Chapter Text
She hadn't known how long she had been in that car.
Was it two hours now? Three? Six? Time was starting to blend together for Sumire for a mix of reasons - the total pitch black of the blacked out car doubled with the black sack over her head put her senses in disarray, and she had already heaved several times from motion sickness. Not that there was anything in her system to be thrown up in the first place.
At that moment, Sumire only knew three things. The first was that she was being used as some sort of hostage against the Phantom Thieves. The second was that there was a third prisoner along the ride with them to wherever they were being taken, though Sumire presumed they were in a different car.
The third was that Haruka was still with her.
Her cellmate's body bashed into her own as they ran over a particularly large bump in the road, making Haruka let out a soft cry of pain. The trip hadn't been kind to the two, their malnourished bodies quickly bruising from rough treatment of corrupt police officers ushering them into the back of an unmarked police van with no windows in the back coupled with the inability for the girls to steady themselves. They were handcuffed with their hands behind their backs and were offered nothing but the cold, hard floor of the van as a comfort during their journey.
Frankly, Sumire was shocked that on top of being held under the books in a police station, the good cops didn't notice nor care enough to intervene if their transfer was noticed. Either this group of corrupt officials were a very well-oiled machine, or they had so many people in their pockets it didn't matter. She didn't like the thought of either very much. Whoever or whatever this was, it ran on at least a national level. Sumire wasn't an idiot - a drive this long with so few turns meant they were going cross-country, and not being driven in circles. And that thought filled her with nothing but dread.
Ren and his Phantom Thieves were in Tokyo. Surely they were looking for her, Sumire guessed, but would they know she was being transferred? Did they even know she had a cellmate? The duo were long out of Tokyo now, and Sumire tried not to dwell on the fact that rescue very well may not come for a long time, if at all. People who seemed to be this well connected could probably do a good job of keeping her friends in Tokyo, though she was scared to admit that fact to herself completely.
In other words, Sumire was fucked. And she was starting to lose hope, too.
There were sounds of another car door opening, then closing, then shouting as she heard an older man's voice Sumire could have sworn sounded so familiar to her
One minute passed. Then two. Then five.
She sagged her shoulders, considering getting sleep. That was, until the back doors of the van opened and light flooded her vision.
The black cloth sack was just thin enough that she could see a silhouette of a man standing there, but nothing more. She waited for him to make a move, feeling defeated and preparing to be moved to her new cell, when he opened his mouth.
“What the hell…?”
It was hardly above a whisper, but it was loud enough for both Sumire and Haruka to pick up. Haruka had already begun to kick against the floor to push her away from the newcomer, but Sumire was instead intrigued.
“Who are you?” She asked, then immediately mentally kicked herself for asking such a stupid question. She decided to add before he could say anything, “can you take this off my head?”
She felt the van move under his weight as he got into the vehicle, and a second later she was freed from the black sack. She watched as the man, dressed in a cop uniform, unmasked Haruka too.
“I'm just a cop, but I had no idea we had incoming. Did you come with the older guy too?”
So he was out of the loop, then. Sumire pounced on the opportunity immediately. “We were kidnapped and held against our will by corrupt cops, please you gotta get us out of here!”
The cop stepped back from Haruka, laughing. “That's not gonna work on me. Maybe there was an error in…” his voice trailed off as he began to stare between the two girls.
“You two look malnourished.”
“We are malnourished.” Sumire practically growled at the man, frustrated.
“Did you just get arrested?”
“I told you, we were kidnapped.”
“Why would I believe you?”
“Look us up, you'll find missing persons reports for us to prove it.”
It was a gamble. Sumire had no family left, but Haruka did. Even if cops were corrupt enough to sell her into sex slavery, they wouldn't be able to openly deny the missing person request from Haruka's parents… she hoped.
The cop's eyebrows furrowed. “What are your names?”
“Sumire Yoshizawa and Haruk-.”
“Holy shit, the Olympic medalist?”
“Yes!!!” Sumire practically cried out, moving her head forward towards the light coming from outside to better show off her trademark red hair. “Neither of us deserve to be here, you gotta let us go!”
The man bit his lip, contemplating. “Why are you here, then? Don't you live in Tokyo?”
“We both did.” Haruka spoke up for the first time. “Where are we now?”
That answer sent him full-blown reeling. “You're in Osaka. The Tokyo force should have no reason to…”
He paused, then his mouth fell open.
“You two are…”
The cop sprinted away from them, Sumire and Haruka clambering towards the exit of the van. They got there just as they saw him push a metal chair up against the handle of a solid steel door, effectively locking it in place.
“I happened upon the cars as I was coming back from a smoke break. There was a third with you in another car, but he's already inside. It's too late for him but I gotta get you two out of here.” He said quickly, scanning the girls up and down. “I don't have keys for those cuffs, but I have bolt cutters. C'mon.”
Sumire and Haruka shared a look, then slid out the van to follow him to a toolbox. The cop directed the two to turn around, and he cut the chains between the cuffs for both of them. Even if her wrists were still cuffed technically, the ability to move her arms and hands freely was liberating.
“How did you convince yourself?” Haruka asked as the man ran towards the metal shutter that closed off the interior garage from the outside world.
“Tokyo and Osaka forces don't talk to each other. We've compartmentalized since 2016 to prevent nation-wide corruption. An unannounced convoy of cop cars carrying three unregistered people is nothing but red flags. Now listen closely: go right from the exit. Two blocks down there'll be an alley that takes you to Dotonburi. We're in downtown Osaka and it's rush hour, the crowds should be able to conceal you enough to get away. Avoid the subways, we have cameras everywhere down there. Less so up top.”
