Chapter Text
The first thing Light Yagami sees after he dies is a white void.
This…I don’t know what I was expecting for my afterlife, but it wasn’t this. He thought to himself.
Before he could gather his thoughts and get up, he heard a voice behind him. “Hey.”
His mind went to fight or flight mode, picking the third option ‘freeze’. He had no idea what was in the afterlife waiting for him. Was it a personal tormenter? Was he going to be going through horrific mutilation only to be reconstructed day by day like Prometheus having his liver eaten and regrown? Or was it going to be using emotional torment; haunting him with visions of all his past mistakes?
The voice spoke again. “Relax, I’m not going to kill you. I assume you’re already dead like me in any case, and last I checked you can’t die twice.” The voice paused. “Actually, scratch that, that happened to me in a way. But as far as I can tell, we’re both permanently dead.”
Light finally stood up and turned around. There he saw, other than more of the void, a table with a chess set on top of it with two seats. On the seat across was a boy around his age with features akin to his: brown hair (although long enough to be considered shoulder-length) and a build similar enough to his.
The most prominent feature though were his eyes. From afar they looked brown but looking closer they were more auburn, almost shades away to be considered red. He looked familiar, but he couldn’t quite remember a name.
I wonder, Light thought. If I’m really dead, what could he have done to deserve the same punishment as me?
Light got his act together and spoke authoritatively. “Are you the only one here?”
The boy sighed dramatically. “Seems like it. I was stuck here for who knows how long, but then you just materialized in front of me.” He gestured towards Light before leaning forward on his chair. “By the way, if I may ask, when did you die?”
Light crossed his arms, wondering if it was a good idea to share information. Sure, if what this boy was saying was the truth, there was really no need for hiding. But what if it wasn’t? What if it was some form of Shinigami trickery and the person in front of him was some kind of disguise?
…Actually, if Shinigami could turn into humans whenever, Ryuk would’ve already done some kind of prank on him.
“November 5th, 2017.” Light answered truthfully. “You?”
The boy had a look of surprise plastered on him. “So, I’ve been dead for almost a year. Good to know.” He repositioned himself before answering. “I died twice, once in December 9th, 2016 and once in February 3rd, 2017.”
“And what does ‘dying twice’ mean?” Light asked, using air quotes.
The boy scoffed. “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you the truth.”
“Oh? Try me.” After things like Death Notes and Shinigami, there’s nothing that could surprise him now.
“Well, a new reality got created on Christmas Eve, during which I got revived. This reality makes it so anyone can get whatever their greatest wish was in exchange for free will,” He rolled his eyes and muttered the next statement. “Or at least, the greatest wish allowed by the bastard who created said new reality.
“In any case, I got revived because I was someone’s wish. And I wasn’t going to be controlled again, so me and a few others beat the shit out of him. When we did, the world returned and it was like the new reality didn’t even exist in the first place.”
…Okay maybe there are still some things that could surprise him. But from his story, the boy seemed like a much better person than he was, so why was he here with him?
The boy interrupted his train of thought, “Ah, right, where are my manners? My name’s Goro Akechi.”
Light nodded, introducing himself back, earning an eyebrow raise from Akechi.
“Yagami? Did you by any chance know Soichiro Yagami? I worked for the SIU as an intern, so I’m familiar with some names in the NPA.”
“Yes, he was my father.” Ah right, his father…how was he holding up now? Last time he saw him, he…
He snapped those thoughts away, moving the conversation to something he was wondering. “In any case, why are you here? Did you do something horrendous as well?”
Akechi smiled, but there was some sadness in his eyes. “Do you remember the mental shutdowns that started around three years ago?”
Mental shutdowns? He remembered L mentioning that as a case he wanted to tackle after the Kira investigation. He actually would’ve investigated earlier but he wanted the support of the Japanese police and they refused to cooperate. But why would he bring that up unless…
There’s no way. If Akechi was his age, then the mental shutdowns would’ve started when he was around fifteen. And how in the world can a fifteen-year-old do something like causing someone to just…shutdown? Did he have some kind of power similar to the Death Note? It couldn’t possibly be the Death Note itself because some of the victims didn’t die, they were just put in some form of life support.
