Chapter Text
Futaba hasn't left her room for a week and a half when Ann, Ryuji, and Yusuke come to ambush her there. They're very serious about it, too. When they knock on the front door and she doesn't leave her room to let them in, they get Sojiro to call her. And when she doesn't pick up the phone for Sojiro, they hoist Ann in through her window.
The older girl falls with a thump onto the floor. Futaba stares at her. Ann sighs and stands up, brushing off her skirt and sighing. Futaba keeps staring.
"You have a Palace," Ann says, without preamble. "Joker told us about it, and we want to change your heart. But we don't want to do it without talking to you first."
Futaba eases her way back onto her chair, pulling her feet up onto the seat and wrapping her arms around her knees. "I know," she says.
Ann moves a pile of junk off Futaba's bed, and sits down. "You… know you have a Palace?" she asks.
Futaba tries to nod and shrug at the same time, but her knees get in the way of both of them, and she just knocks her chin on her knees instead. "I kind of figured," she says. "It all makes sense that way. The fact that I can't get a Persona. The way I feel all the time."
"We can change your heart," Yusuke says. "And then maybe you wouldn't have to feel like that anymore."
"Yeah," Futaba says. She stares at her knees as hard as she can, and tries not to think about how it might feel to not have this… thing in her head, keeping her from going out with everyone else. Because maybe it would work and maybe it wouldn't, and what does she do if she doesn't feel better after? If stealing her Treasure doesn't do anything, what's her next choice after that? What if it just makes her confess how awful she feels all the time, and doesn't actually get rid of anything else?
And even if it does work, all her friends will have seen the inside of her heart, and Futaba isn't sure if she's that desperate yet.
"Look," Ryuji says. "If you don't want us to try it, that's fine, but we can. And maybe you'd even feel better."
"Maybe I would," Futaba says. "But…"
"We want to help," Ryuji says. "You know that, yeah?"
Futaba opens her mouth, but finds herself struck mute. The words just won't come out.
"You're our friend," Ryujij says. "And we're not a big group. Joker's still a big mystery and I don't even know where he is when he's not hanging around in Palaces. We can't afford to lose anyone else."
"Especially when it's you," Ann adds.
"Especially me?" Futaba asks doubtfully, the words coming out at last, but only at the very quietest possible volume.
"You're our friend," Ann says.
"I said that already," Ryuji mutters, and Ann elbows him.
"But…" Futaba hesitates. "We might not be after you see what's really in my heart."
Nobody says anything in answer to that. They give her time and space to think, and Futaba appreciates that because she needs it. She thinks, and worries, and at the end she says, "Well—maybe we could try and find my keywords."
"We could definitely start there," Ann says encouragingly.
"We've already figured out one of them," Yusuke says. "This house is the location."
Futaba nods. That makes sense, considering how hard it is to leave it. "And obviously the Palace Ruler is… well, it's me."
"So that just leaves the distortion," Yusuke says. "I'm fairly sure Joker knows it, if you aren't sure."
"He made it sound like he's been there before," Ann explains to Futaba. "He just did it in whatever weird way he has, so he doesn't know how we can get in."
"But he'd be able to tell us what it looks like," Futaba says.
"Well," Ryuji says. "Yeah. Unless you want to do it first."
Futaba thinks again. For a very long time. Then she says, "This room is a tomb. Joker's… probably seen that." So it feels safer to confess. One friend has already seen it, and hasn't given up. Maybe… maybe she can tell the others and they won't laugh either. Maybe she can even live with it if they go in.
"So those are our keywords," Ann says. "Your name, this house, and… tomb."
Futaba nods. "I think so," she says. "Probably." Then, "Yes."
"Only thing left is getting your okay to do it then," Ryuji says. "I figure you probably won't want to come with us, but is it okay with you if we go in and change your heart?"
Futaba doesn't give herself time to think about it. If she does, she'll chicken out. "Yeah," she says. "But—no, you're wrong."