“How do we hide these?” Sumire asked, lifting her wrists to show off her cuffs. All the two had been offered for clothing was a white tank top and yoga pants; concealing broken handcuffs would be impossible to do so.
The cop swore, then took off his jacket. Tossing it to Sumire, he threw off his long-sleeved shirt next and gave it to Haruka. As the girls shrugged on the clothing, he opened his mouth to say something, but was stopped when the steel door he had barred shook.
“Shit, you gotta go now.” He hissed, and yanked on a chain next to the shutter. It creaked open, and shouts began to ring out from behind the barred door. Without needing more encouragement, Haruka dropped to her knees and crawled through the opening. Sumire was quick to follow, but before she crawled through, she looked back up at her nameless hero.
“Thank you.” She croaked, her eyes threatening tears of pure joy at the chance they were given.
The door banged loudly, the slamming having knocked the chair back. The man gave her a nod, then dashed off to the door to keep those on the other side from getting out.
Sumire took that as her queue and rolled under the shutter. It crashed closed behind her as the cop let go of the chain, and she hardly had time to collect her thoughts before Haruka pulled her up by the arm.
They didn't need words to communicate. Sumire scrambled up and followed Haruka into the chaos of rush hour in downtown Osaka. A few people looked her way, but Sumire thanked her lucky stars that the Japanese culture bred introverted people as they quickly returned to their own lives, not wanting to be involved. There were shouts and loud sounds coming from within the station, but apparently nothing crazy enough to turn even more heads.
With one look at each other, Sumire and Haruka took off in a sprint, chasing down their newfound freedom.
“I know you said Ren taught you some things, but I didn't expect you to be… so good at it.”
Haruka shook her head in disbelief as Sumire slunk back next to her in the crowded streets of the Namba shopping district in Osaka. Even if it wasn't far from Dotonburi and the police station, a late fall night brought a lot of tourists to the area. The streets were so packed that Sumire occasionally had to grab Haruka's hand so the two wouldn't get separated.
Sumire grinned at her cellma- former cellmate, she told herself - as she held up another wallet in triumph. “Thanks to Shiho relentlessly insisting we learn all these things as a hobby, I got pretty good at it.”
“I guess when you three lived under the same roof for a while it meant you got a lot of time to practice, huh?”
The redhead nodded in answer as she withdrew all the cash from the wallet - about 13000 yen - and placed it on the bench they were standing next to. Either the wallet would be left there until the owner found it, or a good samaritan would track down the person and return it to them. Petty theft wasn't really a thing in Japan… Except if you were homeless and on the run.
“With everything I've gathered, we should be able to buy ourselves both dinner from a street vendor and hoodies from a tourist shop.”
“The dinner I get, a good hot meal sounds amazing, but why the hoodies?”
Sumire shrugged her shoulders as a way of gesturing to her jacket. “I need to get rid of this, and we need a way to hide our faces. Not to mention my red hair doesn't exactly do us any favors…”
Haruka sighed, but nodded. “That makes sense. And what about a place to sleep for the night? Is that even possible?”
“That depends… We don't have a lot of options. It needs to accept cash, not have cameras so we're not caught, not ask for IDs, and most importantly, has an easy escape route if something happens.” Sumire answered as she began walking towards a tourist shop she spotted brandishing hoodies saying “I love Osaka” in Kanji, grabbing Haruka's hand to keep her close just before doing so.
“What about a love hotel?”
Sumire suddenly felt too hot under her jacket.
When she said nothing, Haruka continued on. “It's the first three things you mentioned since privacy and discretion is a vital part of them, but I'm not sure about the fourth requirement.”
“Th-that's okay, I think we should still be fine.” Sumire stammered out. She had absolutely no idea why sharing a room with Haruka in a love hotel embarrassed her when they had laid themselves bare to each other both physically (they were taken to the same shower room whenever they were allowed to bathe) and mentally while in captivity, but now wasn't the time to dwell on it. “I might have to… work a bit more tonight so we can afford it, though…”
“Why not borrow the sweatshirts and save the money for the hotel, then?”
“I don't want us to get caught because we borrowed hoodies. Small items are much easier to deal with.” Sumire had to admit Haruka was catching on to their new survival lifestyle quicker than she anticipated. “What does the pricing say on those hoodies? I can't see it without my glasses.”
Two donned hoodies, a thrown away cop jacket, a small plate of street food to share, and a few wallets later found the girls standing outside of an internet cafe waiting for a woman they paid to come back with information on the nearest love hotel. They couldn't explain to her exactly why entering the cafe with its security cameras would be signing a death warrant, but it wasn't something a wave of a 5000 yen bill couldn't fix.
After the embarrassed woman gave them directions to multiple hotels and retreated into the busy mass of people, Sumire and Haruka set out to find one that would take them. The third one they scoped out had their requirements but asked for IDs at the counter, but the fifth - and seediest - ticked off every box on their list. They had to pay extra to rent a room without IDs, leaving Sumire with only a few hundred yen left to her name, but that could be remedied tomorrow.
For now, it was time to rest.
Perhaps because of habit, Sumire and Haruka took a shower together - the first hot shower since this all began. Despite the luxury, there was absolutely nothing romantic about it, and neither of them said a thing the entire time. They didn't have anything in the way of sleepwear, either, so they opted to crawl under the covers in their underwear.