Akechi chuckled darkly at the look on Light’s face, “I see you’ve figured it out.” He muttered. “And you? You said ‘horrendous as well’, so you must’ve done something incredibly unpleasant?”
Well, it’s not like he needs to lie. He’s already dead after all. So, he sat down across from him, willing to answer any questions if Akechi was going to answer any of his.
“You might not remember this since this was right before you died, but do you remember the case of criminals dying from heart attacks?”
Akechi was confused, until he immediately understood. “I remember the Lind L. Tailor broadcast at least. I mean, a man died on live television after all. So, you’re…”
“That’s correct. I am Kira.”
L was walking around aimlessly in Tokyo. The Kira case was going to be closed soon enough, he just needed to finish up the paperwork. Then again, putting things like ‘a notebook that kills people just by writing down their name and picturing their face’ in the evidence attached may not be the best idea. After all, UN was going to need confirmation.
Well, L already used the notebook, so that was confirmation enough for him.
He wandered until something caught his eye. A royal blue butterfly. Normally he wouldn’t pay it much mind but unlike a regular royal blue butterfly, it was a pure blue rather than having black on the edges of the wings.
That’s not even counting the fact that it was glowing.
If he didn’t know any better, it was almost like the butterfly was trying to show him something.
So, he followed it for around an hour and he swears he could almost hear the voice of a little girl say ‘seek him when the time comes’ over and over again.
Either I’m going crazy or my subconscious is trying to tell me something. Maybe this is how I actually die.
It did not in fact lead to his untimely demise but instead to an empty coffee shop. Leblanc, coffee and curry, as the sign says. He would’ve left it alone if he didn’t see the butterfly phase through the door.
Intrigued, he went inside triggering the entrance bell. The place really was empty save for a young barista with a mop of messy black hair on his head and big glasses.
“Oh, hello! Welcome to Leblanc!” He greeted a little too cheerfully for a minimum wage worker. “What can I get for you?”
L supposed he could indulge himself in some coffee while trying to figure out why this butterfly just phased through a dying business’s establishment. He took a quick glance at the beans before ordering. “Colombian Narino with six spoonfuls of sugar.”
The barista tried his best not to be horrified at his extra request but L managed to catch it. As he brewed, L took a seat at one of the booths since he wouldn’t be comfortable sitting in his regular position on the bar.
As the barista brewed, he started to hear the pitter patter of rain. L didn’t have an umbrella on him, but he could just walk in the rain.
“Your coffee, sir.” The barista put his coffee in front of him and instead of going back behind the bar like he should, he sat across him in the booth.
“…What are you doing?”
The barista simply shrugged. “Something’s bothering you. I can see it in your face. Oh, and don’t worry about customers appearing, this place barely gets any business.”
He was feeling annoyed at how nosy this barista was. What could he possibly know about what was going through his head? “It’s nothing you should be concerned with.”
The barista rolled his eyes and chuckled. “Yeah, I get that a lot. But hey, usually when I pester them enough so they talk, I can help out with whatever they have trouble with.”
He really wasn’t liking this barista. He took a long sip of the coffee, not caring about his now-burnt tongue. It actually tasted quite good, but not good enough for him to forgive the barista’s harassment, “Somehow, I doubt my problem could be solved by someone who looks like they aren’t old enough to drink.”
The barista gave him a challenging smirk. “Try me.”
L concluded that this teenager wasn’t going to give up, so he was going to try and make him uncomfortable by telling a vague retelling of the truth. He gave his best fake sigh and looked away to make himself look more pathetic.
“There was someone I couldn’t save. I wanted to but…now he’s gone and I…I may have regretted how things ended with us.”
