways, at that, the other three thieves became pensive. It was true, they needed something to be called in the Metaverse. And all of them knew exactly what Meta’s would be as soon as they took a single look at the stoic blue-haired teen.

The thieves looked at each other, revelling in the almost telepathic agreeance they had over their companion’s codename.

“Knight,” they all declared in unison.

Kirby, in the corner, seemed to gasp. “Meta, Meta, it’s perfect!!” he shouted enthusiastically. He leaned in conspiratorially, and mumbled teasingly, inaudibly to the rest of the Thieves, “right? Meta Knight.”

Meta… now Knight, merely nodded though his eyes had turned a shade of sky blue, not unlike Kirby’s, behind the metal mask. The thieves were getting more used to this now, Meta’s sporadic color-changing eyes. Blue was a new one though, and not nearly as often seen as green or pink. Yellow seemed to be the default.

Joker wasn’t distracted from this though, as the team turned their attention to the pink-haired child sitting next to his mentor. Now that he thought about it, Kirby was a bit harder. Kirby’s mask was impressively bland, for all the area it covered. It was round, plain, and off-white, in the likeness of his normal face with full cheeks and small nose, but eerily had no mouth contoured or colored in. The only discernible feature on it was the slight blush on the cheeks. The eyes seemed almost out of place, contrastingly realistic and complicated when compared to the smooth mask.

All of the Thieves grasped for some unique feature to call their new companion by, but they could find none. Instead, it was Knight who offered up the name.

“Star.”

Kirby looked up to his mentor and nodded, giving a small hum of satisfaction. There was probably some meaning behind it that the Thieves didn’t know about, so Joker asked as much. From the other thieves’ attentive gazes, they were probably just as curious.

Knight simply fondly tousled the pink curls on Kirby’s head, yellow eyes flashing abruptly to purple briefly. “The obvious reason will probably be seen when he uses his Persona, but beyond that, I have more significant reasons.”

Kirby nodded happily, as if bragging that he understood those reasons, and the thieves were left once again pondering who exactly these two were, what their relationship was.

They didn’t get their answer that day.

After the Mementos run was over, they team left together, finding themselves in their usual clothes. It was a nice comfort after the stuffiness of the subway cum labyrinth, all the thieves agreed in subsequent sighs. Fighting Shadows was really tiring.

Kishi was back in the pristine black Shujin uniform, wrapped in the blue and golden-trimmed coat. Now that he had the chance to compare, Akira wondered how he took so long to decide that Knight was Kishi in the Metaverse. The colors of Knight’s cape were the exact same as those of his real-world counterpart’s coat. In fact, the collars looked almost identical, with padded white on the inside, unflattened and framing his face. It was shorter in the real world though.

One look to Kirby confirmed that similarly, elements of the real world made their way into Star’s Metaverse outfit. Namely, the pink puffy sweatshirt that he always seemed to be wearing. Rather than the large baggy sleeves ending tightly around Kirby’s wrist, his Metaverse outfit instead featured airy and open half-sleeves, likely for ease of fighting.

Nobody said it, but they all thought it.

It was perfect for aerating out the armpits when Mementos got too stuffy. Some of them were mildly envious, since their outfits were all far stiffer and stuffier.

But in any case, they all got the slightest bit of whiplash when Knight, who they’d fought alongside, changed so seamlessly (was it really a change?) into the top student they knew, Kishi Meta, 3rd year student of Shujin High. Then again, there was also Kirby next to him, and as odd a sight as it was, it was also somehow fitting to all of them.

“Alright then,” Ann clapped her hands together. “Can you guys get to the Metaverse from your phones? It’ll help us communicate easier if you have the Meta-nav chatting app.”

Meta looked the slightest bit abashed at this, showing through his half-masked face in his furrowed brows. “I don’t actually have a phone,” he responded, to receive blank stares from the group. Who was primitive enough, in this day and age, to not have a phone?

Meta still was accommodating though, quickly adding, “communication can be taken care of though. I see Kurusu every morning, as you know. He can just tell me then, and I’m sure everyone knows which classroom I can usually be found in. If I’m not there, you’ll usually find me in the library.”

Akira nodded, before he realized something. “Hey, Kishi-senpai, why not refer to us by first name by now? We’ve known each other for weeks now,” he offered. It was something like an offer for friendship, Akira supposed. But also, it would ease some tension and be more convenient in Akira’s mind. And he did mean it.

Kishi seemed like he was just about to shake his head, to reject the offer, as Akira had feared was a possibility based on how his offer in the Metaverse had been received. But then, Kirby interrupted yet again, much to Meta’s chagrin, it seemed.

“Yea! Meta, make som friends!”

Again, though Meta seemed to be the mentor to Kirby, Meta didn’t object, which was a win in Akira’s book. He’d treat Kirby to some candy later, maybe.

“Fine. I look forward to working with you,” Meta declared in his usual courteous manner. “Akira, Ann, Ryuji, Morgana” he added begrudgingly, one by one. The names sounded like they didn’t roll off his tongue properly, unlike most of his eloquent words. He was unused to it.

From there, a new routine had been established with the duo, where Akira would conspiratorially whisper to Meta in the morning of when the planned Mementos trips were, and then in the afternoon, when all the thieves gathered, Meta would already be there along with his small compatriot. Then, they would go through the labyrinth, splitting earnings from hold-ups with Shadows.

The first time Meta saw Joker get a new Persona, his eyes turned a milky white for a few seconds, before he turned his head to Kirby, whose eyes were as large as usual. Full-face masks were really hard to read emotion from, Akira discovered. At least Meta’s eyes were some indicator of his feelings; Kirby was usually a blank slate. That is, completely and utterly unreadable.

Joker mostly inwardly shrugged when he thought about it. Kirby wasn’t too much of a mystery anyways; the child was always happy.

In any case, the Thieves were all a little curious about the two. They didn’t once call out their Personae, despite the masks indicating that they certainly had them. The thieves had taken up theorizing what they were, and the top guess for Meta’s so far was Lancelot. Seriously, Meta was so much like a knight that they had to wonder sometimes if the teen was treating it as roleplaying.

Then again, that was what the Thieves were essentially doing. Running around in costumes, pretending, being thieves. Though it was one step above that, Joker never passed up a chance to shoot while flipping in mid air. Hey, it worked.

Though, considering it, Joker had to wonder what exactly caused Meta’s awakening for him to see a knight as a spirit of rebellion.

And with how little they knew of Kirby, it was hard to make many deductions of the child. Everything from his almost normal outfit and blank mask led the thieves to more and more confusion whenever they tried to theorize about him. Thus, they quickly gave up, waiting for more to be revealed.

The duo wasn’t there all the time, which was understandable; Akira had heard from Sojiro how Meta had a part-time job. Mementos earnings weren’t really enough to sustain two people for an extended period of time, he knew. It was with little surprise, considering Meta and Kirby’s independence, that Akira learned from Sojiro that the two of them were orphans and living together in Yongen.

True to Meta’s word, the duo did not participate in any Phantom Thievery, standing to the side and watching whenever they encountered the Shadows of the people they needed to change.

He could see in the corner though that his eyes turned a contemplative green whenever they were doing it. But there was no change in Meta’s demeanor.

Through the Mementos requests, the thieves eventually learnt of Madarame, and set their next target.

Yusuke Kitagawa was… a character. It confused most of the thieves to no end when he started gushing about aesthetics and such, but they had finally found their in.

With Meta opting out of their thieving, they actually didn’t see him that much, now that they were planning a bigger heist. Sojiro had started trusting Akira enough to let him walk to school on his own, but Meta’s silent accompaniment was still a small comfort in the mornings, despite the rumors about him having died down a bit.

Akira didn’t ignore the pink haired child in the corner of Leblanc either. Kirby was perpetually happy, and asked small questions about Akira’s day, or how the weather was. Small-talk, but still enjoyable. They never seemed to talk about anything else though, despite Akira’s confidence in his social skills.

Kirby always seemed to have longing eyes when looking at anybody else in the cafe, and at first, when Akira had approached, was relatively quiet. The child would squirm though, as if wanting to say something he wasn’t allowed to.

Akira finally plied the child into relaxing enough to hold a looser conversation after five minutes, with a small lollipop.

Kirby sighed in contentment at the sweetness lingering on his tongue as he withdrew the delectable sweet. “Thanks, Akira!”

Akira nodded. “No problem. I take it you like food?”

Kirby smiled brightly, lighting up the dim corner of the cafe. “Tons! I used to be able to eat whole watermelons on my own!” He declared triumphantly, proud of the fact.

Akira could help but smile at the child’s antics. The words and behaviors seemed far more fitting of a 7 year old, but seemed so fitting on Kirby. The two of them talked of mundane things, like what Kirby was learning, how the weather was, and friends. Kirby had an odd fixation on friends, Akira found. When he questioned it, Kirby’s bubbly demeanor seemed to sober a bit.