As they sat up in the bed, Sumire looked down at herself. Her ribs were easily seen through her skin, her abs long since gone due to malnourishment. Both she and Haruka looked like skeletons, and they were both traumatized beyond all hell, but for now they were safe.
But Haruka's been through much worse than I have…
Sumire looked at Haruka, who was also sitting upright yet staring blankly at the blankets they sat under. “You okay?”
“...I'm feeling really hot.”
Shit. “Hot flash?”
Haruka nodded meekly, as if she was disappointed in herself. “And I feel my skin prickling, too.”
Sumire swore and threw the covers off of both of them. Sure enough, Haruka's skin had goosebumps all over. She began shaking, her breathing beginning to pick up in speed, and Sumire instantly threw her arms around her.
When Haruka started whimpering, Sumire shushed her. “Shhhhhh, it'll be okay… You've been clean for a while, I'm sure this must be one of the last withdrawal fits you'll ever get. I'm right here.”
“Opiate withdrawal symptoms can take at least several months for some people, maybe longer…”
It took them a month or two to figure it out, but thanks to the withdrawal symptoms, they learned that Haruka had been unwillingly on some kind of opiates for the vast majority of time she was in custody. It was brutal the first few weeks they shared a cell and she went clean; Haruka would practically scream at the door for anybody to bring her a fix, and the symptoms came fast and often. Through no small feat, she and Sumire eventually rode out the storm, and now she only had withdrawal episodes once or twice a week.
“The frequency has still gone down a lot, you don't think it'll be soon now?”
Haruka must have gone from a hot flash to a cold one, because she reached for the blankets and threw them back over her and Sumire. “I hope so.”
When it became evident Haruka wasn't going to say anything else, Sumire gently laid Haruka's head onto the pillow and held her hand tightly. She looked into Haruka's eyes wordlessly, trying to convey all her love for her friend in them.
Haruka looked back at Sumire, tears beginning to form. “How the fuck are you keeping it together?”
Because if both of us break down, we're absolutely screwed. “Training from gymnastics and Ren to be mentally tough, I guess.” Sumire replied, doing her best to sound like she was in control of her emotions. She definitely wasn't, though; watching Haruka go through another withdrawal broke her heart, as it did every time before.
Now that the adrenaline from their escape and search for a place to sleep had begun to die down, it took nearly everything Sumire had to keep herself together. Her mind flashed to a memory of high school; her suicidal self bashing her head against the lockers early in the morning in an attempt to crack her head open, only to be stopped by Shiho. She had grown vastly mentally stronger since then, but Sumire felt awfully close to as broken as the girl in her memory right about now.
Fortunately, Haruka seemed to buy her lie. “I… I want to meet h-him.” She said, sniffing quietly as tears streamed down her sideways face.
“I'm sure you'll meet him at some point.”
They were quiet for a few minutes, staring directly into each other's souls. Haruka's breathing had returned to a normal rate, but it was then that she suddenly broke into ugly sobs.
“I thought-t that I w-was gonna be th-there for the rest-t of my lif-f-f-e.” Haruka began, hiccuping and sobbing between words. Sumire wordlessly pulled Haruka's upper body to hers, using her other hand to gently stroke her hair.
“I-I-I was s-sure th-”
“Shhhhhhhh…” Sumire hushed Haruka, cutting her off. “You don't need to say it. You're safe now. We'll find a way out of this somehow.”
Haruka looked like she wanted to say more, but Sumire shook her head. Wordlessly, Haruka turned her head to stare at the ceiling, her sobs continuing while Sumire continued to stroke her hair.
Sumire just told Haruka that she would find a way out… but could she? When taking a step back, the situation looked hopeless. Most likely the majority of the Osaka police department was looking for them, and it would only be a matter of time until they were caught. Ren and Shiho were almost certainly looking for her, but how long would that take? Did they even know she was now in Osaka? Ren had trained Sumire on how to be discreet and unseen and how to survive, but she was never coached on what to do if there was somebody she cared for under her wing. As much as she loved Haruka, the girl wouldn't be useful at all in a good chunk of situations.
Sumire's thoughts broke when she realized Haruka had stopped crying. She looked down to see her fast asleep, her upper body splayed across Sumire's chest.
The sight caused Sumire to smile. This had likely been the first time in at least a year Haruka had gotten a somewhat peaceful sleep. She had been through what no woman should ever have to go through.
And Sumire would do everything in her power to ensure it never happened again.
Sumire awoke to absolute chaos.
The sound of the door being kicked in woke both girls with a start, and it was mere seconds before they were surrounded by five men in cop uniforms. Three of them reached for Haruka on Sumire's chest, pulling her away as the two began to kick and scream and shout and-
Sumire felt a needle prick her upper arm, and as quickly as it began, everything went dark.
This was sure as hell not the world Sumire thought herself to live in.
The streets of Dotonburi were completely vacant, the normally bustling scene even in the latest hours nowhere to be found. Sumire looked up and gasped, finding the entire Milky Way staring back at her in perfect, countless glittering stars. It left her absolutely dumbfounded. Looking down, she saw herself wearing a black leotard, jacket, and high black boots. The handcuffs that were on her wrists were gone, but the scars she had received from being cuffed over the past several months remained.
“It's pretty amazing, isn't it?”
Sumire's gaze shot back down to in front of her, that oh so familiar voice making her nearly jump. “Wha-” She started, but the words died in her throat as she looked at the person before her.
Kasumi stood in front of her, smiling as brightly as the stars above them.