The last part really wasn’t necessary but it looked like he made the barista uncomfortable enough to leave him alone.
“…You know,” Ah, he was unfortunately still talking. “Not to make this about me, but I experienced something similar.”
If there was one thing Goro knew about his new afterlife, it’s that he absolutely fucking hates the guy he was stuck there with.
Sure, he was a good chess opponent (they didn’t have much to do in the void anyway) and by this point they both know the details of the others’ crimes (minus the method of the crimes or how they got caught which none of them are revealing) but the more he hears from him the more he despises the man in front of him.
Yagami talked about how he wanted to become ‘god of the new world’ and ‘lead the willing masses’ or whatever bullshit he said when he got the power to kill people with just a name and a face. It reminded him too much of the man who controlled him for the better part of his teenage years.
Sure, he said the ‘influence’ was gone when he talked about it and was feeling immense guilt but it didn’t change the fact that so many innocent people died and he thought it was for the greater good. At least when he killed people, he never had delusions like that. All he wanted was to utterly embarrass his father before killing him. At least he knew what he was doing was wrong.
“It’s disgusting you can still find some right in your actions as Kira, Yagami-san.” Goro commented as he moved his rook to take Yagami’s.
Yagami immediately moved his other rook to take Goro’s first, “I’m not saying what I did was right, but you have to agree with me that some people are better off dead, no?”
Goro baited him with his last rook in a way that Yagami would use his rook to take it, hoping he doesn’t realize that his king could take it in his position. If there was something he could tell from his games with Yagami, he was impulsive. Sure, he’d take some time to strategize but when he finds the opening to take one of his pieces, he’d almost always jump for it.
Yagami took the bait, causing him to lose his last rook to Goro. He then made a bold play to move his queen closer to his side of the board as a counterplay.
Then Goro finally answered his question “Perhaps. But I think you and I have differing opinions on who would be better off dead.”
“Really? Elaborate.”
He shrugged, taking one of his pawns with his queen, “I would’ve targeted certain politicians, maybe even some businessmen.”
Yagami moved his queen fully to Goro’s side of the board as he asked. “Why?”
Goro scoffed, “Maybe it’s your privileged lifestyle making it so you don’t see the answer, Yagami-san, but crime usually doesn’t just happen.” He moved his king out of the way so Yagami’s queen wouldn’t take it. “Sure, there are people like rapists and serial killers who just hurt for the sake of hurting, but I know that a good portion of the populace you’ve killed did crimes because they felt like they had no other choice.”
Not to mention the amount of innocent people he’s unknowingly killed who had the misfortune of suffering under Japan’s ‘guilty until proven innocent’ mentality or people who hadn’t even gotten a trial when their names and faces were plastered on the news for all to see, but that was beside the point.
He let Yagami take one of his pawns as he continued, “Of course, that doesn’t excuse their actions, it just helps us understand them. So, I think it would’ve been better if you tackled the root of the problem.”
“So, the politicians and businessmen?”
Goro nodded, moving one of his pawns. “I had to handle quite a few during the mental shutdowns. You remember how I mentioned that my powers allowed me to delve into a person’s psyche?”
He continued when Yagami nodded as he moved his queen to reposition it so Goro’s king was vulnerable. “All of the ones I’ve dealt with took advantage of the weak, drained them until they had nothing left to give, and left them for dead. Not to mention embezzlement of funds that were supposed to be for the people.” Seriously, there was a lot of fucking embezzlement.
Yagami smirked as Goro moved his king out of the way again, thus opting to take one of Goro’s pawns. “Interesting take. Though, I still think would-be criminals should find other ways to solve their problems before crime.”
Holy shit, I’m talking to the kind of person who’d tell a homeless person to just buy a house. Goro thought.
“That being said, I think you would’ve been an interesting Kira, Akechi-san.”
Goro could only cackle as he moved one of his other pawns in front, hoping he wouldn’t notice his plan to promote it. “Funny how you think I would have enough time to be Kira, Yagami-san. If I got your powers as Kira, there would have been only two victims.”