“When you don’t go to school or leave a building on your own much, you don’t get to see many people,” The child explained with a sad smile. “I talk with some of the guests, but they don’t usually want to bother with a child like me.”

Even in the face of loneliness, Akira was struck with how resilient the child was. “And while I love Meta, I really do, him going to school isn’t getting us any closer to finding Dee or Dedede…”

Unfamiliar names, Akira’s mind unhelpfully supplied. He supposed they were Kirby’s friends. “Who?”

Kirby’s eyes seemed to brighten at the opportunity to talk about his friends. “Dee and Dedede! Dee was always the kinder one, trying to hold Dedede back from fights and protect Dedede if it was ever needed. Nobody knew what Dedede would do without Dee around; Dedede was a total glutton and a bit of a bully. He always had everyone’s best interests in mind when things became serious though, and he had a heart of gold.” Sniffle.

Akira didn’t notice that halfway through Kirby’s rambling, the child had tears forming in his large eyes, despite the large smile he still donned. “Huh? That’s weird,” Kirby tried to joke as he wiped them away with his puffy sleeve. Akira must’ve looked a bit panicked, because Kirby was quick to reassure after another sniffle, “don’t worry, Akira, I’m fine!”

Akira didn’t know what to do with a crying child; he’d never been good with children. It was a stroke of luck that Kirby was so mature despite his childish tendencies, Akira thought.

Despite the child’s reassurances, Akira could see a sight he himself was too familiar with. Kirby was steeling his face, putting it into a mask of happiness, faker than before but no less convincing than the genuine joy he’d displayed when Akira procured the lollipop.

It was therefore with some hesitance that Akira decided to pat the small child on the head, tousling the soft pink locks of hair like he had seen Meta doing so often. Kirby snapped his head up to look at Akira with surprise at that action.

Surprise quickly faded into soft happiness though, as Kirby leaned into the touch and thanked the teenager, not without adding, “Meta does it better,” in a teasing tone.

Some barrier broke between the two from that point, and Kirby was a lot freer with his words. With renewed fervor, the child complained about how Meta was too protective of him now, how back then Kirby could always go play in the trees with his friends. Akira assumed that Kirby moved to the city from the country somewhere. In return, Akira regaled Kirby with tales of what they did in Kamoshida’s palace and how their current heist was going, to Kirby’s fascination.

He was sure to leave out some details, lest Meta chase him down to the ends of the Earth in kill him slowly and painfully. Somehow, he had the impression that Kirby’s innocence was one that had been protected thoroughly despite trips to the Metaverse, and Akira had no desire to change that.

Eventually, it seemed Meta had finally returned from his part time job, and Kirby, toting his little tablet of work, waved goodbye.

Morgana poked his little feline head out of the attic, now that the voices had faded. “Is he finally gone?”

Akira nodded. The cat sighed in relief, and hopped down the stair to join the teen in the seat in the corner.

“Why are you avoiding him anyways, Morgana?” Akira was curious. It was a valid concern.

Morgana looked pensive. “I’m not even sure. It’s just…” he seemed to grasp for the right words. “I get the feeling they’re more than they seem, Meta and Kirby. I can’t describe how or why though, it’s just like how I instinctively know things about the Metaverse.”

Well that was certainly curious. Though, added on with what he knew, and more important how much he didn’t know about the duo, it seemed mildly suspicious. “Do you want to learn more about them?” He inquired, hinting at a possible mission. If Morgana seemed them as suspicious, he’d trust his guide’s judgement.

Morgana gave a resolute nod. Good.

Akira gave a Joker smile, pushing down the hesitation he felt as their friend, as Akira. Despite being friends with them for well over a month, he still knew next to nothing about them, and this was unusual. He innately knew this to be true somehow, and hoped the duo wouldn’t hold it against him.

“Tail them for a bit. You know where to find me afterwards, and we’ll find you when we need you for the Madarame heist.”

Morgana grinned (if cats could grin).

Chapter Text

Morgana’s initial investigation revealed little beyond what he had already heard from Akira. Treading lightly on his padded paws, he clung to the shadows and corners, trailing behind the duo, the pink-haired child speaking animatedly to the nodding blue teen. If Morgana hadn’t known any better, the two would merely appear as normal siblings on their way home.

But no normal pair of siblings would have natural hair colors on opposite ends of the spectrum, nor would they be exploring Mementos. Morgana had half a mind to add that no normal teenager would have glowing and color-changing eyes, too.

Just in general, the two had some fishy smell about them. And despite Morgana’s usual predilection for fish, he didn’t really want the pair near the thieves if he could help it. It wasn’t just their unnatural skill in taking down shadows, or their full-face masks. Something more unsettling about them was the otherworldly feeling Morgana sensed from them, though they looked for all the world like humans. Kind of the same as himself, but even stronger.

He knew instinctively the answer to his existence may be in Mementos, but he also knew by logic that it probably meant he wasn’t of this world. The feeling he had, whenever he innately knew something about powers or himself, he also had when Joker would seemingly stare into space for a few minutes before they ever entered a palace. It was otherworldly, in the literal meaning, if he had to describe what he sensed.

It was armed with this knowledge that Morgana followed the two beings as they entered into a small apartment complex. The pink one showed no sign of stopping talking anytime soon, despite having chattered for the entire walk there, and surprisingly, the blue one continued just stoically nodding at the pink one’s words. It grated on Morgana’s nerves a bit, to hear such a youthful voice speaking so often. (Hush, it definitely wasn’t because the voice reminded him of himself and his pitiful form.)

The apartment was small and pretty insignificant, Morgana noted, but it was also clean to the point of him believing that it was just about to be rented out or something. Everything was lined up to lend some space to the tiny room, and not a single speck of dust could be found on any of the furniture or appliances.

Meta moved to take off his signature blue and gold trim jacket, as well as the Shujin academy blazer, leaving him in the plain white turtleneck. He also removed the suspenders, somehow rolling them impeccably and snugly fitting them in a space in the drawer. Morgana was quite impressed by how organized this person was. If Joker were this much of a neat freak, Morgana didn’t think he’d mind a year in the attic that much.

Alas, Joker was not. So more often than not, Morgana would find himself coughing up a hairball because of all the residual dust in the air.

On the other side of the apartment, Morgana hopped down to look, Kirby donned a white chef’s hat, and had started boiling some water.

Wasn’t this dangerous? From what Morgana knew, children weren’t often qualified to handle cooking flames, much less fragile cooking utensils and containers. Then again, Meta seemed to know exactly what Kirby was doing, and made no move to stop the child.

And to Morgana’s surprise, Kirby was incredibly adept with the pots, pans, spoons, and spatulas. In minutes, the tantalizing fragrance of curry, not unlike what he would find at Leblanc, tickled his nose. “Meta, dinner’s ready!” came the voice of the young chef.

Then, Kirby took off the chef’s hat, and Morgana could sense the slightest shift in the child’s aura. The chef hat was stowed in a cabinet next to the stove, among many other hats of all shapes and sizes. When Morgana looked back to the child, Kirby was shirking the slightest bit away from a stove, closer to the mannerisms that he’d expected of a child when in the kitchen. Cautious, and careful not to touch the stove.

Eventually, Meta, seemingly having made rounds to make sure the house was untouched and clean, made his way to the dinner table. Morgana couldn’t help but snicker at the teenager, who now donned a thick dark-blue blanket over his shoulders, and wrapped it around himself, perhaps to conserve body warmth. It seemed to fit rather well around his shoulders and back though, never once sliding off, despite all odds and laws of physics.

Kirby looked over and smiled. “You always did look better with a cape, Meta,” the child stated in his usual enthusiasm. Morgana inwardly chuckled at the irony of it. The child was complimenting the teenager for something as childish as wearing a cape, and the teenager was taking it seriously. Morgana remembered that a cape had been part of Knight’s Metaverse outfit though, so maybe it wasn’t so farfetched.

Meta made no move to deny or affirm what Kirby said, but had acknowledged it with a small “hmph.”

Dinner was an insignificant affair. The two of them didn’t speak much beyond more mundane conversation about school. It left Morgana bored out of his mind, and he had half a mind to call off the mission and report to Joker that these were just two normal orphaned teens, if it wasn’t for the constant unearthliness he felt radiating off of them.

Meta considered the options. The cat was there, probably on Akira’s orders, since it was always seemingly attached to the other Shujin student.

He couldn’t help but admire Morgana’s stealth. Stealth was one thing he had often forsaken before, because with armor, it was hard not to be conspicuous. He knew that Kirby was surprisingly pretty good with it though, despite how boisterous the child was in most situations.

Also though, fighting for the GSA meant that the enemies came in all shapes and sizes, most of which were optimized for battle skills that included stealth. It was for this reason that he had trained himself to figure out when anybody was following him.