Instead of wearing the Isegawa school tracksuit that she usually spent her time in, Kasumi was wearing a leotard; one very similar to something they'd wear for a performance. Her hair was tied back up in the ponytail they always used when they competed, and glitter adorned her face. The one thing that Sumire didn't recognize as their normal competition getup was the rapier hanging at her waist. That aside, though, she had a million questions.
“Am I dreaming?” She began, then immediately cursed herself. Why ask that of all things? Wait, but if she was dreaming…
“I have to get back, Haruka-”
Kasumi stepped forward, closing the gap in a single step, and placed her hands on Sumire's shoulders. “You're exactly where you need to be, sister.”
“No, I need to wake up! Send me back now!” Sumire demanded, her face hardening in resolve. She had to get back go Haruka, had to protect her, had to sacrifice herself if it came to it just so she could live free again-
Kasumi's arms dropped to Sumire's hands, which were balled tightly into fists. She wrapped her own hands against Sumire's, her smile turning into something sadder than before. “You've really grown up, Sumire. You're much stronger than the girl you were in high school.”
Sumire's fists loosened just a bit, her eyes widening. Even if she had grown, the Kasumi that often plagued her dreams or… nightmares… never told her that. The things she said were usually much worse. “This isn't a dream. Am I… dead?”
“No, you're not. Just sleeping.”
“Are you…?”
“Yes, I'm real.”
Sumire's fists unballed, Kasumi catching her hands in her own before they dropped completely to her sides. “But how?”
Kasumi bit the inside of her cheek, sighing. “Because we're twins; each half of a soul. When we're together, we become one… Even if you're better than me at gymnastics now anyway.”
Sumire let out some sort of sound between a laugh and a sob. “You saw that? My Olympic performance?”
“I saw everything, Sumire. And I'm so incredibly proud of who you've become.”
This time, the sound leaving Sumire was nothing but a sob. “I miss you so much, I miss you and mom and dad and it hurts so much-”
“But that hurt drove you-”
“That hurt nearly killed me!!” Sumire half shouted at her sister, yet Kasumi continued to stand there with her sad smile, unphased.
“You are who you are today because of it. You're stronger now because of it. We can't change what happened, but we can reflect on what it helps us become.”
Sumire let out a breathy, sad laugh. Her sister did have a point - she never would have become who she was today if none of this happened. She wouldn't have succeeded at gymnastics. She wouldn't have met Ren and Shiho.
She likely wouldn't even be alive.
“You've never sounded this wise before, you know?” Sumire finally said, taking a deep shaky breath to steady herself. “You were always the impulsive one.
“I suppose I had a lot of time to reflect on everything.” Kasumi replied, squeezing Sumire's hands. “But one thing I did spend a lot of time thinking about was this moment.”
Kasumi dropped Sumire's hands and reached for the rapier on her belt. Unclasping it from her waist, she held it out in front of her with both hands to Sumire, as if in offering. “For the moment where you accept all of yourself for who you are; every last bit of you.”
Sumire stared at the rapier, the thin blade so immaculately polished it reflected the Milky Way to the point it looked like the metal was made of starlight. “But I feel like I'm not whole without you…”
Kasumi merely lifted the rapier higher. “You won't be anymore. As twins, our souls were matched from the start. And It's time for us to be together again.”
“I…” Sumire started, lifting a hand towards the blade. “I love you, Kasumi.”
“I love you too, Sumire.” She responded, tears beginning to streak down Kasumi's own cheeks as Sumire grabbed onto the hilt of the rapier, her hand overlapping her sister's.
“I am thou…” Kasumi began.
Sumire's response popped into her head as if it was magically placed there.
“...And thou art I.” Sumire finished.
She was at peace with herself.
Her state was a weird one: somewhere between life and death. She was unable to do anything with herself, however she knew that she was not dead. Merely… sleeping.
As she would be, for eternity.
Although, time was both everything and nothing. All she had was time, yet time didn't matter to her in the slightest. Time was something she no longer concerned herself with. She had no use for time, and time no longer used her now that she was outside it. She was ageless.
But so was he.
She felt him claw and scratch and stab and fling himself at her with all his might, but she never yielded. He tried and tried until he would suddenly leave, almost as if pulled away from her, only to appear later and do the same. She had no idea how long it would take for him to come back.
But one thing she did know was that she and he were meant to do this for eternity.
She felt something stir in the beyond, a shift across the sea of souls that was always a beacon of light. She didn't remember what it meant, but she did remember that feeling of triumph and power and feeling to protect. As she did every time it happened, she tried to recapture that feeling and hold onto it. It was the one time she felt she could think about…no, remember… something from before.
But it was always gone before she could hold onto it, and she would forget all over again. She knew that soon, this feeling of true sentience would pass, and she would go back to being… whatever she was.
Even if she was at peace with her current cycle, she still felt a yearning for something more. Something… lost.
The first thing Sumire realized when she woke up was how whole she felt. It was as if the puzzle pieces in her heart had finally been placed together to paint a beautiful picture.
She wasn't sure how long she had been out, but it had been enough time for her to be placed in the back of a cop cruiser. It was still sitting outside the alley the love hotel resided in, and the car was idling.
Sumire looked to her side to check on Haruka-
She wasn't there.
Haruka was gone.
And Sumire snapped.
They had placed a new pair of cuffs on Sumire, but she ripped them apart with a slight grunt of effort and no small amount of surprise. Unlike the bolt cutters earlier, her strength shattered the cuffs completely, leaving her wrists bare.