"Uh," Ryuji says. "Which is i—"
"Yes I do want you to go," Futaba says. "But no, you're wrong, I don't want to stay behind." The only thing that could possibly be worse than her friends going through her Palace, is them going through it without her there. Otherwise she'll just be sitting here, stuck all on her own, wondering what they're doing. And seeing.
And because her friends are as insane as she is, no one even argues that maybe she shouldn't go inside her own heart. Ryuji just says "Yeah, okay," and that's the end of that. Ann suggests a date later in the week that almost gives Futaba a heart attack because it feels way too soon, Yusuke says that he has an art project due the day after, and they agree to postpone until Saturday.
Futaba breathes a sigh of relief, grateful that she isn't going to have to be the one to ask for everyone else to wait. She can do this. She has a few days to figure out how, and then… yeah. She'll go with everyone else into her Palace.
The rest of the group doesn't stay too much longer after that, which is kind of a relief because Futaba wants to lie facedown on her bed for at least an hour or two or ten, and because… she knows they're coming back. On Saturday. Yeah. She can do that.
Yusuke is the last one to leave. When Ryuji and Ann have already left and are in the hall, talking about something Futaba isn't entirely listening to, he pauses in the doorway, turns around to face her, and says very seriously, "I don't have any projects due this week."
"Oh?" Futaba says.
He shakes his head no.
"Oh," Futaba says, a little more sadly this time. Because that means… he'd lied for her.
(…and that is—)
(Well, actually, that doesn't feel bad)
(That feels like something a friend would notice, and try to help with)
"Thanks," she says.
Yusuke nods, and leaves, and Futaba is alone but she really doesn't feel alone.
It's a feeling she's half forgetten she could have.
It's… nice. To be reminded.
-//-
Akira is being blackmailed.
That feels ridiculous in the circumstances, even to him, but that's what's happening. Ever since he'd been caught stealing allergy medicine, Kanzaki has been slowly wearing him down into nothing.
On better days, when Kanzaki is busy with other things, actually doing his administration work. Or maybe bothering someone else—Akira doesn't know who else he might have dirt on, but he's pretty sure this isn't his first time blackmailing some of the kids here. He's sure been doing a good job with Akira.
Then again, Akira has something most other people here don't.
He has Morgana, an actual friend, here of all places. And while Akira thinks—hopes—that he'd be able to deal with being blackmailed if Kanzaki's threats were against him, he doesn't want Morgana to get hurt.
So he… spies for Kanzaki. Tells him things about other kids here. Plants stuff on them that they're not supposed to have, so that Kanzaki can find it later, and make a show out of finding his way straight to the contraband.
Akira hates it. This isn't him. He's doing things that are really hurting other people, most of whom he barely even knows—like him, every other kid has been arrested, and found to be not quite delinquent enough to be sent to a more typical juvenielle prison. But that can change, with demonstrated and continued bad behavior. There are people his age that have been kicked out of this facility and sent on to worse places. Because of him. Because of what Kanzaki has asked him—told him—to do.
And there's absolutely nothing Akira can do about it.
But isn't it better, he keeps asking himself, to keep that from happening to Morgana? Even if it has to happen to somebody else instead?
Isn't it worth it?
Isn't he doing what he has to do, to keep his friend safe?
Morgana has no idea what he's doing, of course. Akira has gotten pretty good at finding chances to sneak around and do what Kanzaki tells him to, without ever letting Morgana realize that something's wrong. Sometimes Akira wonders what the younger boy would think if he knew, and—well, he never wonders for long, because the answer is obvious.
Morgana would be upset and disappointed. Outraged. Of course he would, because who wouldn't be?
What Akira's doing is objectively wrong.
And he's doing it anyway?
What does that say about him?
It's getting harder to see the good in the world, and in himself.