Yagami narrowed his eyes, intrigued, moving his queen to take another pawn, “And they would be?”
Goro didn’t hesitate with his answer. “The first victim would have been Masayoshi Shido, my father. The second would have been myself.”
Goro already knew how suicidal he was; he had no plan nor any reason to plan ahead once Shido was dead. He was an unwanted child, passed around in foster care, even having to go to a homeless shelter once he was let go of by the system and stayed in the streets for around a month. Yagami’s reaction to this was to be expected, he doubted he’d seen someone this broken.
“…I see.” Was all Yagami had to say.
They didn’t talk for the rest of the game. It ended with Goro winning by promoting his last two pawns into queens and cornering Yagami’s king.
“What could you possibly know about what I went through?”
The stranger across him sounded like a mix of annoyed, angered and intrigued. Akira just wanted to help him, but now even he can see that he struck a nerve.
Akira responded, “A friend of mine, well, I don’t know if he’d consider me a friend so let’s say rival.” He looked down at his hands on the table, “He was…well, he was probably the person who understood me the most. Normally when I spend time with people, they usually want something from me.” He realized how sad that sounded to the stranger, “Uh, don’t get me wrong, I enjoy their company! I just wish I could feel comfortable asking them for help once.
“But in any case, he was the only one who actually wanted to spend time with me for the sake of just…spending time together.” He smiled, remembering all the bittersweet memories of his and Akechi’s ‘dates’, “In a way, we made each other better since he was probably the only one who could keep up with me. He never put me in some sort of pedestal like everyone else, he…he treated me like an equal.”
The stranger stared at him back with a blank look before he realized he just traumadumped to said stranger. “Oh, sorry, I made this about myself, I-”
The stranger cut him off, “No, no, it’s fine. I’m just surprised at how similar our situations are. Besides the ‘making each other better’ part.”
He paused before adding in a mutter. “Maybe if things happened differently, we could’ve.”
The stranger shook his head. “I’m more curious now, how did you lose him?”
Akira paused, trying to form his words in a way that sounded normal. Because imagine telling the truth?
‘Yeah, this rival of mine who I might’ve had a massive crush on was apparently part of a super big political conspiracy started by his dad to make him either kill people or put them in a state worse than death and he was only doing this as a part of his convoluted plan to kill him. Then he tried to kill me because I was the leader of a group that was in the way of said conspiracy and his plans but I managed to get away due to me using a clone of myself for him to kill instead. Then he tried to finish the job but got himself killed in the process, making me feel like it was my fault I lost the one person who understood me the most. Oh, but then in Christmas Eve after I shot and killed god he came back but just kidding, apparently me and my friends were in an alternate reality where everyone’s wishes came true and apparently he was my wish and he practically had to beg for me to let him go so we could go back to our true reality. Then I had come to a point where I either had to save everyone but him or essentially brainwash the entire world. And obviously since we’re here I picked the first option and now all I have to remember him by are some photos in my phone that I put in a locked folder and a glove he threw at me when he wanted a rematch to a duel that I carry with me everywhere.’
Yeah, not normal.
So, Akira answered. “He got caught in a really bad crowd before I met him. I wanted to save him so bad, and maybe he did too, but I think it was too late by the time I met him. Not with how deep in he was.”
“…It’s honestly scary how similar our stories are, Barista-san.”
“Akira.” He corrected. “Akira Kurusu.”
The stranger flinched at his name. Odd, his name wasn’t really weird, was it? Did it remind him of his friend? “You can just call me Ryuzaki.” He took another sip of his coffee, cooled enough to drink without burning his mouth before continuing. “It was nice to talk to you, though I don’t know how much it will help me in the long run.”
Akira smiled at Ryuzaki. “Hey, it’ll get better. You should’ve seen me when I just lost him; I barely went out of my room other than for school, I was practically inconsolable. But hey, if I can survive, you surely can.”