It was almost instinctual at this point; a sixth sense if you will. He couldn’t tell the details, like who the person was or where they were watching from, but he could pretty accurately pinpoint when somebody was watching. Kind of like when people said, “I feel like someone’s been watching me,” but more enhanced and far more accurate.

It was only because of this that he managed to figure out that someone— maybe something, if he couldn’t hear their footsteps—  was following him and Kirby back to the apartment. Then, he’d only managed to figure out it was Morgana because of the stray cat furs he’d found on some of the appliances when he made his daily rounds to dust things off.

Hey, call him a neat freak, but he would not live in a place that wasn’t clean. Even his old soldiers would tell stories of how the Halberd was always maintained to perfection, besides some rusty pipes and small dusty corners.

He was amazed at how many places he managed to find the cat fur but without the cat’s presence. Morgana was indeed very adept at hiding.

And that was his dilemma. Should he call out the cat and risk letting Morgana know that Meta was aware of it for a long time? Or should he just wait out the cat’s scrutiny until Morgana no longer felt there was anything worth watching?

Honestly, there wasn’t much to tell about him and Kirby, and he didn’t know why others thought he was secretive. He was merely quiet (and antisocial). He’d tell maybe if they asked, but would prefer not to, since the whole of his history was still not clear. In any case, people probably wouldn’t believe him or Kirby, hence why he’d stayed silent on the topic for a while.

He couldn’t very well take care of his pink-haired protege when both of them were in psychological wards after all.

Who would believe a teenager saying he was an intergalactic space soldier reincarnated, no less one who held renown and veneration, such that the name Meta Knight was known across the stars? Who would believe a child saying he was a little pink puffball with godlike strength, who had defeated terrors unknown, that even the Galaxy Soldier Army couldn’t?

They wouldn’t, that was the answer. And thus, it was only reasonable that he and Kirby retain some secrecy on their positions.

But if they were right about the origins of Morgana, and the feline really did come from the depths of the labyrinth, maybe Morgana was in a similar situation as them: amnesiac, and not really of this world. With the bulbous head and ovular eyes of his humanoid form in the Metaverse, it was increasingly clear to Meta that the cat wasn’t natural.

Perhaps that was the crux of the matter. Should they reveal themselves to Morgana and gain a possible collaborator, at the risk of being revealed to the rest of the Phantom Thieves, or continue working alone?

Of course, Meta would prefer the latter. And because of this preference, he would deign to lay low, not doing anything that would draw the watching feline’s attention. And things would work out, with Morgana reporting to Akira that they were mere teenagers.

Except for Kirby had put another two plates on the table. One for himself and one for...

With the usual grin of his that he got whenever he was doing something to make a friend for both him and Meta, against Meta’s will.

Man, this was getting repetitive. He was no stranger to Kirby’s interferences, and knew that he would always cave to the mini warrior’s desires (because how could he not, when Kirby was so endearingly kind to everyone?). He sighed. Looked like the choice was made for him, and it was to let Morgana know that he and Kirby found him out.

Morgana curiously stared at the extra plate of curry on the table. Kirby was gluttonously gobbling down his own second plate, while the one at the center of the table remained untouched. Meta seemed only mildly exasperated, though from what, Morgana had no clue.

Until Meta declared, “Morgana, Kirby left out a plate for you.”

In his panic, he almost fell from his perch on top of the refrigerator.

“How— How’d you know I was here?!” he almost shrieked.

The teenager shrugged. “Call it a sixth sense.”

With a sulk, Morgana crept out of his hiding spot in the shadows. “Well that’s just unfair,” he muttered. “D’you have eyes on the back of your head or something?”

Kirby decided to pipe in now that he had finished his second plate. “Meta’s just smart that way. He can tell if someone’s following him, but figures out who it is and from where on his own.”

Morgana quirked an eyebrow at the child. “And how did you figure out I was here? If I recall correctly, you’re the one who put down the curry.”

As if it was the most obvious thing ever, Kirby grinned. “Meta looked troubled, but not worried. The person following us couldn’t be dangerous. Why not make a friend?”

Morgana looked over to the teen, whose stoic demeanor had turned into something like fond exasperation. “I take it he does this a lot?”

Meta nodded. “Twice with the Phantom Thieves already.”

As the teen pushed the plate of curry towards the cat, and the conversation lulled, Morgana had the opportunity to think a bit. It was actually… pretty astounding how well Kirby could read Meta’s mind. In fact, Morgana wasn’t sure which he believed more: that Kirby and Meta were just that close, or Kirby was coming up with some kind of justification for doing something reckless.

In retrospect, the latter sounded more likely. But with the telepathic synchronization they fought in the Metaverse with, the former wasn’t too improbable either.

Either way, Meta proved to be formidable, in both skills and mentality. If he was able to guess who his follower was from mere deduction, Morgana was sure he had more tricks up his sleeve.

It was unreasonable. A teenager, any normal one, shouldn’t have had such perfect sword skills, or heightened senses. It was almost like Meta had been a soldier at some point, loathe as Morgana was to believe it. Sword skills could be explained away by him probably having trained in swordsmanship before, but Morgana knew that those senses had to be trained, and that was something normally done in life-and-death situations, honed to perfection. Perhaps the two had spent more time in Mementos than the thieves thought?

And for that matter, Kirby was unnatural too. The child’s mannerisms seemed to change so much, from being a cutesy infant to a sharp child. Kirby was more than his insignificant looks implied, Morgana knew. He had long since ditched the poor grammar belonging to that of an infant whenever around the thieves, but still always seemed to hold that childish innocence. That said, Kirby’s fighting skills were even more unnatural than Meta’s if only because he was so much younger and shouldn’t have had that much motor skill yet.

Fighting skills aside, Morgana had yet to address the elephant in the room.

How could Kirby cook? That was the oddest thing. And how was the child scared of the stove afterwards, if he had been so adept with it?

Morgana took a tentative bite of the curry in front of him. It was surprisingly delicious, though not as good as Sojiro’s.

He was wary as he picked his way through the plate, feeling the eyes of both Kirby and Meta trained on him. Gosh, it was hard to eat when people were staring at him. In any case, he eventually finished, content. Yet, he could barely hold back his excitement. Soon, both sides would be able to talk, an event that Morgana had been anticipating since he had been found.

One could hardly blame him. The duo had been shrouded in mystery for the entire time he had known them. So after licking his plate clean, after Meta took the plates to the sink to soak, after they all situated themselves on the sofas. And they began.

“Alright.” Morgana began. “So to begin with, how much do you know about me?”

Meta, as usual, spoke. “You’re not from this world. You’re an amnesiac, and don’t remember where you came from, but you’re certain you were a human. You know things about Palaces and Mementos, but don’t know how you know.”

Morgana nodded. That was pretty much it. “Do you have any questions?”

“Yes, well,” Meta seemed to ponder his words. “How far back do you have memories of?”

“A year, give or take. I woke up in Mementos, with all the information I needed to traverse between this world and the Metaverse.”

“How do you travel between the worlds exactly?”

Morgana shrugged (as well as he could as a cat, anyways). “I just do. I will it to happen and I can do it. I don’t have as large a sphere of influence as the Meta-nav, but it works well for staying inconspicuous myself.”

“And when did you awaken your Persona?”

“I already had it when I woke up. It was instinctually the first thing I knew to do when I first encountered a Shadow.” Just like how despite all reason dictating that he should be paralyzed in fear at seeing the monstrosities that were Shadows, his body moved on its own, by a never-trained reflex. It had left confused and unsure of his purpose for weeks on end, unsure what exactly he was supposed to do, what exactly he was, who exactly he was besides the name that had popped into his head again and again instinctually: Morgana.

Morgana didn’t know where he was going with these questions, but if it was for the sake of knowing more about them, then he’d answer them, within reason. This wasn’t meant to be an interrogation or a mind game, this was supposed to be a time of open discussion, with everything on the table. At least, that was what Morgana was hoping it would be, because their presence just seemed to niggle at something in the back of his mind, and he couldn’t deal with not knowing what it was.

He had long since deemed it his purpose to discover, unearth what his origins were. If anything else confused him along the way, he’d deal with it. That was what he was here for, as a guide, as the one to foray into the unknown.

He didn’t say any of this to Meta though, whose mind Morgana could also see working hard. From what he knew, Meta was analytical. If he was able to deduct with skill, he could certainly piece together clues, perhaps better than Morgana. No doubt Meta had already reached the same conclusion as Morgana, or more.

“It would be reasonable to assume that you originate in Mementos, then, wouldn’t it?” Meta finally came out from his inquisitive stance.

Morgana nodded. “Exactly. That’s why I’ve been leading the Phantom Thieves into Mementos; there has to be some clue to my past in there if all the clues are pointing to it.”

Meta nodded, and a pregnant silence followed afterwards. Morgana didn’t interrupt. Meta was preparing to say something, for sure.