-//-
Joker isn't surprised when the rest of the group finds the keywords for Oracle's Palace. Of course they're going to help her. She's one of them, and they're a team. Teammates don't leave anyone behind. He's not going to leave anyone behind, either—he's going to do whatever it takes to make sure that his friend's safe. Even if…
Well, even if someone might end up hurt, on the other side.
Even if that someone is him.
(He doesn't know what he would have done if the cost of helping Oracle had been hurting someone else, but he can hurt himself, he can live with that, and it's fine)
Oracle's Shadow knows who he is. What he is. And Oracle is going to awaken that Shadow to a Persona, isn't she? She's too strong to walk away without managing that, so… she'll know what he is too. They won't be seperated anymore.
Joker's secret will be out.
Not 'out' the way it is with Fox, who might or might not know, Joker genuinely can't tell, but also doesn't seem to mind. Oracle is more practical, and she's going to care. She's been paying attention since the beginning, she knows what a Shadow is. They're different from humans.
Joker is different from humans.
He's incomplete, he's not like them, he's…
(Frustrated)
(Angry)
(There's a drumbeat somewhere in the back of his head, getting harder to drown out all the time, and he misses the person he's meant to belong to with a fiery strength that ignores how Joker doesn't even know him)
And it's while Joker is at the swirling vortex of all these hurt, angry feelings that Crow arrives.
Joker's on him in an instant, relieved to have someone here for all these feelings he can't voice out loud. They've fought often in the past, it's a language they both understand, and Joker has so much chained up, pent in energy trapped inside him today that he barely knows what to do with himself. He lunges at Crow with a knife in hand, and Crow fights back after barely a second to process. He doesn't seem surprised—this is hardly the first time they've fought—and they slip into a familiar back and forth of violence until Crow finally backs Joker up against a wall.
Crow has a hand on his mask, Loki rising up over his shoulders, and Joker is hunched forward, almost snarling. He doesn't know what to do with the anxious, twisting feeling that's been sinking deeper into him over the past few days, and would very much like to keep fighting and fighting, to give into every instinct so that he can chase his thoughts away, instead facing them head on.
But Loki is giving him a look of absolute smug superiority, and that pierces right through the base levels of anger Joker is trying desperately to cling onto. Crow might not know what he is, but Loki absolutely does.
(He can see Joker's truth, how unwanted, unneeded he is, all the abandoned, pushed away feelings of an other self who won't even come for him, pathetic and pretending to be human)
"Fine," Joker says, sliding his knife into its sheath with a flick of his wrist, dropping out of his fighting pose, turning away from Crow in the best performance of disdain he can manage. "You win this one."
Crow doesn't say anything for a few seconds. Joker doesn't look at him. Now that the fight is over, he feels strangely unsatisfied. Ashamed. He doesn't want to look at Crow and let him see how deeply effected he is.
(He hates it)
(This isn't him)
"What was that?" Crow snaps.
"Nothing," Joker answers, without turning to look at him. "Forget about it. It didn't matter."
"You attacked me out of nowhere," Crow says, voice rising in anger. "What do you mean it didn't mat—"
Joker takes a deep breath, fixing his mask in place over his soul the way it sits on his face, and spins around to face Crow. This restless anger isn't serving him, and Crow isn't going to let it drop. Joker doesn't know what to do, he doesn't understand people, but he knows how to be himself, and so that's what he does.
"I thought you liked a good fight," he says, voice teasing, smile back in place. Underneath it all the confusion and anger and fear still swirl and roil away, the unresolved dread over what's going to happen in Oracle's Palace eating at him, but he doesn't show an ounce of it. "You've always seemed to like it before."
Crow stumbles over his answer. Joker's disarmed him, by the sudden change in attitude maybe, or the smile, or maybe just because Crow has always been easy to rattle. Joker can see flashes of anger chasing each other across his face, one after another, building up to Crow finally saying--
"Something's wrong with you."
Joker blinks behind his mask. He doesn't want Crow to say that. He doesn't want him to notice. Crow usually doesn't, because unlike the Phantom Thieves, Joker's pretty sure Crow doesn't care about him. It's what makes it easier for Joker to care, darting in and out of Crow's life without ever caring. It's fun. It's a game.
