ryuji: you need a nickname, bro

akira:

>sure...?

>do i.

>hell yeah !!

ryuji: yeah man!! we’re buds!! how about— uh— kira...?

akira:

> no

> no

> no

Trespass

Morgana fumbled with the buttons on the phone's side until it went black; the last message he saw was Ryuji's frustrated apology, but the dots appearing and disappearing beneath Ren's icon weren't promising. As much as Morgana wanted to understand Ren's thought process after their...apparently disastrous reconnaissance of his Palace, Futaba had been on edge as soon as Ren stated he knew what they had done. Once he'd mentioned her part in that day, the girl had crumbled. She was now curled up on her bed with her face pressed into her knees. "He hates us," she wailed. "He ha-hates me, and he's st-still... Hi-his sh-shadow wasn't right..." "It wasn't violent, at least," Morgana mumbled, but that was the only reassurance he had to offer. Ren's shadow hadn't been like any of the other Palace rulers. He hadn't taunted them that they'd never be able to take his treasure like most. Rather, the instant Ren's shadow spotted them, he'd been terrified. "Why...why did you come here? What did he do wrong?" The way Ren's shadow shrank away from them had thrown everyone off; even Futaba's shadow hadn't been so plainly afraid. Makoto had stepped forward, trying to reassure him that Ren had done nothing wrong, that they were just alarmed he had a Palace, but the shadow had been too agitated to hear her out. "So what? You want to send me back to that prison? I won't go! I won't! I'll..." The shadow had stumbled in its words, then laughed, trembling. "I'll go back to my real self... is that what you want? He was right, after all." "Right about what?" The golden eyes of Ren's shadow had looked so hopeless as he stared at them.

Someone buzzed the Sakura residence's buzzer, and Morgana's ears pricked up as Sojiro answered the door. He hoped that in the time Futaba had held onto him and cried out a mix of guilt, worry, and fear, Ren had calmed down and was now willing to talk. Morgana was more than willing to apologize. They'd only wanted to help Ren, but it was obvious they'd made a misjudgment. A serious one. But the voice that answered Sojiro wasn't Ren's, and Morgana's heart sank. He still pulled himself out of Futaba's loose hold. "Come in," he told Yusuke after the boy knocked on the door to Futaba's bedroom. "Futaba, are you--ah." Yusuke stopped momentarily as he registered that the girl in question was asleep, loosely sprawled out on the top of her bed. She snuffled weakly in her sleep. "I was nearby and thought I would see how Futaba was coping. It would appear the answer is that she's not." "Give her a little time," Morgana murmured. "We were all holding out hope that this would still be a normal change of heart." They hadn't known what else to make of Arsene fleeing back to Ren of his own volition, not even attempting to defend his Treasure, and the brief radio silence afterward had seemed to fit the pattern of previous changes. Now Morgana had to wonder if Ren had asked him to let him be alone because he couldn't stand the sight of him. "Is Ren still...?" "Seething?" Yusuke finished for Morgana. Closing the door behind him, the lanky artist took a seat in Futaba's computer chair. "I imagine you'll be staying with Futaba for a few more days, at the very least." "The very least, huh..." Staying at the Sakura residence wasn't actually all that bad--it might even be considered a step up from having been cooped up in the attic with Ren, since he could talk all he wanted and roam around a larger space without worrying about customers--but Morgana didn't like the thought of Ren being all alone, especially when he'd been neglecting himself in recent weeks. And the thought of Ren hating him was a miserable one. "If I have any good news for you, it would be that Ren has stated he's willing to continue working with us for Shido's change of heart." Yusuke fished his phone out of his pocket and flicked his thumb over the screen. "However, he is adamant we consider him an ally for this mission, and this mission alone. He is not a member of the Phantom Thieves, let alone its leader, because if he were, the rest of us wouldn't have broken one of our fundamental rules." "The unanimous vote," Morgana muttered, his ears drooping flat. "We thought it might be dangerous to upset him by telling him about the Palace..." "Haru and Ann tried to explain the reasoning to him. Several times," Yusuke said flatly. "He's unwilling to hear it. ...With the way Arsene returned to him, I have to wonder. It might be that he couldn't believe us even if he wanted to." "...I don't know," Morgana admitted. "After knowing Akechi, we know for sure that someone can have a Persona while still acting in a distorted manner...and it sounded like...Arsene had come to an agreement of sorts, with Ren..." "Even you aren't safe." Morgana winced. Yusuke gave a humorless chuckle. "So rather than eliminate a harmful distortion, we confirmed it with our intrusion. We were careless with the heart of our leader.... now we get to pay the price." He took a deep breath and sighed. "He has every right to be angry. Not only did we break the rule of the unanimous vote, but Ren was the only victim of the distortion we know of. He may have been distancing himself from the rest of us, but we've no ground to claim harm, no matter how upsetting we found it. As both the sole victim and a Phantom Thief, Ren ought to have been consulted." "He might have gotten upset with us then, too. He might have told us not to go." "And it would have been his right. Respecting his choice and privacy might have led us to a better outcome." Morgana couldn't argue that. The path they had chosen had led to this disaster. More than a miscalculation, they had seriously hurt Ren. He kneaded the blanket on Futaba's bed for a minute, thinking deeply. "...How do we make it up to him?" "We work with him on Shido's Palace," Yusuke said. "We hope that taking care of that man will at least help Ren shed some of his burden and help him open back up, and we wait for him to give us a second chance." "You're being so calm about this," Morgana muttered. "He's going back home in a couple months. What if he doesn't forgive us before then? What if he just leaves and...that's it? Don't tell me you'd be okay with that." "Of course I wouldn't," Yusuke retorted. "Ren helped save me. He has been an inspiration to me in dark times. The thought that I may have hurt him when I wanted to help him is...aggravating, to say the least. I'm not sure I can forgive myself if he does not. But we have already trespassed in his heart once, Morgana." Yusuke shook his head. "It would be foolish to expect him to simply invite us in again."