“One last question.” Morgana flicked his ear. Last question. This was it, after this, they would be forced to reveal themselves! It wouldn’t be fair if only Morgana was revealing information, and Morgana was sure Meta knew this. Meta was a fair person. He would pay back the information in full.

“Have you ever regained memories from defeating… certain Shadows?”

Well that was… a curious question. The answer was “no”, and Morgana said so, not bothering to hide how perplexed he was. “I haven’t recovered any memories since I’ve awakened. Where did you get that idea?”

And then it clicked.

These kinds of things came from personal experience, didn’t they?

The duo’s revelation had already begun.

Chapter Text

Kirby, sitting next to Meta, was confused by the course of the conversation. That was fine. Meta would explain to him later, he was sure. Thinking was Meta’s job. If Meta needed him to say anything to Morgana, Meta would say so. From what he gathered, Morgana was amnesiac too, and came from the Metaverse?

When Meta had asked that last question, Kirby immediately knew what Meta meant.

Meta continued.

“We are telling you this because we think you may be in a similar situation, and we may be able to help each other.” He had to make this clear. While he trusted Akira, he didn’t trust anyone besides a select few completely, and he did not want to have other people involved, if at all possible.

Why? His mind asked himself. Kirby had no reservation about letting people help, letting people in. Why was Meta Knight doing this? He knew deep down any excuse he made (they might get sent to a psychiatrist ward, they might become laughingstocks, they might not be believed ) was just that: an excuse. The Thieves would gain nothing from telling everyone about him. He supposed it came down to his staunch pride. And that was something he wouldn’t let go.

He was grateful Kirby had understood the situation here and opted out of interfering to let more people in. Kirby knew the limits of Meta’s comfort zone well. It was the tiny pushes that helped, but not when he was revealing something as big as their history. Not this.

He took a deep breath. “I ask you not to tell anybody else of this.” Morgana opened up his mouth seemingly to protest, and Meta continued. “I know you were probably sent here by Akira. But we have good (was it really good?) reason for our secrecy.”

Morgana closed his still-open mouth, unable to reject. He supposed in exchange for some answers, he could respect their privacy. The cat nodded an affirmative.

Meta’s eyes crinkled in one of his rare smiles, this time of appreciation, and Morgana couldn’t help but feel proud of himself. He hoped he was making the right choice.

Meta started. “Similarly to you, we woke up without prior memories a few years ago. But we were in the real world instead of the Metaverse. Specifically, I was. Kirby came later than me.”

The pink haired child nodded.

“See…

Meta Knight woke up, cold, not sure where he was, what he was doing, or anything specific for that matter. His mind felt too empty, too vacant. He knew there should have been entire lifetimes of film playing back his life, but there were only empty slots to be found.

He looked around. It was a street. Quaint, but not constricting. Warm, or it would’ve been if not raining. His first instinct was to find shelter, see if he could cover himself before getting sick. A quick search of his body confirmed that he didn’t have a hood or anything, instead sporting only an average black turtleneck with no decorations or embellishments to be seen, and a pair of gray trousers — a bit ratty, but not old, and not in poor condition.

He found refuge underneath the shop that smelled wonderful, a mix of two familiar fragrances, both of which made him feel warmer. It was comfortable, and Meta Knight could imagine that he wasn’t soaking through his clothes.

He knew somehow he hadn’t often been in this kind of situation, and felt the slight scorn at his own weakness. He told his mind to shut up. He didn’t need that right now, he needed to survive.

A bell rang to his left, a door opening. A man stepped out, with a goatee and glasses. His demeanor seemed a bit prickly, a bit warm, and odd mix, but he was also surrounded by that mix of two fragrances. Meta found himself leaning. Could he sleep? He felt so tired.

He collapsed.

The next time he awoke, it was nestled in covers and on top of a delectably plush bed. He loathed getting up. But his mind was also telling him that resting was secondary. What was first?

He couldn’t remember.

As he descended the stairs, the fragrances wafted towards his nose again, comforting him. Curry, his mind supplied. Hot, red orange, over a platter of rice. He would say it brought back fond memories, but there were no memories to be brought, so he was left with an inexplicable emotion welling up.

The other, his mind continued to tell him. Coffee. Bitter, black, warm, mornings overlooking the sunrise over the horizon. Unhelpful. What was he supposed to make of all these fragments?

He shook his head, as if dispelling the swarm of thoughts, and continued descending the stairs. In the kitchen was the man that had appeared before he collapsed. The kitchen looked very used, ingredients and spices strewn out across the counters. In contrast, the rest of the house was plain, quiet. There were the usual indicators of a person living there; photos, furniture, appliances. They were… average was the best way to describe them, Meta Knight supposed.

The man greeted him with a wave, still stirring the large pot of curry. “Hey, kid. Name’s Sakura Sojiro. Yours?”

Meta Knight blinked a bit. “Meta Kn-” Don’t say your full name, his mind instinctively told him. He paused.

“Metan?”

Meta Knight slowly shook his head, brows furrowed as if trying to figure something out. “Just Meta. Sorry.”

Sakura Sojiro nodded, seemingly satisfied, and placed a plate of curry on the nearby table, pushing it to Meta. “Eat up; you look hungry.”

Meta nodded in appreciation, sides of his lips quirked up minutely, in some kind of not-quite-a-smile but not-quite-expressionless. “Thank you… What should I call you?”

The man rubbed the back of his head, before answering, “Boss, or Sojiro I guess. Add an honorific if it makes you feel comfortable.”

“Then thank you,” Meta tried again, “Sojiro-san.”

“No problem.” The man seemed kind, Meta noted, with a much warmer disposition than Meta had first assumed. “Look, would you mind explaining why you collapsed in front of my shop?”

Meta furrowed his eyebrows. Nothing came to mind. That should’ve worried him, yet he was here enjoying curry. “I don’t remember,” he mumbled out.

“You don’t remember? What’s the last thing you do remember?”

Meta paused. “Waking up on the street. Nothing before that.”

Sojiro-san’s eyes widened, and Meta could only think that maybe he shouldn’t have said that. “You have amnesia?”

Meta wanted to shrink at the man’s surprised gaze. He wasn’t a pity case. “I suppose so.” He took another bite of the curry. Maybe if he stuffed his mouth he wouldn’t have to answer questions.

Morgana listened with rapt attention. Another amnesiac! Just like him! With no sense of what he was supposed to do, only the instinctual fragments. This was well worth his time.

“Is that why Boss seems to take such a liking to you, Meta?”

“Perhaps. But there’s more.

After a prompt check-up at Takemi’s clinic and a few hours spent at the police station, Meta proved to be an enigma. He had no papers, no identity to call his own. A 12 year-old amnesiac boy, who appeared out of nowhere. That’s how Sojiro had described him.

Sojiro had all but adopted him, letting him stay inside the house, visit the cafe, and live with the man. For that, while Meta was gathering his thoughts, he could never be more grateful. While the papers were being worked out, he researched the world. Earth. A planet of the solar system of the sun, in the Milky Way Galaxy. These bits of info held untold significance to him, that even he did not understand.

All he knew was that the stars called for him, as cliche as it sounded. He could waste hours just staring up at the night sky, mapping the stars, not knowing why he was doing it or how he was doing it. It just felt… comfortable. Familiar. A few nights, Sojiro had to remind him to go sleep.

He was pretty balanced though, in other categories. Somehow, though he hadn’t retained his memories, he had retained basic knowledge of math and language and such, lending to his research greatly. By Sojiro’s prediction, in a year or two, he’d be able to go to school, and mingle with more people.

He wasn’t too keen on the mingling with people part. But learning was going to be pretty important, so he’d go, if only for that reason.

Then, that one day, he felt an odd pang in his mind. It wasn’t painful, but he could still feel it.

What bothered him was not the pang. It was the residual queasiness, the way his mind seemed to rock back and forth, unsure about where it wanted to go. His surroundings blurred. He couldn’t think straight. His breath caught in his throat.

And then, he had the oddest sensation, floating among the stars, next to them, watching them whiz by. The weight of armor (familiar, cool, comfortable) sat on his shoulders and over his face/body. He couldn’t bend his elbows or his knees, but he could move fine, could move better, more comfortably than he usually did.

An out of body experience? Meta didn’t know what to think about it. But it felt so right.

He awoke lying on the cold hard wooden floor of the house, Sojiro shaking him awake by his shoulder, and sat up abruptly.

“Hey, kid, everything alright? You didn’t pass out again, did you?” His eyes looked worried, concerned, and Meta didn’t like seeing them that way.

“I’m fine,” Meta tried to assure his caretaker. “The floor was nice and cool, and the AC was a bit weak is all,” he gave a weak smile.

Sojiro didn’t look convinced. Meta tried again. “Look, I’m absolutely fine.” It wasn’t true, but if it would assuage Sojiro’s concerns, he’d say it.