(...no, that's not true)
(He's just scared, and angry, and he doesn't want to have to think about it)
"Sorry," he says, letting the smile drop off his face. It feels like he'd only been pretending anyway. "There's a lot going on."
Crow scoffs. Joker doesn't look at him. It's easier not to. They don't usually talk like this, and he's pretty sure Crow is as out of his depth as Joker himself is right now.
"You should go home," Crow says, after a while. "Get some sleep or something. You look like death warmed over."
"Thanks," Joker says, on autopilot.
"You're human too," Crow says, rolling his eyes, and luckily missing the flinch Joker doesn't quite manage to hide. "Nothing wrong with needing to take care of yourself."
"If that's true," Joker says (and he has no idea if it is), "You should take your own advice. Half the time I can't tell if you've slept in weeks."
Crow scoffs, and gets offended, but says, "Fine. We'll both leave."
Maybe Joker had been accidentally right. That's lucky. He isn't human, and isn't very good at reading people that are. "Okay," he says. "Sure. You first."
Crow scoffs at him, but doesn't argue. He pulls out his phone, and a few seconds later, is gone.
Joker stands there for a few seconds, breathing in careful, controlled counts. All around him, he can hear the shrieks of distant Shadows, the rushing of wind through the tunnels of Mementos, and the vague rattling of the Reaper's chains. He's been here too long, he decides. He's still upset, and not quite thinking straight, but he's not far enough out of his own control to think he can take the Reaper. Instead he turns and slips away from Mementos, wandering away into a nearby Palace, just for the change of scenery.
It's the closest he can get to leaving.
-//-
Akechi waits a few minutes at Shibuya Station after leaving Mementos. He's annoyed with himself for waiting, because he knows why he's doing it, and it's really none of his business whether Joker shows up or not. He doesn't have to worry about some asshole that can clearly take care of himself. In anything, he should be satisfied to see Joker come crashing down to his level for once.
He's not.
He's worried.
This is out of character for him, and Akechi is uneasy about what had caused it.
(Because Joker is the only one that's ever seen him in the metaverse)
(Because it wouldn't be that hard to figure out who Akechi is, Joker could ruin him in a second if he ever decided he wanted to, and Akechi still doesn't know who Joker is, so he doesn't have a way of stopping him)
(Of course that's why)
Nobody appears out of thin air though. Akechi doesn't see anyone that looks like... well, like he imagines Joker would, behind the mask. He stands there and watches the crowd until he starts to feel stupid, and then he walks away. He has work to do in Mementos today, a list of things he should have been able to take care of already, but suddenly he's not in the mood.
-//-
Futaba doesn't get too involved in her own Palace, despite what she'd said when the rest of the Thieves first brought it up. She tries, and she does go, a few times. Often enough to have a feeling for what it looks like, what it feels like, but not... Not as often as the rest go.
(Often enough to feel included, and a little bit brave. Often enough that even before they change her heart, she starts to feel a tiny bit better)
It's not just that it's her own Palace. It's that the whole thing feels incredibly weird, too inside her own head with all her own fears. It feels like too much, and she thinks it would have felt like too much even if it wasn't hers. She just--doesn't really want to leave her room.
She stays where she is after the first half of the Palace, feeling shaky and jittery and out of her own control, until she finally gets a calling card. It's about a week after they start working on it, and Ann comes by to deliver it face to face. She comes alone, which Futaba feels kind of bad about, because Ryuji and Yusuke at least would probably want to. Joker she's not sure about, he's about as isolated as she is, but it really feels like she's ignoring everyone else. It feels bad.
"I just wanted to check," Ann says, when she's handed the card over to Futaba. "You still want us to go through with this, right? We don't have to."
"But then we might not get another chance," Futaba says. She turns the card over in both hands, studying the careful lettering, the confident art. Yusuke must have done this one. "My Treasure won't stick around forever."