The policeman sitting in the driver's seat practically screamed like a toddler as Sumire smashed her fist clean through the plexiglass separating the front and back cab, her bones barking in pain despite how easy it was to do. She reached a hand forward and grabbed his throat, her grip tight as she snarled.
“Where. Is. She.”
The cop tried to say something, but the only way she realized it was because his throat was bobbing against her hand. She relaxed her grip, and he immediately spoke.
“That tranquilizer should ha-”
“WHERE. IS. SHE.” Sumire repeated, and tightened her grip ever so slightly.
“Still inside, they're-”
She closed her hand again, holding his throat tight until he passed out. Once that was done, Sumire turned her feet towards her car window and kicked her heels into the barred glass. Even despite her bare feet all of it gave away instantly, shards of glass and metal slashing her calves down into a bloody mess. She pushed off from her arms and sprang through the window perfectly, not unlike a handspring gymnastics move. As soon as her feet hit the ground, she was running.
Not Haruka. She didn't deserve this, she had been through more than enough, they had no right in doing this. They had no right in separating them.
Haruka, who was kidnapped into sex slavery, who was so utterly broken it took her a week and a half to talk to Sumire after she was dumped into her cell.
Haruka, who had finally tasted freedom after so long that she couldn't believe it was real.
Haruka, who Sumire had grown so close with through their suffering she'd rather die than live without her.
Haruka, who Sumire had sworn she would protect, no matter what.
The front desk attendant yelped in surprise as Sumire sprinted through the lobby, the slap of her feet on the tile floor the only sound pounding through her head. She took the stairs five at a time, not stopping to think about how she was even doing so. And when she made it to her hotel room, she pulled the door handle so hard that the drywall holding the lock was ripped clean off.
Sumire stepped inside, closing the door to the best of its ability behind her, and…
It was even worse than she imagined.
Haruka lay on the bed, still conscious yet completely delirious while the remaining four policemen kneeled around her on the bed, their pants scattered on the floor. One of them was completely naked. Haruka was too, the underwear they had worn to bed discarded on the other side of the room as if they were thrown there. She wasn't wearing handcuffs, but Sumire wished she was after seeing where those monsters were dragging her hands.
All four of them looked up, their eyes locking with Sumire.
Any restraint that Sumire had left hanging on broke.
Before the four men could say anything, Sumire thrust out her hand instinctively. Dozens of spears of what she assumed could only be pure light formed in front of her, and when she closed her fist, they flew at a speed she could hardly track towards Haruka's rapists.
The assholes hardly stood a chance.
Sumire expected something made of light to either harmlessly hit or maybe even pass through her victims, but a sick and twisted part of her grinned in satisfaction as she watched her spears of light not just impact the four, but impale them with such force they flew back towards the wall. It took a few seconds for her vision to clear and focus after seeing red, and once she did, the sight made her gag.
The four officers were pinned against the wall by Sumire's spears of light, their bodies, or what hadn't been shredded, still twitching. Blood and guts and gore had spurted out so forcefully that the entire room was practically bathed in it. She looked down and realized not only was she splashed in blood, but she was completely nude. The final nail in the coffin was the severed arm that lay at her feet, fingers still twitching.
Sumire doubled over and vomited right on top of it.
It took a few minutes for her to stop retching.
The good news was that since her spears were basically silent, it seemed like nobody really heard anything. Well, aside from the door being ripped open. Even then, nobody had stopped by their room yet. Regardless, Sumire knew she likely had mere minutes at best to escape before the place was swarming with police, probably even less if the cop she had left alive woke up already.
The light spears had faded a minute or two ago, the corpses unceremoniously dumped onto the bed as a result. Sumire began to try to control her breathing as she ran forward to Haruka, lifted her into her arms effortlessly, then dashed into the shower. As Sumire was washing the blood off the both of them, she did her absolute best not to wonder why she had no clothes on whatsoever when she woke up. She could digest that information later. If she did so now, she would break down, and she needed to get herself and Haruka to safety before that could happen.
Sumire only afforded herself and Haruka a few minutes in the shower to wash most of the blood off before stepping out, still carrying her friend bridal-style. She needed to find fresh clothes. She needed to find somewhere for the two of them to lay low. She needed to survive.
Haruka moaned and blinked rapidly, as if the overhead lights in the bathroom were giving her a headache. Sumire reached to turn them off but stopped short, her ears perking.
Sirens.
They were faint, but they were there. Her time was running out. Sumire kicked the door to their hotel room hard with her heel. It swung outward, the hinges creaking and cracking as they were pushed past their normal limits. A shriek from two people came from the hallway, and Sumire stepped out to see a younger couple staring at her with terrified eyes.
“Give me both of your jackets.” Sumire demanded, and they frantically disrobed, tossing them at Sumire's feet.
“P-Please don't hurt us!” The female said, absolutely terrified. Sumire felt herself blink several times, as if rebooting from hearing just how scared the duo across from her was.
“Thank you.” She said quietly, working quickly to clothe herself in the men's long peacoat and Haruka in the women's parka. They wouldn't completely protect them from the cold air outside, but it would have to do for now.
The sirens were outside the building now, muffled shouting coming from the floors below. Sumire nodded towards the couple, then sprinted and jumped towards the glass window at the end of the hallway. She turned her back at the last second and leaned over Haruka to shield her as they crashed through the glass, Sumire feeling shards cut her body and new parka. She landed from the third floor as easily as if she had hopped down a two foot ledge, still safely clutching Haruka close to her.
Sumire took one look at the window she had just come from, then ran off into the night.
