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muzzleroars · 4 years

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tell us more abt the bad end akira and goro relationship after it all........

(this is a bit of newer ask but since i posted reformed bad end art tonight, i uhhh...figured i should answer!!)

SO the reformed path of my bad end au is...honestly...VERY self-indulgent and just out of my own curiosity. initially i thought it up because i don’t like character death and akira dying in my bad end au, while i considered it “canon”, bummed me out and i wanted to think about what his recovery would be like instead should the thieves be able to save him. HOWEVER...the events of the third semester in p5r along with the shuake dynamics it presents made me think a lot more on the idea and i wanted to pursue it more concretely in that context!! so!!

MAJOR P5R SPOILERS UNDER THE READ MORE!!

things between akira and goro in this path of the au are...tense, strained, and generally complicated given their positions. akira has had his heart partially restored by the bonds he created with the thieves and by reuniting with arsene, but he isn’t who he once was. his memories are fractured, hazy, and still mostly absent, and while some of his mannerisms have returned, he’s still overly rigid and operates most comfortably in very defined parameters. he is, essentially, a being that is fused with the metaverse, with yaldabaoth, and so he still remains inhuman without hope of salvage, still impacted by cognitions and unable to survive in reality for any long period of time (he has taken up residence in the velvet room). he does experience an implicit trust of the thieves and his confidants and he is endlessly fascinated by humans and his own previous life as one, but stress can cause him to lapse into his ideals under yaldabaoth to almost totally forget himself until he can snap to again (and he’s always embarrassed by his behavior).

this limbo state, a nonhuman that was once human and only really emotionally remembers his friends and loved ones, causes both akira and goro to feel oddly split from each other. goro is left with the burden of every memory, the rivalry that turned into something neither of them expected nor perhaps even wanted but ran to without reservation, how they fell in love when they were meant to destroy each other. akira has a sense of something special with goro, different than his other friends, but only goro remembers them competing at darts, only he remembers sharing a coffee or cake with him, only he remembers the promise they made to see who could be the very best between them. goro can recall every word, touch, and kiss exchanged between them after their games and their fights, but it’s all reduced to a curiosity to akira: human competition, human romance, it’s things he’s forgotten and looks at like an academic almost, sterile and without attachment. and yet...when goro speaks with him and closes his eyes to that blinding white that coats him now, he hears akira, the akira he knew and fell in love with. he’s surprising him again with his observations and witticisms, his whip-smart intelligence is back, his bizarre and off the wall sense of humor is even returning in shades. he plays with him, he says things he knows will push goro’s buttons or fire him up and he knows it full-well, but most importantly, his ideals are there again, flickering and faltering sometimes, but he corrects himself of his own accord when they do. he doesn’t remember so much, their history, he isn’t even human and there’s so much he can’t understand that goro knows was once instinct, and yet akira is there.

and it hurts him so much that akira had so failed him, that he even let himself become this, that he was so weak he let himself become a puppet...but didn’t goro once do the same? it’s so painful to know akira could be as weak as him, the boy he so admired for being so free, so unfettered and so sure of himself, that even he could fall the same and let himself be tricked with such obvious manipulation. it shatters that perfect illusion, leaving akira more vulnerable than goro wanted to admit, and it both strengthens and softens that “hate” he had for him. he hates seeing him be so stupid and so pitiful, but it makes him less ideal, so much more like goro in so many ways. coupled with his lost memories, this is what drives goro’s complex feelings toward him now: he isn’t akira, not who he once was in reality and not who he once was in goro’s mind, but he is so unabashedly akira too, raw and real and not whole but flawed and carving his path forward again. goro sees him struggle, watches him suffer under this curse of his lost humanity, the loss of his memories and his own hatred for his choices...but he never excuses them. he owns what he did and presses forward in whatever he can achieve now, wanting to be human again even if he never can be, wanting to use his new position in whatever way he can to strive for better. his fire, his strength of character, and his resolve are all there, tempered by terrible mistakes to do better next time.

and for akira’s part, he recognizes he and goro had something different together, his trust of him is different. he’s still working on processing emotions and he doesn’t understand what he feels for goro, no memories to guide him and so used to feeling nothing but righteousness and occasional hysteria. but as a being of cognition, he knows goro feels erratic near him, toward him, emotions volatile and oscillating in a way that troubles akira to the point of feeling unstable himself. it makes him keep his distance for both of their sakes, still operating based more on logic than human emotion as yaldabaoth had instilled in him: if his presence causes distress, it is best they not meet as it will, without doubt, cause suffering for goro. but being apart from goro seems to cause suffering on his end...an emptiness that he struggles to define and one that goro feels as well despite his frustration at being in love with a ghost.

all of this hesitation is put to the side, however, when something goes wrong with reality - akira begins getting nagging headaches that come with the distinct feeling of the metaverse returning. he’s rattled enough that the metaverse has survived yaldabaoth’s defeat, but possibly more worrying, to him, is the fact that he feels a sense of disconnect from mementos. he is fused with the metaverse and so should never feel as much, yet he feels severed from the cognitions of others and the very scenery of mementos which once existed as an extension of himself. he attempts to reach out to the thieves about it in their dreams via the velvet room, but none of them share his concern and even brush it off...without prompting, however, goro comes to him with similar concerns, the metanav back on his phone and demanding answers from akira. but when he sees akira is clearly shaken too, when akira claims without a single doubt this has nothing to do with himself or yaldabaoth, goro takes him along with him back to reality as a test based on his own suspicions. they find akira can exist just fine there, no exhaustion gripping him as it should when he tries to venture into reality, so goro already knows the metaverse must have fused with reality before akira can even confirm it. AND SO the last piece i drew of them was actually them on the train to odaiba, where akira’s headaches get increasingly worse until they reach the palace there. it’s appears very similar to a safe room to akira, where the palace and the stadium are vying for the same place in space while goro and sumi see the palace’s hazy form. they know they have to investigate, and it’s there that they meet with maruki, of course, who akira feels immediate pity for given how similar his position seems to be to what akira’s own once was. however, maruki says they only reject his reality because he’s still working on their dreams...they’re just a little more difficult to manage, but don’t worry - they’ll be saved too

#BASICALLY neither of them are good with emotions lmao #just in totally different ways and it's hard for them to process #also i'll be making a comic based on where i left off here #i have the script for it so i'll be starting it soon #SORRY THIS WAS LONG I HAVE FEELINGS...#p5 #p5r #akira kurusu #goro akechi #shuake #bad end #p5r spoilers #persona 5 royal spoilers #Anonymous

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