"Well.... yeah," Ann says. "But it should still be your choice."
"I really need this," Futaba says. That isn't a choice.
But...
(But this is)
She looks up at Ann, nervous, and says, "I want to come back for this."
Ann's eyebrows shoot up so fast that Futaba almost laughs. "To steal your own Treasure?" she asks. "After you stopped showing up, I thought that would be the last thing you wanted to be around for."
"Yeah," Futaba says. "It is, but feel like... I want to help. Otherwise I'm just asking you all to do this for me for nothing."
"You're our friend," Ann says. "It doesn't need to be a trade."
Futaba thinks she believes her.
But when the rest of the Thieves go into her Palace for the last time, she gathers up her courage, and she goes with them.
She doesn't fight, when the cognition shows up, she stays well back and away from everyone else. But that doesn't mean she's alone. Her Shadow is there, materializing from out of nowhere, looking at her with a kind of hungry expectation.
They actually talk.
The first new person she's talked to in ages, and it's... Well, herself.
It happens while the others are fighting a... a really horrible version of her mother, a flying sphynx that all of them together are having a hard time dealing with. Futaba's Shadow steps forward, staring hard like she's trying to build up courage too.
"Oh," Futaba says. "I, um... hi?"
Her Shadow takes a step toward her, and Futaba flinches on instinct. She's not ready for this, whatever it is. She barely feels up to talking to other people, and talking to herself feels somehow harder to do instead of easier.
"You know Mom didn't hate us," her Shadow says, flatly. "You know that."
"Um." Futaba edges half a step back. "I... I don't really know..."
"You do," her Shadow insists. "And I'm tired of waiting for you to realize that!"
Her voice rises, and Futaba feels her own eyes widen. This is supposed to be her, right? Her other self? She's seen what Kamoshida and Madarame's Shadows had been like. Hers is just... aggressively telling her that her mom likes her.
"What do you mean?" she asks.
"Do you really think she'd be so mad at you that she'd die?" her Shadow asks. "Was that what she was like? Ever?"
Futaba hesitates. She doesn't like thinking back to the days right before or after her mom died, because... it hurts. And she's spent so long with the knowledge of what those men had told her when they came back with that note--that it was all her fault, and that her mom had chosen to do what she did because of her...
"No," her Shadow says, insistently closing the gap between them. "Nuh uh, no. You can't do that. Don't shy away from it when it's not even true."
Futaba still doesn't want to think about it. But her Shadow is relentless in a way that Futaba herself only wishes she could. Her eyes are unblinking as she stares at Futaba, insistent, and so... for the first time in years, Futaba thinks back to her mom. Standing in the depths of her own heart, she can feel it.
She remembers what it had really been like.
Her mom had loved her, and Futaba can't believe that she'd forgotten that.
"How did you know?" she asks her Shadow. "I mean, how... how did you figure it out?"
"I've always known," her Shadow says. "But you were too distorted to know it too." She smiles. Which looks weird to Futaba, even weirder than the rest of the conversation has been already. She hasn't been doing much smiling herself, lately. "Luckily, you're here now! And I've spent enough time talking to Joker to know I don't want to just sit around without saying anything, and risk letting you walk away again."
Futaba blinks, because what does Joker have to do with anything? She knows he'd been the first one to find her Palace, using whatever weird method he uses to get around the metaverse. But what...?
"Come on," her Shadow says, holding out her hand. "Are we doing this?"
And Futaba finds herself fully distracted, as she realizes what she means. This isn't what it had looked like for anyone else, when they awoke a Persona, but Futaba has all her mom's research, supplemented by the things she's heard and seen for herself since she stumbled into the metaverse for the first time. So she knows that's what her Shadow is asking.