Ren, Makoto, and Shiho were awoken suddenly from the banging coming from their door.
“What in the-” Ren started, and Makoto was already on her feet in an Aikido stance before Futaba opened the door. Her laptop was tucked under her other arm, and Morgana was between her feet.
Ren immediately relaxed, but sighed. “Jesus Christ Futaba, is there a reason you had to barge in at…” He looked at the clock at his bedside. “Four forty six in the morning?”
Shiho, the heaviest sleeper of the three, was just sitting up as Futaba and Morgana plopped down on the edge of the huge bed. “Okay so, Mona and I were doing a late night gaming sesh together and-”
“What game can Morgana play with paws?” Shiho asked, rubbing her eyes while still half-delirious with sleep.
“Old School Runescape, but that's besides the point.” Futaba said. “So we were listening to police radio as some background noise while we played, and we heard something super interesting.”
“Which was?” Makoto asked, walking back over to her nightstand for the bottle of water that sat there.
Morgana sat on the bed, looking down at his paws. “We heard reports that in Osaka, four policemen were murdered, and a fifth was sent to the hospital for a crushed windpipe.”
Ren and Shiho exchanged looks while Makoto coughed on her water. “Some sort of Yakuza feud, maybe?” Shiho asked. “I know the Yakuza have some police in their pocket, but maybe it was non corrupt cops that got into a shootout or something.”
Morgana shook his head. “We don't think so. We listened to them describe how they found the bodies. It was… it was pretty gruesome.”
“What do you mean?” Makoto questioned, having finished her coughing fit.
“I think it's better if I show you.” Futaba said, sounding uncharacteristically grim. “They took a picture and uploaded it to their database for evidence, so I grabbed it for myself. I almost wish I didn't.”
As she opened her laptop and unlocked it, Shiho bit on her fingernail apprehensively. “I'm not sure if I could stomach it if it's that bad. Just… tell me what you see. I'm gonna use the bathroom.”
The truth was, Ren didn't want to see it either. But if Futaba seemed to be put off by this, he had to check. That, and he had to be strong as their leader. “That's okay. Let's see what you got, Futaba.”
His sister chewed on her inner lip, then spun the laptop around to have it face Makoto and Ren.
Sumire had no idea what she was doing, but whatever it was, it was working.
Police had been swarming the entirety of metropolitan Osaka, but she was managing to give them the slip simply by huddling against a heat vent exit on a random rooftop. At one point the searchlight of a helicopter even flew over them and she was sure she'd have to pick up Haruka and flee, but nobody came. It was almost as if her simply hiding against a wall made her and Haruka, who was huddled up against her, completely invisible.
Haruka shivered, and Sumire tightened her grip on her parka around the two, situated in such a way to trap the escaping hot air from the vent. She was coherent again and mercifully seemed to have no memory of what happened, and Sumire didn't have the heart nor guts to tell her yet. All she had said was that they escaped and were going to wait for things to die down before thinking about getting more clothing than just two jackets. Neither of them felt like talking, and as the night sky began to give way to the dark blue of dawn, Sumire took that time to contemplate.
She had killed four people.
And not only had she done so, but she did it in a way that she couldn't describe. After all, how do you explain that you impaled someone using light? Sumire wasn't a rocket scientist but she knew at the very least light probably wasn't supposed to do that.
Her mind floated to Ren and the Phantom Thieves. She knew they had some sort of supernatural abilities, but not to what extent. Was this similar to what powers they had? But Ren said they couldn't manifest those powers anymore…
Sumire blinked hard. Why was she drifting into thinking about these powers? She had just murdered four people and can't even seem to give them a second thought. Except… she didn't want to.
Those men were terrible, evil people. Corrupt cops and rapists. Sumire still didn't even want to know if she herself had been targeted. She went to bed wearing underwear, but woke up in the cop car naked. It didn't exactly fill her with comfort. Did they maybe-
Wait, no, she was sidetracked again. She should be coming to terms with what she had done.
But she couldn't.
Not for a lack of trying to keep on track, but because she couldn't find herself to care. Should she be sad that four people that took advantage of both her and Haruka were dead? That this behavior likely meant it was not the first time they'd done this before? Was the world a better place without them?
Sumire looked to Haruka, who was staring blankly at the orange now coloring the sky. “Penny for your thoughts?”
Without taking her eyes away from the sunrise, Haruka said “I still don't know exactly what happened, but my guesses aren't pleasant.”
Sumire said nothing, instead biting her lower lip in anxiousness while looking back to the Osaka skyline.
“Are they… dead?”
Sumire looked at Haruka, who was now looking at her. Tears were beginning to fall onto her cheeks and Sumire reached a hand up to brush them aside. “They are.”
Haruka took a shuddering breath, then looked back at the sunrise. “I'm glad they're dead.”
And the thing was, Sumire couldn't deny that she felt the same.
Once the sun had completely risen, Sumire left Haruka up on the rooftop with the parka while she used the peacoat to clothe herself and descend into the city. She jumped from rooftop to rooftop until she found a residential building with a clothing drying rack hanging out several sets of long sleeve shirts and pants.
It was several floors down, but getting to the balcony was still effortless. Her gymnastics moves felt almost alien to her with the strange newfound strength she possessed, but she quickly got the hang of it.
Sumire's footsteps were completely silent as she landed on the balcony, even despite how rickety it looked from afar. She nabbed two sets of jeans and long-sleeved shirts, then surprised herself when she made a massive jump back up to the rooftop. She noticed Haruka staring at her as she made the twenty feet jump between rooftops to land back at her friend's side.