Sojiro shook his head in dismay, it seemed, before helping Meta stand up. “If anything’s wrong, tell me, and I’ll bring you over to Takemi’s, alright?”

Meta nodded.

“Good. Now come with me to the kitchen.” Sojiro smiled. “I’ll make you some coffee.”

Meta fell asleep that night, comforted by the familiar fragrance of coffee at his bedside, still wondering about the odd dream (was it really a dream?) he had.

Morgana was perplexed. “Was it a memory? What does that mean? Could bend some joints but could still move comfortably?”

Meta held up a hand, as if to stop Morgana. “I’m sorry. I can’t explain it very well. That’s really all I can say about it, I guess. All will be revealed eventually.”

The cat continued listening.

The next time Meta felt the pang, the dizziness, was a month later. It had occurred as he and Sojiro were in the subway station, on their way to the government building to pick up Meta’s officiated papers from one of Sojiro’s old friends.

Meta had decided on his last name himself. Kishi. Knight. Fitting, if you asked him. Sojiro didn’t say anything about it, though the man’s raised eyebrows said that he was maybe curious. Meta wouldn’t explain it though. How would someone explain waking up as an amnesiac and only remembering as cheesy of a name as Meta Knight?

And anyways, Kishi Meta sounded decent. Sakura Meta wasn’t bad, but kind of lacked that sharpness that Meta desired.

In the middle of his pondering, the pang came with no warning, this time not showing Meta a vision of stars or making him faint. Instead, ripples seemed to extended from him, ripples that bent and twisted reality. The crowd around him disappeared.

This was unnatural.

“Hello?” he called out hesitantly. Was anybody nearby perhaps?

The echo back of his own voice told him of his solitude.

He looked around tentatively. The veins on the walls seemed to pulse, casting an eerie red glow over the world, this new world that he was alone in.

He didn’t know how to get back. He didn’t know what else to do. So he explored a tiny bit. There were creatures here, creatures that his logical mind told him shouldn’t have existed (at least not here). Yet, he felt inclined to accept them. Were they that odd? Were they that unnatural?

Clinging to the walls, he hid from them as they prowled, curious. He knew nothing about this new world, nothing about what it was, what was in it, how he had accessed it.

Then, there was a growl from behind him, and with battle prowess he hadn’t trained, that his logical mind knew shouldn’t have existed, his reflexes took over and he flipped gracefully away from his ambusher.

The shadows (he couldn’t tell what else they were, or whether or not they were even material) dissolved over the creatures he found himself in an encounter with, without any weapons, armor, or knowledge. This was a lost battle before he even stepped into it, Meta found, and there was no foreseeable method with which he could win. There was nobody nearby either.

He feared not the beasts, knew instinctively that he could beat them if he had the right weapon with him, the right armor, the right body.

And then, as if heeding his call, blue flames surrounded him. The familiar weight of the armor pressed down against his soldiers, surrounded his torso, the worn grip of his sword, Galaxia, his mind supplied, in his hands. With its golden otherworldly glow and inset round polished ruby on the hand-guard, it was a thing of beauty. Meta took the time to admire it, his mind marvelling at its design while another half of his mind told him to get into action, to move.

The cool metal making contact with his face, his mask, fit comfortably, almost like a magnet, but without its counterpart iron to attach to. Take it off, he heard. Take it off. It will give you strength.

And yet, as he rested a gloved hand over the surface, he couldn’t bring himself to. Sneers echoed in his mind, fragments of malicious and mocking teasing flashing in a rapid slideshow, never stopping. His mask. That was the most important thing.

Move, he told himself. There was nobody, nothing around. The creatures were coming. Move, move move. MOVE!

And he did. He didn’t pry it off, but it felt like it. It slipped off, came off with ease, as if meant to. But he mourned the loss of the comfortable cool metal on his cheeks, on his nose, even as blue flames surrounded him, and a leathery-winged, blue puff-ball burst out, wielding Galaxia, donning armor, wearing the exact same mask as Meta had pulled off a second earlier.

It looked sinister. The chevron hole covered up the top half of his glowing yellow eyes, thinning them and shading the rest of the face, giving the puffball a certain air of seriousness. The four ridges on the top, not quite sinister-looking but definitely sharp, added some small simplistic decoration to the mask. The indigo shoulder pads were rounded and tapered to a point, with golden lining on the edges. The right was embellished with an M symbol, with a sword fitted in the middle.

The leathery wings looked worn from use, small rough edges and minute scratches and holes littering the thin lower portion. The top portion, supported more with the bones, looked strong, and flapped up and down, keeping the puffball afloat in the air, sending out gusts. In the puffball’s gloved hand was Galaxia, a halo of lightning surrounding it.

Persona, he knew. Its name was Meta Knight. It was him. He was it.

With a sweep of his, of Meta Knight’s (the true one, Meta thought. Was he a fake all along? Who was he?) short arm, Galaxia’s sword beam decimated the creatures, Shadows, his mind now told him. Then, as suddenly as it had appeared, Meta Knight vanished in flame, back to the recesses of Meta’s mind. The cool touch of the mask on his face calmed him, and he was able to steady his breathing.

The Shadows now dealt with, Meta felt drawn to a certain presence. He didn’t know what it was, all he knew was that he wanted to go to it.

And he found himself in front of a sinister-looking creature, different from the Shadows, he knew, for it actually existed, he just didn’t know where or how. Its metallic gray face was stuck in a permanent scornful sneer, eyes only shaded. On its head sat a pointy crown, adorned with 3 round rubies. A blue helmet and two pretentiously large matching shoulder pads on each shoulder gave the creature an intimidating stature. It was enrobed in a cloth made of the stars, of the galaxies, and as Meta looked, he could see the little intricacies of it. The stars twinkled, some comets cast an ephemeral light trail in their wake, the rest was black, completely empty space.

It was Nightmare. He didn’t know how he knew, why he knew, and didn’t want to question the inexplicable rage he felt towards it.

He charged.

When Nightmare had finally been defeated, Meta was panting. It was a tough battle, and drew out his most latent reflexes, brought out skill he didn’t know he had. He flipped, jumped, twisted, avoiding the balls of dark energy that Nightmare pushed out towards him. He slashed at what felt like nothing, felt no resistance. It was almost like his efforts were futile, but not yet, he couldn’t stop. Not when… why? Why couldn’t he?

And eventually, it gave a shrieking cry of agony, and dispersed, the way Shadows usually did, but leaving behind a small floating pearl-sized light, and all Meta could think was, that didn’t hold a candle to the real thing, though he knew logically he didn’t know the real thing or fight it.

The light, wispy and pulsing, floated slowly over to him, and Meta couldn’t help but admire its beauty. Entranced by its warmth and its comforting presence, he barely noticed when it touched his mask and dispersed, immersing itself into his body.

And then the flood came.

Like a break in a dam, images reeled in his mind, sounds, sensations, memories. The stars and the various species living on them, each life a precious flame that had to be protected. Jecra, Garlude, his fellow Star Warriors, fallen at the pointy thin hands of Nightmare, commanding demon beasts. His own tattered cape, as his Warp Star hurriedly whisked him to the peaceful land of Popstar, saving him from inevitable doom. Nights of staring up at the stars, wondering what his mission was, why he was sent there. King Dedede, who hired him; the cabinet, who avoided him; the children, whom he would oversee.

And then the crashing golden star, and the pink puffball on it. The way his monotone world became splashed with bright technicolor, the way the child’s bright smile lit up the day, the training, the enemies, the battles. And at last, the triumphant ecstasy of seeing light, light of the Star Rod, engulfing the demon, Nightmare, who had killed his friends, taken most of his life, and the glorious shriek of agony from the being of darkness fading.

Everyone rushed Kirby, thanking the infantile Star Warrior for his deeds; the village laid in ruins but there wasn’t a single casualty. The sun shone above, a sign of better days to come. Years passed in peace, in stagnant quiet and tranquility, and then there it was, another calamity; the cycle repeated—

And then it stopped.

The images abruptly faded to the back of his mind, leaving him gasping for air and clinging to the walls to stay upright. It was like a reel of film had run out, had been cut short. His mind was still trying to catch up, but the path ended right in front, crumbling into nothingness and stopping there.

What— what was that?

He knew. They were memories of a life before, a life lived among the stars, a life full of ups and downs and starts and ends just like any other.

A life as Meta Knight. They were his memories. Meta Knight and Meta Kishi were one and the same. Were they?

Meta Knight pondered for a bit. Did that mean that he had taken over Meta Kishi’s mind? Though there were similarities between the two, Meta Kishi had a place in this world, that he had built himself. Just because they were the same person, didn’t absolutely mean they were one. But the two had merged so seamlessly, like water poured into water, the memories replenishing the almost dry, meaningless existence.

He decided existential crises weren’t fun.

