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Studying Joker in a fight only leaves Akechi with more questions. The others are easier to read- Ann and Carmen, the complications of sensuality as weapon, lure, and endangerment; Morgana’s Zorro is the strapping, dashing image of the masculinity and humanity he’s lost; Johanna is Makoto’s persecuted good girl complex wrapped in the body of the motorcycle she wishes she was rebellious enough to ride in real life. He could go on, and on… He knows what Robin Hood (and Loki, too) say about the liar-hero-monster he sees in the mirror. But Joker…
Joker is on his sixth Persona this afternoon alone. He flicks through them like playing cards, drawing the right one forward for whatever advantage is needed.
Joker strikes up small talk with Shadows at gunpoint, because Joker can talk to anyone. Sometimes he gets money, or items, but sometimes Shadows become new masks, new pieces of him.
“I don’t know how you can do it,” Akechi muses, shaking his head.
Joker shrugs as he joins Akechi, leaning against a railing to stare across the bustling casino floor. “I mean, it’s like the Shadows say. They’re part of humanity, drops in the sea of souls. They aren’t monsters.”
“I wonder what that makes Niijima-san’s Shadow?” Akechi cocks his head. “Would that make her, and all other palace rulers as well, Personas lying in wait?”
Joker turns the question over before answering. “Something like that happened with Futaba’s Shadow, I think.”
“Fascinating stuff.” Akechi heaves a theatrical TV-interview sigh. “Pity we won’t have a chance to explore it further once this is all over.”
“Door’s open if you change your mind on making us disband. You could always join up instead.”
“That won’t be happening.”
They’ve gotten off topic. Akechi lets the conversation lapse into the sort of comfortable silence Joker nurtures so well. The color and clamor of the casino is words enough to make standing silently beside each other feel like a conversation.
“I’ve been trying to figure out which one was your first,” Akechi ventures after he feels he’s let the conversation rest long enough. “I thought for a while it might have been Seth, but that’s not it, is it?”
Joker’s facade of calm falters for just a moment. Akechi pushes on the crack.
“In fact, I haven’t seen you pull out Seth at all today.” Tone light and airy, like he doesn’t know he’s pressing on a nerve, baiting a trap. This isn’t the parlor scene, but it is how he lines up the pieces for the big reveal. “So, which was your first?”
Joker fiddles with his bangs, a convenient way to hide his face from Akechi’s innocent probing questions. “He’s… He’s still part of me, even if I had to fuse him away.”
“Fuse?”
“It’s… how I get new Personas. I usually do it before we start a day of infiltration, but you probably haven’t noticed-“
“Is that what you’re doing?!” Akechi can’t help his tone. Joker’s habit of staring blankly into space while everyone else pretends they haven’t been standing around like idiots… were the other Phantom Thieves truly oblivious to it?
Joker looks just as shocked. “You can tell how long it takes?”
“I thought maybe you were all playing a joke at my expense.”
Joker laughs. “Well, the others don’t notice. Not even Mona. I go somewhere else mentally, and there I can execute my Personas to make them stronger or create new ones.”
Execute. The word lands harder than Joker means it to, and Akechi’s gut twists so tightly with revulsion, shock, and delight that it squeezes a sharp, genuine cackle out of him. Joker not only befriends new facades, he kills, fuses, and remakes the pieces of himself on the daily, makes new faces to fit every person, every situation. He destroyed his first, most inner self. Even watching Loki crawl out of Robin Hood’s eyes wasn’t that directly, callously destructive.
“My apologies,” he says, trying to contain his wicked mirth back into the proper face of Goro Akechi, Detective Price™. “You just- it’s a bit of a surprise. You’re so nurturing to the other Phantom Thieves. Odd to hear you’d be so cruel to yourself.”
Joker doesn’t have an answer for that.
“You take all these pieces of other people into you, and then you throw them away when they no longer serve a purpose… How do you divorce that much of yourself from you?” Akechi leans closer, the crimson beak of his mask nearly touching Joker’s face. That little domino mask of his is a joke, worthless for hiding his identity from anyone who knows him. “That mask of yours does so little to hide your face, but I can’t help but wonder… Who are you behind it, Joker?”
“Crow…” His voice is strangled. The dark eyes behind his mask dart to the side, as though he doesn’t know the answer. “I…”
“Ah, forgive me. That was rather rude.” Akechi turns away, pushing away from the railing as he does so. “This is all just so new and intriguing, I can’t help but stick my nose into the big questions. It’s simply in my nature.” He glances over his shoulder to where Joker still stands, hands gripping the balcony railing and face pale. “Shall we go catch up with the others? I’m sure Mona and Queen have finished their reconnaissance by now, and they’ll be eager for your guidance.”
Akechi pretends he doesn’t see the hand Joker extends to him as he turns away again. Who, indeed, are they behind the masks they invent?