“So…” Haruka started as they put on the clothes. “You have superpowers now?”
Sumire gestured for the parka so she could hide her red hair, swapping it for the peacoat. “Yes, I do, apparently. I'm not sure how or why, but I'm not going to question it right now.”
Haruka wrapped her arms around herself, looking at the ground. “It saved us, so me neither. How are your legs, by the way?”
Sumire blinked. She had completely forgotten about that. In fact, she could hardly feel it anymore. She wordlessly pulled up one of her jean pantlegs, and winced.
Her legs looked like they had been absolutely mangled. The bleeding had since stopped hours ago, and the vast majority of the pain with it, but dozens of large, ugly scabs ran all across her calf, shin, ankle, and knee. Several were so wide that they likely should have needed stitches to sew them shut, yet now they were only harsh red marks covered in blood that had leaked out after she had showered. Checking her other leg, Sumire found it in a similar state.
Haruka's eyes went wide. “Jesus, Sumire, it's a miracle you're even walking; the tendons should have been torn to shreds. I see one scar that should have been potentially fatal. How are you alive right now, let alone moving?”
“I… I don't know.” Sumire answered truthfully, staring down at her legs. It was obvious that the majority of her injuries wouldn't just completely fade, and her legs would be covered in those scars for the rest of her life. “Adreneline helped earlier, but even now, I feel fine.”
“Do you feel like you have full, normal control of your legs?”
“Mhmm.”
Haruka stared at the scars as if they could erupt in blood at any moment. “It's ugly, but they really do look like they'll fully heal… maybe it's one of your superpowers? Your body can heal itself?”
“I'm not sure. I'm definitely not doing it intentionally. Like I said, I'm not going to question it. There's no point when Ren could just tell us once we track him down.”
“I suppose. But even if that's our long term goal, we need a short one. What are we going to do now?”
The redhead looked at Haruka, who was now wearing clothes that would probably be too small for her if she didn't look like a human skeleton. In all honesty, Sumire was surprised Haruka was kept-together as she looked at the moment. But then again, Sumire was doing her best to stay strong herself simply for her friend. She'd crumble if Haruka weren't here, and it was likely the same for the other way around.
“Umm…” Sumire trailed off, her mind racing through all the ‘what if’ scenarios she, Shiho, and Ren thought of one night years ago when they were feeling especially down on their luck.
“Well, the first thing we should do is find somewhere we can lay low. Somewhere that we know will be safe and away from people.”
“That makes sense, but I imagine it'll be really hard for us to settle down somewhere and lay low when we're wanted by the law.”
Sumire blinked, understanding what she was getting at. “They were corrupt, that'll come to light and maybe we'll be let off-”
Haruka cut her off with narrowed brows. “You killed four police officers, Sumire. Four people. Nobody can just do that and get away with it. We're criminals now whether they were corrupt or not.”
That hit Sumire like a bag of bricks, any words forming in her throat immediately dying.
“Plus, you don't think they'll just brand us as Phantom Thieves collaborators and put the same bounty on our heads? You've publicly made a statement that you support them since...”
“Since the night I got abducted.” Sumire said in her mind what Haruka couldn't admit out loud.
“That's true, I did.” Sumire said, eager to move on. “So I guess we should expect that. If that's the case, then that long term goal really should be to find Ren as soon as possible. We'll be safe with him.”
“You're sure?”
“I'm positive.”
Haruka sighed. “Okay, fine. Let's do that, then.”
They were silent for a moment. Sumire took in the sounds of down below, a city waking up to a perfectly normal morning. A morning that didn't involve rape, or murder, or a desperate bid for survival. Part of Sumire longed to return to that life, but Haruka had a point. Sumire had crossed multiple lines in the last 24 hours that could never be uncrossed.
“You had no choice, you know.”
Sumire blinked. She realized she had begun to stare at the ground, and looked back up to Haruka wordlessly.
“They were… taking advantage of us. You defended both yourself and me.”
It took a second for Sumire to realize that Haruka thought she had doubts about what Sumire had done. That she was feeling bad about it.
But she didn't. In truth, the only thing Sumire mourned at the moment was that her life beforehand had essentially been forfeit. Her days of being a gymnast were over, but she didn't regret doing what she did for a single second.
“I know. They deserved it.” Sumire said coolly. Haruka stared, but eventually nodded in agreement, seemingly satisfied by that.
They stood in a few more seconds of silence before Haruka asked, “So, do you have any way of getting in touch with Ren?”
Sumire shook her head. “I imagine the phone number he used to have has been switched since everything started, and that's the one I have memorized. I had his new number in my phone, but who knows where that is.”
“So we find somebody who could find him, then.”
“Very few people know how to find Ren these days, I'd bet.”
“You really don't know how to find him?” Haruka asked again, looking the tiniest bit crestfallen.
Sumire chewed on her lip. “I know what he'd do, not how to find him.”
“Then we do what he'd do, and find him that way eventually.”
Sumire forgot how smart and level-headed Haruka could be, something that was shown on occasion while they shared a cell. “Okay… In that case, we'd look for a connection to the undergr-”
She cut her voice short as she heard the whirring of helicopter blades steadily approaching them from her left. Haruka had heard too, and they watched as a helicopter closed in on them from about a couple of miles away.
“Alright, time to go!” Sumire said, picked up Haruka in her arms, and leapt off the rooftop towards the street below.
Ren, Futaba, Mitsuru, Akechi, Labrys, and Yu all sat in an awkward silence around a rectangular table.