But also, this explained nothing, even if he accepted that Meta Knight was him. How had he ended up on Earth, in one of the uncharted territories? Why had his memories ended so abruptly? There was more, his mind was reaching out to the the empty spots where the reels of figurative film should’ve been, but there was only nothing.

One thing was clear.

They came back when he had defeated the Shadow that had taken the form of Nightmare. Was that how this worked? Defeat his past to regain it? Oddly poetic, but he also knew nothing about this world that seemed so far from the one he had learned about. This world only differed from Earth in atmosphere and aesthetic though, so perhaps this was an alternate dimension?

It would certainly explain the Shadows. Maybe he should be getting back to Sojiro. He wasn’t sure how long he had spent down here, but it was certainly at least an hour or two. Sojiro was probably searching for him.

Eventually he had gotten out by simply concentrating, people’s bubbles of ignorance making his sudden reappearance unnoticeable. He’d found Sojiro, who’d been pretty frantically searching for him, apologized, and things eventually worked out. It wouldn’t be the last time he went to the other world though.

Chapter Text

“I see,” Morgana nodded, eyes furrowed deeply in concentration. It was a lot to take in. From what Meta had said, Meta didn’t know too much about the exact processes from which he had regained his memory, but Morgana had greater knowledge of Mementos and the intricacies of cognition.

“Perhaps… perhaps your memories have mixed with the common cognition.”

“What exactly do you mean?” Meta was by no means unintelligent, but the mind was a complicated subject, more so than Meta had time to bother with in his past life.

“The Shadow you defeated in Mementos was based on your memory, right? Since the memory returned to you afterwards.” Morgana paused, seemingly trying to choose the best words to describe it. “While Mementos represents the public’s palace, their distorted desires and cognitions, you’ll find unique parts of Mementos around the Shadows of those who think particularly strongly. Like the beginnings of palaces we find so often. Remember Nakanohara and the others’ pre-treasures?”

Meta nodded. “They seemed sectioned off though, in areas with more distortion.”

“But that’s because their minds were distorted. Yours isn’t. You just didn’t remember.”

Meta seemed to be following well enough. “So the reason why Nightmare wasn’t in its own zone…”

Morgana shook his head. He knew a lot, but he wasn’t all-knowing. “I’m sorry. I’ve never seen something like this. The reasons for it could include that your memories and therefore your cognition were scattered, which would also be a possible reason for your amnesia. Or on the other hand, it could have something to do with you already having a Persona. Usually this only happens from a rebellious spirit, but there are exceptions. Including me. I don’t remember my Persona awakening.”

Meta narrowed his eyes. “So if the Persona and the Shadows represent the mind… mine is incomplete?”

“It seems so,” Morgana speculated. “The Shadow that you fought immersed itself into your mask, right?”

“It touched my mask, yes, but it felt more like… warmth flowing through my body.”

Morgana grinned. “Yeah! That’s it! If it combined with your mask, which represents and summons your Persona, it means you were able to essentially tame the Shadow and make it join you. Joker’s done so before, though differently. In this case, you can’t wield multiple Personae, rather your one Persona is split into these fragments of your memory, scattered across Mementos.”

Meta’s eyebrows rose. “So it’s right, then. Kirby and I have to find the Shadows that contain our memories if we want to regain them again, and find out why we are here in this form.”

Morgana nodded. “It’s likely. I haven’t heard about Kirby yet though, so I don’t know. How did you come to that conclusion so quickly?”

“We’ve been in Mementos more times and encountered more of our past memories,” Meta responded, almost proudly. “There’s still a veritable gap between our last memory and waking up on this world though.”

As the two more analytical minds exchanged theories and bounced ideas and questions off of each other, Kirby watched. And Kirby recalled. Meta was not the only person who had to go through what he did.

Kirby woke up to the light, and his first instinct was to say…

“Poyo?”

He was very, very confused. What was we supposed to be doing? Where was he? Where were his friends?

Come to think of it, who were his friends? He tried to concentrate, tried to call on their voices and their visages, their encouraging words and warm embraces, yet he only grasped nothingness. He was alone.

The realization hit him like a truck, and he didn’t even know why. If he couldn’t remember them, were they really his friends? Did he have friends? Why did he feel so powerless without them by his side? He stood from his seat on the ground.

Everything was unrecognizable. Everything was fuzzy in his mind, everything felt wrong.

On unsteady feet, he ran.

He ran and couldn’t help but think about how long his feet were, how flexible his arm was. He didn’t know what drove him to these thoughts though, so he didn’t stop long to think about it. He shut his eyes and just kept running, ignoring the sudden dizzy spells that seemed to happen periodically.

And then when he couldn’t run anymore, when his breaths came out in pants, when he opened his eyes,

The world had changed.

Kirby could tell this wasn’t where he was before. It had a different air to it, oppressive, heavy, stale. If he tried hard enough, he could see the little shifts in the shadows, the little flickers indicating movement where he couldn’t see. He somehow knew this wasn’t the first time the air had been like this, but he still didn’t like it. It felt… sad, if Kirby were to use a word to describe it. Don’t blame him. He wasn’t the most literate child.

But he didn’t know where else to go, and he didn’t want to think, he wanted something mindless to do that would take up his full concentration. Exploration seemed to hit all the marks.

So he walked. And he walked. And he walked. And he hated it, it was really large and really slow and his surroundings really reminded him of one thing that he couldn’t for the life of him remember. And then he came across the thing.

It was a large blue penguin.

Dedede. Kirby’s mind was shouting at him, trying to have him recall something that he couldn’t. He shook his head, trying to dispel the fogginess.

The large blue penguin, eyes glinting an ominous red, summoned a ginormous wooden mallet, and swung at the child.

Kirby was caught unaware, was sent flying back by the shocking force hitting him in the side. It hurt; his side throbbed just a bit, but it didn’t make him falter. He twisted reflexively in the air and landed on his feet.

How did I do that? He tried to ask himself before his feet pulled him forward again to dodge Dedede’s jump and fall, with a startled “Poyo!” escaping his mouth.

Agh, this really wasn’t the time to be discovering something like this. He let his subconscious take over, stopped thinking about the fight, and immediately found himself dodging the attacks of Dedede, making no headway on escaping or attacking. His eyes frantically searched around for something he could use, anything…!

And he found just the thing. It was a rock, small but like a ray of light to Kirby, as he set his eyes on it.

He lunged, curling his fingers around the rock, not sure why he did this, what use such a small rock would be in battle.

It was only then that he registered the unfamiliar weight on his face. Had it appeared during the fight, when adrenaline muddied his thought process? A mask sat on his face, and his mind was screaming at his again.

Dedede, don’t hurt, friend, meanie, bully, but Kirby needs to win this, knows he needs to, and mask, mask, take off your MASK.

Only unlike Meta, Kirby had no hesitation. As the round white thing erupted into blue flames, he could only stare in wonder as the flames gave way to a figure, small, pink, round.

Kirby. It was him. He was it. His Persona. But they were one and the same. It felt like he was controlling two bodies at once; Kirby felt disconnected but so strong. The pink puffball— no, he, he winked at his human body, at himself, bright blue eyes twinkling like the stars. And then, he inhaled the stone, and Kirby wasn’t even surprised when the weight of rocks sat on his head, snugly fit to his small cranium.

He— the puffball him; this was really getting confusing— with a few motes of light swirling around him, turned into a rock and let gravity contribute to defeating their enemy. It got back up though, and Kirby almost felt disappointed when his second body disappeared, all his reflexes, movements, thinking, and sensations, coming back to him. As Dedede swung at him, he realized that the hat hadn’t disappeared; its comforting weight still pressed against his head. He panicked; the hammer was coming at him and it was going to hurt, shoot— wait, that didn’t hurt.

As he was blasted back by the force of the hammer, he looked over to his arms, which had taken the brunt of the attack. They looked rugged, with a natural stoney texture to them. And when he thought about letting it go and relaxed his muscles, they returned to the soft fleshy limbs that they had been before. Huh.

Dedede was approaching again.

Steeling himself both physically and mentally, Kirby shouted out a “sorry!”, clenched his eyes shut, let the power from the stone hat flow through his body again, and swung his fist. In a perfect arc, the hardened fist found his opponent, who showed no sign of pain. It stumbled back, and with a dispersion of black mist, dissipated until only a light remained.

It floated, pulsing with calm golden light, and landed on his mask. The glow disappeared, but Kirby felt warm, comfortable, happy.

The images rushed through his mind; his crash landing on the warp star and the small residual glowing stars that lit up his path; the first Waddle Dee that came to find him, eyes lit with wonder and cheeks pushed upwards in a mouthless smile; his first meeting with the Whispy Woods, who defended the land but also befriended him, provided him with food after a long day’s hard work; and then Meta Knight and Dedede and Bandana Dee. He slowly sat down, melting from the sheer emotion.