And so she makes her decision fully cognizant of what it's going to mean. She thinks that makes it more... special, somehow. Not that anyone else has done it wrong, or anything! But Futaba thinks this is the way that works the best for her. Understanding what's happening, and in control, and... and not upset. She's not even especially angry when she feels the mask on her face for the first time, she doesn't have to dig her nails into her own skin and tear it away. It just happens, nice and smooth and easy as breathing. It's kind of funny to see--no, to feel her Shadow changing, so that it's less a Shadow and more a Persona (her Persona), all around her and stretching out into the rest of the Palace (her Palace).
Okay. Okay, this is good.
She understands what's happening in an instant, including the idea that she's got a special kind of Persona here, navigating instead of fighting, and that's not even a bad thing because she can use this to help!
(She's not totally sure she could have used a Persona that can fight to help)
(She's really not much of a fighter, Persona or otherwise)
Then her Persona says something that she doesn't understand. Into the same part of her brain that's receiving all the information about the Palace around them, and the monster cognition of her mom, and everything else, the newly made Necronomicon whispers to her, Don't judge him too harshly.
"What?" Futaba asks, honestly baffled. "Don't judge who for what?"
Her Persona doesn't answer. But that's... okay, in a way, because it only takes another second or two for Futaba's awareness to spread out to the point that she understands who she's supposedly judging. And it's also not okay, because she can see what she'd be judging him for.
On the battlefield in front of her, there's the cognition of her mom, so huge it blocks out almost everything else until Futaba figures out how to sort through that and see... everyone else. Her friends, the people that had fought for her when she couldn't even fight for herself. Ann and Ryuji and Yusuke are all fighting, and she can see them and recognize them, and their Persona with them.
And then... Joker.
Something else.
For a blank heartbeat or two, Futaba doesn't know what she's looking at. He doesn't feel like the cognition, and he doesn't feel like any of her friends. He feels like something totally different, and when it clicks into place, and Futaba realizes what that mess of feeling and want and chaos all tied together but divorced from anything remotely real is, what it has to be.
"He's a Shadow," Futaba whispers.
She means to whisper it to her Persona only, but maybe she gets it wrong. Maybe Joker hears, or maybe he just feels the weight of her full attention on him, because he looks up at her.
There's fear in his eyes, behind the mask he always wears.
Futaba recognizes it right away, because she's so used to feeling that fear herself, but it takes a little bit longer to realize that he's afraid of her. That part's... not something she's used to, as much.
Joker does something that looks like a full bodied shudder, and forces his attention back to the fight. It's almost the same as before, except that Futaba knows now, and Joker knows she knows, and as soon as they stop being in immediate danger, everything is going to change completely.
-//-
Joker waits just long enough to see the cognition of Oracle's mother fall before he leaves her Palace. His heart--whatever passes for a heart, in a Shadow--aches to do it, but he has to. This is even worse than he'd been afraid it would be, when he first told the Thieves about her Palace. Not only does she have a Persona that can tell her that he's just a Shadow, that Persona is a navigator. She doesn't need to be told when she can look at him and see for herself.
He feels stripped back and exposed, and for the first time in his existence he feels afraid. It's only been a few months, but this collection of strange humans that keep coming to his tiny world, not just because they want to fight to make their world better (reasonable), but because they want to see him (strange, unreasonable, the best gift he's ever received).
...Joker never used to question himself like this.
Something's changing deep within himself, in whatever weak connection he still has to his absent other self. But he also has things to lose now, friendships and people he cares about, and Joker hates learning that this is what losing them does to him.
He spends days and days alone, after leaving Oracle's Palace. There's still Crow, but he must be busy in the real world because Joker doesn't catch even a glimpse of his premise during that whole time. As for the Thieves... well, he's not looking for them. He's sure Oracle will have told them all about him by now, and he doesn't want to have to face them as their enemy. He'll run away as many times as he has to, so that he doesn't have to--
"Hey."
He jumps, head snapping up and staring at Oracle as she sits down next to him.
Joker stares at her, entirely forgetting to run. He's hidden several levels down in Mementos, sitting and... well, honestly, moping on a bench in a safe area.
