Chapter Text
“This is where your justice ends.”
BANG
When Ren opens his eyes, he finds himself standing in the middle of an unfamiliar apartment.
He tries to recall where he is or how he came to be here, and to his concern, finds he can’t. His mind is groggy and when he attempts to remember what happened to him last, all he finds are flashes of a long interrogation with Sae Nijima. But she had left before they could come to any kind of resolution...
“There’s much more I’d like to ask, but my allotted time is nearly up.”
And then...someone else had come in...who had it been? Ren tries to remember...
“I owe you for all this...Thanks.”
He shakes his head, as if that could somehow clear the fog in his mind.
With his memory failing him, he looks around, hoping for a clue as to where he is. It’s dark, both outside and inside the apartment. The only light in the room comes from the ever bright city lights that shine through a large, floor to ceiling window.
The apartment itself is a decent size for a city home. Though the furnishing is what Ren would consider minimalistic at best, barely livable at worst. There’s no real clutter or mess, besides a jacket and a near empty bottle on the kitchen counter.
As he inspects his surroundings, his eyes catch on the back of the sofa, where someone’s head is peeking over the top. Ren quickly makes his way over, hoping that whoever it is has some answers for him.
His eyes widen when he sees that it’s Akechi sitting there.
“...vital to our plan. And now, it will be completed.”
Ren is about to call out to him but he hesitates. Something is off.
Akechi doesn’t seem to notice him standing there, despite him being in his periphery. Instead, the boy is staring blankly at the ceiling, striped neck-tie loosened around his neck and face paler than usual.
Ren watches him, trying to read the detective’s expression. There's a certain kind of beauty in the way he looks, handsome face dimly illuminated by the city glow streaming in through the window. But his eyes...his eyes were empty. Eerily vacant. If it wasn't for the subtle rising and falling of his chest, Ren might think Akechi were dead.
The usually observant detective still hasn’t shown any indication that he was aware of his presence, so Ren calls out to him, voice hushed. “Akechi?”
Ren almost jumps with how suddenly the boy’s eyes dart over to him. For a moment, it’s just the two of them staring at each other, before Akechi gives him a panicked look and turns away again, burying his face in his shaky hands and threading his hair through his fingers.
“Fucking……can’t……must…hallucinating.”
Ren hears odd words that he’s mumbling to himself, but he can’t figure out what the detective is talking about.
“Akechi, what’s going on? What’s wrong?” Ren pushes. He needs answers, though he still keeps his voice soft in an attempt to not spook the detective any further.
Something was clearly off about him. For one, Akechi seems unusually jumpy, but he also...he looks sad. The only time Ren can recall seeing such an expression on him was when the young detective had told him the details of his mother and childhood in the bathhouse.
“Akechi, please. I...can you tell me how we got here? All I remember is…”
The smell of blood in the air and the cold of metal on his wrists. Akechi’s snarling smirk as he aims the gun, looks directly into his eyes and-
The sound of a gunshot.
Ren clutches his head as a shadow of pain pierces through it at the memory. No, it can’t be a memory...if it’s a memory then…
He brushes the centre of his forehead with his fingertips…
Ren lifts his gaze up to look over at Akechi again. The detective stares back at him now, his initial surprise seems to have finally dissipated, leaving behind a melancholic look that soon contorts into a distressed smile. Akechi lets out a near hysterical laugh.
“No.” He says, voice strangely shaky. “You can’t...you can’t be…I’m just hallucinating, that has to be it.” He says.
“Akechi?” Ren is still confused. He was thinking that perhaps his memory of the interrogation room was off. That maybe Akechi had come to rescue him, to whisk him away to safety and that’s why they’re in what he assumes is Akechi’s apartment. That aiming the gun at his forehead had been some sort of horrible joke. But the Akechi in front of him, here and now, was looking at him as if he was seeing a ghost. As if Ren should be…
The realisation hits Ren in waves.
The tapped phone call, the plan…
He had forgotten. Too out of it from the drugs and beating to remember. Sae had left without the phone. He saw Akechi enter the room...which meant…
The plan failed.
The plan failed and he’s dead .
And if he’s dead, then the only reason he’s here, the only possibility remaining is because...
He looks at Akechi, taking a cautious step forward. “We’re s-”
Akechi jumps up. “Don’t.” He snarls, cutting him off before he can say it.
Akira winces at the harsh denial. “Akechi…”
Ren understood now. He knew, as everyone does, that when your soulmate dies, their spirit stays with you. Fated to be together, forever and always.
Ren is dead and he’s here because he’s returned to his soulmate. Even without saying it, he knows Akechi has drawn the same conclusion. It’s the only logical answer.
“Of course. Of fucking course it’s you.” Akechi growls at him, painfully angry and sorrowful in equal measures. Ren can see the tremors rolling through him, as he clenches his hands into fists and his eyes glimmer. He lets out a pitiful laugh that morphs into a sob. “Of course I’d kill my own fucking soulmate . Of course it’s you. ”
Ren flinches at the venomous emphasis on ‘you’. His head feels fuzzy with the overwhelming emotions whirling through him that the admission brings forth.
He’s dead. He failed. Their grand plan to outsmart Akechi at his own game...he had failed. Too damn hopped up on whatever ‘truth serum’ they gave him. Unhelpfully, he remembers now of course. Remembers how he was supposed to win Sae over and give her the phone so that he could survive this. He wonders if his friends knew that he was actually, truly dead yet, or if they were still waiting. Still hopeful that Sae Niijima would bring him back to LeBlanc, beaten and bruised, but still breathing. A sad yearning to return home to the cafe, to return to his found family, swells in his heart. But he can’t of course. He’s tethered to Akechi now and he imagines LeBlanc is the last place Akechi wants to go right now.
And there’s that to process too, of course. Goro Akechi, Ace Detective, perpetrator of the mass mental shutdowns.
His murderer and his soulmate both.