Meta and Dedede and Dee, oh how could he have forgotten them? They were so precious to him. Hours upon hours of sword training played back in his head, always accentuated by a sweet treat afterwards from Meta’s private stock. Insults and taunts were hurled back and forth, though neither he nor Dedede would ever mean it after the first time they fought. Spear practice and play-times and and wordless communication with Dee rolled along in his mind, along with his amazement and wonder at Dee’s mastery of the pointed weapon.

Suddenly he didn’t feel so alone anymore. He took a deep breath and relaxed, exited the odd red glowing world, to the now darker, now nighttime world. The fresh air was welcome, Kirby couldn’t help but think as he revelled in the cool starry night.

He wandered around. There wasn’t much to do; people were around but all absorbed in their own worlds. They didn’t even spare him a single look, as he meandered the station.

He wondered why exactly he was here in the first place. The only thing his memories gave him were those oddly complete fragments of a whole. If Kirby had to describe it, it felt like a puzzle, where he had a specific cluster of pieces already solved. There wasn’t anything in his memories that would’ve explained how he ended up here, and the last thing he remembered was shadowy form of Nightmare rising from the Fountain of Dreams.

That was concerning. It felt almost like a cliffhanger of a tv show. He didn’t know if he beat Nightmare or not, and he didn't know what happened afterwards. He started biting his nails at the thought of it. What if he had failed? Had his friends died? Had something happened to Dreamland?

That same night, Meta Kishi stared out the window of his new apartment. Sojiro had been awfully reluctant to let him leave, but young as his form was now, he was a mature and independent person. He could take care of himself, balancing the earnings from Shadow-slaying in Mementos (his mind told him the name of the other world) and a few part-time jobs.

He wanted to make a position for himself in this world while he would be here for the foreseeable future, so he would do exactly that. And the first thing he’d need for that was knowledge.

Books never bothered Meta. He rather enjoyed them in fact; it had been one of his favorite pastimes as a Knight. When one was tasked with something as daunting as learning about the entire history of the world, its sciences, technologies, literature, etc., even he was a bit hesitant.

So as he poured through the books that Sojiro had donated to him one by one, he tried to gauge how much he knew and didn’t know. There was unsurprisingly a lot that he knew compared to the books. As a Star Warrior, at least a basic amount of knowledge on the ship mechanics, launch trajectory, and star mapping were required. Nobody wanted to lift off the ground and fly straight into a black hole, after all. This left him with a relatively good understanding of physics, astronomy, and engineering, at least. It seemed that Earth used a different number system though, so while the formulas looked similar, he would have a acquaint himself with the variables and such.

It was really a relieving discovery. Estimating how much he knew, he could probably apply for some of the higher-class schools of the area, given he could provide the tuition. The closest and best for university prep in the area seemed to be Shujin Academy, a few metro stops away. If he could be accepted there, despite his lack of prior records, he would be set.

It was in meticulously mentally organizing his future plans that he gazed outside, at the stars. All star warriors held some predilection to the stars, and he was no exception. They were comforting; a nice anchor in the storm of thoughts that he was trying to file properly.

And then the storm dropped, as he saw a bright flash. A shooting star? Those were rare.

Even rarer was when their trajectory pointed towards the Earth.

Was it a signal of some sort? Meta was no stranger to the fates sending signs to guide the warriors. If he was right, and this represented something bigger…

He left his books open and raced outside. To the metro station. He had an odd anticipatory feeling, that rarely enough, wasn’t negative.

Kirby didn’t know where he was supposed to go. He wasn’t usually one to idle, but he remembered Meta told him once that if he couldn’t find his way, the stars would guide him. So, sitting underneath the railing, out of the way of late-night commuters, he looked up at the sky.

It was so sad. The skies he knew, the glowing dots of color and life on the swirling blue and black canvas, they were gone. There was merely a murky gray, blocked by the rectangular and too-unnatural buildings. There was so much light on the ground, unnatural and blue and— Haltmann?— his mind supplied, but he didn’t know where it came from, so he discarded the thought. The unnatural lights on the ground drowned out what should’ve been the sky.

He was sad. He really was in a different place, wasn’t he? He had only questioned it, but it now sunk in. He was in an unfamiliar body. He was in an unfamiliar place. He was under unfamiliar skies. He still had his memories of some of his friends (he knew some were still missing), but that didn’t change one certain fact.

His friends weren’t there. He was still alone.

Someone put their hand on his shoulder. With wide eyes, he whirled around, and his blue eyes met piercing golden-hazel irises half-covered by familiar dark-blue hair.

He recognized him immediately.

“Meta!!” He shouted, and tackled his mentor with a hug. He couldn’t help himself. He thought he was alone here, only to find the one he trusted most just a while later. He burrowed his face into the soft material of Meta’s shirt, and stayed in the hug, clutched the fabric of Meta’s shirt for dear life. His teacher patted him on the head, rhythmically, soothingly.

He let it out. He sobbed into Meta’s shirt, sobbed at the happiness of finally finding someone familiar, finally finding a friend, finally not being alone. And he sobbed at the sadness of being somewhere unknown, being unsure about himself, being somewhere the comforting light of stars didn’t reach. All the while, Meta continued patting him, let his student calm himself.

Meta himself wasn’t too far from joining the child himself. He too woke up on this world with no one, only he knew how to deal with it because he had been alone for a long time. As opposed to this, Kirby was almost an infant. The child had grown up with friends, making friends of strangers and enemies alike. Meta was so glad to see that Kirby had made it, so glad to see that maybe, just maybe in the scenarios he’d considered for why they were there (the destruction of Dreamland, a portal maybe, even death ), his lively disciple had made it out and was there with him.

When the child finally ran out of tears and stepped out of Meta’s embrace, Kirby was happy again. A few residual sniffles shook his body, but Meta lent him a tissue.

“Poyo?” Kirby asked behind Meta, when Meta finally turned to lead Kirby home. “Going where, Meta?”

Meta turned around, a half smile on his face. The child’s fragmented speech had followed him here, and it, along with the pale pink hair and the twinkling blue eyes, they all made Meta nostalgic. “We’re going home, Kirby.”

The child grinned and happily trotted behind his mentor.

Chapter Text

Kirby had given the bare bones of what happened when he came to the world. Morgana had wanted to hear his story, to see if it revealed anything new, but frankly, it was really similar to Meta’s anyways.

When all was said and over with, Morgana was a bit unsatisfied. “There’s nothing else you can tell me?”

Meta shook his head gently. “Though we are all amnesiacs, it seems like Kirby and I are in a different situation.”

Morgana’s feline head drooped. Information was good for nothing if it didn’t apply to anything. “We’ll keep each other posted if we discover anything then?”

Both blue and pink haired enigmas nodded, a light smile of appreciation on both their faces. Or, as close to a smile as you could get from Meta. The blue-haired teen’s eyes narrowed though. “You do remember our promise though?”

Morgana gave a resolute nod. Their manpower was very necessary for the thieves, and he wouldn’t be the one to ruin it.

He left for the night, heading back to Akira’s place. It was a short recon mission, but the point was accomplished, possibly better than he imagined it going.

He shuddered at the thought of being on Meta’s bad side. They revealed their origins but didn’t say too much about their activities since. He mentally cursed at having not asked, being kind of overwhelmed by what they already told him.

I mean, could anyone blame him? He hadn’t been on Earth for long but he hardly thought puffball-shaped aliens that were part of an intergalactic army fighting evil was normal.

As he pondered this, he arrived at the homely cafe, and looked up to see the attic lights above the cafe…

On.

It was two hours past midnight.

Oh, Akira was going to get it now.

Ohoho.

Akira didn’t want to offend Morgana but… he was a high school student. A curfew was a bit ridiculous, wasn’t it?

And anyways, Morgana’s mission was indeed a serious one. It was an issue of information, small as it was. That didn’t mean he wasn’t going to take advantage of Morgana being gone though.

That was why when he hummed along to some leisurely jazz while making lockpicks, he nearly jumped out of his seat at Morgana’s dark “hey.”

He turned around slowly, with an apprehensive gulp. “Hey Morgana… how’d the investigation go?”

His attempt to hide his fear crumbled under Morgana’s narrowed piercing blue eyes. “Go to bed, Akira. I’ll tell you tomorrow.”

The cool glare left no room for argument. Reluctantly, Akira changed quickly and got into his bed. The feline’s eyes never left his back as he did so, and Akira couldn’t help but think,

He’s such a strict mom…

Akira got up in the morning with a sigh. Morgana, next to him, perked his ears up and stretched in that way cats tended to do, a yawn escaping from his mouth. Sleep was amazing. //Ironically author doing this at 1:24 AM// His morning routine done and set aside, Akira descended the stairs to the now familiar fragrance of curry and coffee.