“So… Yoshizawa is a Phantom Thief?” Akechi finally asked, looking down at the photos of the Osaka love hotel crime scene for the fifth time as if it would begin to play out like a video. “And she murdered four cops in a way that makes a mental shutdown look tame.”
Futaba scowled at the comment, and Ren placed a gentle hand on her shoulder in reassurance. “No, she isn't, but it's possible she woke to a Persona. How did you say the wounds were described, Futaba?”
She sat up in her seat, looking at the laptop in front of her. “Police described it as if the body mass had disappeared. There was a lot of blood and gore from the wounds gushing, and there were a couple of severed limbs, but police couldn't fully put together the bodies. It was like someone hit the delete key on parts of them and poof, gone.”
“That sounds like the Holy element.” Akechi said. “Light basically acted like a fire so hot it could vaporize, but it wasn't actually warm to the touch at all.” It felt… neutral.”
Ren nodded. “From the Personas I used with light or holy, however you want to word it, that adds up.”
“So, we know that Yoshizawa likely awoke to a Persona, but we have no clue what the motive was?” Yu asked, putting his hands in his pockets.
Futaba shifted in her seat uncomfortably. “Well… forensics also found two pairs of women's underwear on the floor of the hotel room. One of the panties’ waistband had been torn clean apart. And, uhh… There were four pairs of officer uniform pants littered on the floor around the bed too. Male ones.”
“Mierde.” Mitsuru swore under her breath at the same time Labrys went, “Jesus…”
Nobody said anything for a very long several seconds.
“That… explains the motive.” Yu said cautiously, as if he were trying to avoid waking a sleeping baby.
“And when ya wake to a Persona it can be like, hard ta control it at first.” Labrys added. “Like shootin’ a bazooka ata’ cockroach. Eitha way, I'm inclined ta say it's self-defense, and she was prolly… hella angry when she let ‘er powers loose so it would explain the carnage.”
“Agreed. I don't blame her for doing so, but it's still quite a mess.” Mitsuru said sternly. Ren glared at her, and she held her hands up in a show of resignation. “I know, but you can't deny the fallout if Sugimura chooses to connect this to the Phantom Thieves.”
“She's right.” Yu said. “Sugimura seems well-connected and is willing to bend the rules of the game he set for you. If he uses his power to spin the story to the Phantom Thieves murdering four cops, you'll lose the public's support.”
Akechi let out a short laugh. “How ironic tha-”
He was cut short when Futaba suddenly leaned across the table and slapped him so hard with her enhanced strength that he fell out of his chair. Instantly the room sprang to life, Ren holding Futaba down while the others went to tend to Akechi.
“Jesus Christ Futaba, pull yourself together!” Ren hissed, barely managing to hold a struggling Futaba as she attempted to worm her way out of his grip. “You're gonna kill him if you're not careful!”
Ren could practically see the pure rage in Futaba's eyes as Akechi got back up, scowling at the small girl. “This fucker should be dead! He killed my goddamn mom, killed Haru's dad, fucking laughed about it, and now he think he can sit here and make jokes about us?! This motherfucker is the single reason all of us are fucking MISERABLE TO BEGIN WITH!!!”
He had never seen Futaba so angry before. But then again, they all thought Akechi was dead. Hell, she had told Ren that she was glad Akechi was dead.
Ren pulled Futaba into a fierce hug, partly to clamp her down and partly to comfort her as he spun her around so she faced the window and away from Akechi. And as Ren locked eyes with his former nemesis, he was surprised to see… sadness.
“We have dead people in our family because of him! You never got to meet my mom! He caused so much sadness and grief and misery for us all and he thinks he can… he can…”
Futaba broke down into tears, crying into Ren's chest. He mustered his best Niijima death stare and looked Akechi directly in the eyes. That sadness in Akechi's eyes had given away to straight up sorrow, the others around him unable to think of or say something.
“I… Suppose it's extremely difficult to sit across a table from the person who killed your mother and pretend that you're not angry with me.” Akechi began, his voice quiet yet firm. “And while I know it doesn't fix anything, I do apologize.”
There was so much sincerity in his voice that even Futaba turned around to look at him, the tears still running silently down her cheeks. He was looking at the ground, sullen.
“I was a deeply angry person back then. I was so focused on getting my revenge on Shido for my own mother that I didn't stop a single second to consider what I was doing to others. I felt that I was owed my revenge, and in doing so I created people like you, Sakura-san. I created more people like me.”
He looked up and at Ren, smiling sadly. “I've had a lot of time to reflect these past several years while hidden away from the world. And thanks to a certain someone, I'd like to think I'm at least a slightly less bitter person than I used to be. I'm still a piece of shit, and I still think this world is a shitstain that even God couldn't wipe clean, but maybe there are things that make it worth it.”
It was Ren's turn to be dumbfounded as he watched Akechi pull the glove he had given back to him when the Phantom Thieves raided the Shadow facility out of his pocket. “I joined the Kirijo Group because I want to chase that feeling. I want to see if there's actually something worth protecting on this shitty planet. And when I find it, maybe I'll be able to realize why the fuck a small part of me still cares.”
“You know I'll never forgive you.” Futaba spat, but her words had much less vitriol than they contained before.
“I don't expect you to, Sakura-san. But I'm going to at least try to atone for my sins, no matter how bad I may be at it.”
Futaba took a deep breath and Ren released her from his arms. “Fine. Then you can start by helping us figure out how to find my brother's friend.”