Ryuzaki in turn gave him a sad look in his eyes with his smirk saying the opposite. “I don’t know if I’ll have enough time for something like that, but thank you for the reassurance, Kurusu-san.”
And when the world froze, Akira’s blood ran cold.
I am thou... Thou art I...
Thou hast acquired a new vow...
It shall lead thou through the paths of time
To further the schemes of rebirth.
With the birth of the Jester Persona
I have obtained the winds of guidance that
shall lead to resurgence and new power...
What the fuck?
No, no, really.
What. The. Fuck?
I thought I was done with this Persona business! He thought. Sure, the Metaverse returned during summer, but even then, he didn’t make any new bonds! So why the hell was that voice returning in his head? And was the speech different? Akira definitely remembered the word ‘rebellion’ and not ‘rebirth’ from the last time. What the hell is that supposed to mean?
The world soon unfroze itself in time for Ryuzaki to finish up his coffee and reach into his pocket for the payment. “Thank you again for the talk, Kurusu-san. I feel a little lighter talking about this, and I’ll be sure to recommend this café to any coworkers visiting Japan.”
The man stood up and reached for the exit before Akira yelled. “Hey, wait, you’ll get drenched!”
Ryuzaki looked back slightly. “It’s alright, Kurusu-san. There’s no need to be concerned over someone like me anymore.”
And just like that he left.
Well, that was one of the more memorable customer experiences. He looked at the time, realizing he should probably close up now. He put his hand outside quickly to change the sign from open to closed and locked up, folding his apron and putting it under the counter.
He stretched as he went upstairs, seeing Morgana sat on his table playing with some yarn. The not-cat stopped and went to the bed, thinking that it was time for bed. He changed into his pajamas and threw himself onto the bed, careful not to crush Morgana.
That conversation made him remember and yearn for that locked folder. There were seven photos, one for every one of their little ‘dates’ that he took while Akechi wasn’t looking. He wasn’t posing for a cover of a magazine or doing some kind of interview; he was just with Akira.
Of course, he knew Akechi played his prince persona while still with him, but he knew there were some cracks to that mask he put up while they were together. He stared at the photo of him looking at fish in the aquarium with a warm smile.
Akira smiled to himself, remembering all those fish facts Akechi infodumped onto him that he probably looked up the night before just to impress him. Seriously, did Akechi really believe that Akira would fall for the obvious lie of ‘my coworker gave me these two tickets’?
He really didn’t need to do that; Akira was enamored enough as is.
Morgana noticed him looking at the photo for too long he tapped his face. “Hey, why are you looking at those?”
He knew the not-cat was worried but he shrugged. “Nothing. I just had a chat with a customer since he just went through something similar to what happened between me and Akechi.”
Morgana chuckled. “Yeah, I don’t think that customer experienced anything weird or supernatural.”
“Oh hush, you know what I mean.” He closed the photo app and sighed deeply, pulling the covers over himself.
Morgana snuggled around his chest in an attempt to comfort him. “You know you have to move on at some point, right? It’s almost been a year.”
Akira rolled his eyes. “I’m not…ugh, it’s complicated, alright?”
Morgana wasn’t there. He wasn’t there when he had to look at a dead man he loved plead with him to move on, to forget about him. Because how could he? When Akechi came back that Christmas Eve, he was at such a loss for words. Akira wanted to tell him he was sorry for his death, that he wanted to start over and become friends, actual friends.
And maybe more, but he wasn’t going to admit that.
So when he found out he was the reason Akechi was back, he wanted to be so selfish. He would’ve honest to god taken that deal if he didn’t see the sorrow in Akechi’s eyes that night.
Please, he saw. Please let me go.
And so he did.
And the world moved on like nothing happened.
And the world moved on like Goro Akechi never existed.
But he remembered.
Unfortunately.
He managed to fall asleep, a little restless but it’s nothing he couldn’t handle.
But when he woke up, he was back in the Velvet Room.