It was habitual now, to go downstairs and see Sojiro wiping dry the last of the mugs in the sink in the morning, standing stoically in front of his now usual breakfast. Recently, he’d even turn towards Akira, giving a warmer smile. Not quite the warmest, because those he only had to spare for people like Meta and Kirby… but it was getting there.

So it was to his surprise that this morning, Sojiro was glancing at him as he walked downstairs, giving him a curious questioning look. Did he do something wrong? He rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly.

His eyes perused the cafe for abnormalities. Sojiro would be angrier for sure if he had touched anything, and he certainly hadn’t… Kirby was sleeping in the corner as usual…

And his blue-haired masked companion was nowhere to be seen. Meta must’ve left early then. Was something wrong?

The mission he sent Morgana on tugged at the back of his mind. Had Meta found out? But… Morgana was the best at stealth. No way. He sent a glance over his shoulder to the cat in his bag. The glare that was returned made him turn back.

Maybe he was mistaken. The look was pretty much shouting ‘I’ll-tell-you-later’.

He looked back over to Sojiro and shrugged off the man’s questioning look. Sojiro shrugged back.

Akira could certainly get to school on his own alright in any case.

He quickly scarfed down his breakfast, sparing a glance at the pink sleeping child. If they had found him out…

He mentally sighed. All the trust he had built up would be for absolutely nothing. Lacking manpower in Mementos was not smart.

Niijima Makoto liked to think she was a good student. Studious for sure, with lofty goals in the law enforcement department, and the mind and power to back it up. She was skilled in academics; it was her biggest selling point.

So it was a bit of a hard pill to swallow when Kishi Meta was accepted into Shujin Academy for their first year of high school, and topped the ranking boards time and time again, Makoto always falling short by just a few points. Kishi Meta was something else.

Even as stressed high school students, his eyes always felt so old. He was calculated and precise, cold and unerring. It was admirable, really. After less than half a year, Makoto had set aside her jealousy and tried being nice to Meta. A friendship was a mutual exchange of sorts after all, and Meta had the best resources of the class.

She was surprised to find that he really wasn’t as cold as his appearance seemed to project; it was just the black half-mask. She’d seen it on him for 3 years, and unless he was eating something (which he seldom seemed to do at school even during the lunch break) she never saw it off.

At this point, it definitely couldn’t be written off as a cold. But quirks aside, the blue-haired teen was an absolute genius.

She had gone to him for help studying ahead on physics and mechanics, and he had very kindly explained to her in detail and in concise articulation what he could cover in the time they had. He was a better teacher than most teachers at Shujin, one of the best college prep schools of the city, and arguably better than the textbook.

Meta was really distant, but a worthy friend to have. They were companions, acquaintances, but little more. She never saw him outside of school, and he seldom talked to her outside of explaining to her when she had questions.

She did recognize, however, that that day, Meta had come in far earlier than usual. The classroom was empty, no other student wanting to be in the school any longer than they had to be. It was curious.

“You’re here awfully early,” she commented as he took his seat in one smooth motion.

Meta nodded, in that usual sophisticated way of his. “Likewise to you, Miss President. I didn’t have matters to attend to this morning, so this was the logical option.”

Makoto smiled. Meta’s courtesy and maturity was rare amongst students their age, but was much appreciated. “I always get here early to hold meetings and check on things before the day starts.”

“An admirable effort. I’m sure the student body appreciates your work.” Meta closed his eyes, as if resting. Was Makoto being boring? Or, no, Meta always seemed tired. Her eyebrows furrowed a bit in concern.

“Have you been sleeping enough? What do you usually tend to in the morning anyways?”

Meta’s eyes reopened, the golden-hazel irises a bit dull. “Rest assured, I get enough rest. And I help another student find their way to school. He got lost on the first day, and it was a favor to a friend.”

Makoto didn’t believe the first part of the sentence. Meta came to school with far too many circles under his eyes than should be present... but she brushed it off. The second part though… she wasn’t completely oblivious. She didn’t partake in rumors, but she certainly heard them. “The transfer student?” she inquired, hoping she wasn’t being rude.

A pause. “Yes.”

It became awkward when Meta said nothing further.

“Well,” Makoto hesitantly tried to fill the silence. “It’s very kind of you. Thank you for doing so.”

Meta nodded, as he usually did, and Makoto mentally smiled. She had managed to end the conversation on a positive note at least. Meta was sometimes more quiet; one could never tell when he would cut a conversation short, giving an awkward feeling to the atmosphere.

Meta was an odd person, but Makoto found she didn’t mind much.

Akira sat on the metro to Shujin, quietly whispering and praying that he didn’t look like he was crazy. Maybe people around him would pass it off as worried mumbling? In any case, it was still nerve-wracking to hold conversations with Morgana in public.

“ What?!” Akira practically hissed (as quietly as possible). “He found you?! How?”

“I don’t know!” Morgana quietly hissed back. “He has far higher awareness than I thought. He described it as a sixth sense, but he deducted himself that it was me by the fur I was leaving behind.”

Akira’s eyebrow twitched. “Some master thief you are…”

“Don’t think you could do any better.”

The people in the metro with him were looking suspiciously at his bag. He shot them an apologetic look, before going back to his conversation. “So what happened afterwards?”

Morgana seemed hesitant to answer. The duo was well justified in their secrecy, but Akira was trustworthy for sure. But...

They’d trusted him with their secrets, and it wasn’t his place to spill them. They were an ally now, even if it was something that separated him from Akira. It was a small thing anyways… They weren’t dangerous… right?

Swallowing the lump in his throat, and pushing down his hesitation, he spoke. “Not much. They just told me to go back. They were pretty unhappy though.”

Ah. So that explained why Meta hadn’t walked with him this morning. Akira let out a heavy sigh.

He’d done screwed up this time. It was ok… he could and he would make do. They hadn’t been joining him recently anyways, what with the infiltration of Madarame’s Palace.

Meta walked back to LeBlanc alone that afternoon. Kirby, in the corner of the cafe, visibly brightened when he saw his mentor.

The blue-haired teen fondly ruffled Kirby’s hair, glad that he hadn’t yet had a confrontation with a certain black-haired underclassman of his. While he still wanted to be… friends(?) with Akira and his group, there were some things that just concerned him and Kirby.

He didn’t want to let them in. He just didn’t. Maybe it was a matter of pride, in his ability to solve his own problems. He didn’t know.

As he took a seat next Kirby in the booth in the corner of the homely cafe, Sojiro set down mug of steaming coffee in front of him. Meta looked up and gave one of his rare appreciative smiles to the man. “On the house,” Sojiro waved his hand when Meta tried to take out his wallet. “You look like you need it. What’s bothering you?”

Meta sighed. Taking off his mask to take a sip of the comforting bitter coffee, he closed his eyes, relishing the warmth spreading through his body. When he opened them again, he spoke. “I don’t know. I have no reason to stay away from Akira, but…”

Sojiro nodded. “Well, you’re a reasonable person. You usually have a reason. Maybe you’re not valuing your own opinion enough?”

Meta furrowed his eyebrows. “Well, it’s not like I don’t have an opinion,” he sheepishly rubbed his neck. “He tried to find out where me and Kirby came from.”

Sojiro didn’t know the significance of this. Meta had never told him. He just knew that after a bit, Meta could remember about his past, but was secretive about it. “And did Akira succeed?”

“No... “ Meta took another sip of his coffee. “That’s why there shouldn’t be any reason for me to be angry. But I still just don’t want to…”

Meta could be too secluded sometimes. Sojiro knew this, from the early days when Meta burrowed into a blanket for hours on end, alone with his thoughts. Before Kirby came along, anyways. Sojiro still didn’t know where Meta had found the child, just that they seemed to already know each other. It was rare that Meta was close with anyone though, which was why Sojiro was surprised when he became quick friends with Akira. Maybe though…

“Maybe you were just uncomfortable. Moving too quickly does that, even to you, Meta.”

Meta rose an eyebrow in inquiry. Seemed like he didn’t understand.

“You don’t let people in easily, and that fine. To this day, I still don’t know much about your past, and I know you’ve found it out already.” Meta opened his mouth to say something, but Sojiro stopped him. “It’s fine. I don’t need to know, and you don’t have to tell me. I’m just saying that Akira makes friends and gets close to them too quickly, and you didn’t quite want to let him in yet.”

The teenager lowered his head in thought. “I guess…” he mumbled, unlike his usual composed self.

“All I can say, Meta,” as he looked at the teen fondly, “is that having friends is okay. Trust is hard to come by, but if you think you can trust him, then don’t be hard-shelled and try putting yourself out there. It’s fine to be uncomfortable though. Not everyone can be as outgoing as Kirby.”

Meta’s golden-hazel eyes looked back to Sojiro. “So are you telling me to get over it? Or keep to myself?”

The man shrugged. “I’m telling you either one is fine, though I encourage the former. God knows you don’t have enough friends.”

Meta Knight certainly did not pout at that. Kirby certainly did laugh though.