"How did you find me?" he asks.
"Persona?" Oracle reminds him, pointing to the goggle like mask covering her eyes.
"Necronomicon," Joker says. "A navigator." He doesn't want to be an asshole, so he forces a smile and says--to Necronomicon more than to Oracle--"Congratulations." Then, back to Oracle, he adds, "But how did you find me? There's hundreds of Shadows down here."
He braces as he says it, because even though he knows that she knows, it still feels like spilling a dirty secret to say it out loud.
Oracle shoves her goggles off her eyes so they can see each oher, and so he can see the exasperated expression on her face as she says, "Not like you, idiot! You're not just any Shadow, you're our friend."
Joker locks his jaw and looks away. He doesn't know what to say, so he doesn't say anything.
"And you ran away," Oracle says. "You didn't say anything to anyone, and we've all been worried. I've been looking for you every day after school, and you could have just talked to us!"
Almost despite himself, Joker looks back at her. "...you've been going to school again?" he asks.
She blinks, looking surprised. "Yes?"
So the change of heart must have worked. Good for her. "And looking for me by yourself?"
"Because you didn't give me a choice, you jerk," she says. "You obviously don't want us to know, so I couldn't tell anyone."
Joker doesn't know what to say to that. There don't seem to be any good answers, so he just goes for the truth, as bluntly as possible. "You're not supposed to care what I want," he explains to her, gently. "I'm not a person. I'm a Shadow."
"I figured that part out," Oracle says, rolling her eyes.
"That means I'm dangerous," Joker insists. "And I've been lying to you. And I'll never be able to leave the metaverse."
Oracle dismisses this out of hand. "You're not dangerous," she says. "You're exactly the same person you were before my Palace, I just know what that person is now."
Joker doesn't say anything. He's frustrated because he wants her to be right, but it goes against the walls he's built up on purpose against needing to leave.
"Why aren't you like other Shadows?" Oracle asks, after a while.
"I am," Joker says.
"No you're not." She leans forward. "Other Shadows won't talk to me. Except Necronomicon, but that's my Shadow."
She's right, of course, but the truth is that Ren has no idea. "I'm just here," he says. "I don't know. I guess my other self doesn't have a Palace that needs a Ruler yet."
"Oh yeah," Oracle says. "I guess there would be a person out there that..." Her voice gets less sure. "Matches with you?"
"Yeah," Joker says, fighting hard to keep his voice level, and not shaking. "Somewhere."
"Who is he?"
Joker shrugs. He wishes he knew. He wishes desperately that he knew.
"Have you ever tried to find out?"
"There's not really a way to do that," Joker says. "I can't leave the metaverse. He's not here. I don't exactly know what's going on in his life, just... feelings. Sometimes."
"What kind of feelings?"
Joker sighs. "I don't know. It's just like... a drumbeat in the back of my head, I guess. Tension." Reluctantly, he looks at Oracle. "I think he's distorted," he says, voicing a fear that he hasn't even dared to look at head on himself, yet. "And it's getting worse. That's why I said he doesn't have a Palace that needs a Ruler yet."
"Oh," Oracle says.
"Yeah," Joker says. "Oh. That's why I'm dangerous. Because if that happens, I won't be able to stop myself from distorting too."
Oracle thinks about it for a long beat, then says, "My Shadow wasn't like that."
"You wanted to be helped," Joker says. "Most people don't."
Oracle doesn't say anything for a long time, again. Joker waits for her to give up on him, but she doesn't. Instead, eventually, she says, "If that happens, we'll bring you back. We'll save you."
Joker looks at her, eyes creeping upward over the edge of his mask in unhidden skepticism.
"We'll change your heart too," Oracle says. "Like you changed mine."
"I don't have a heart to change," Joker protests, but feebly. Oracle is sure as she stares at him, determined and unwavering. Maybe that's why he says, "If you want to promise to change a heart, then tell me you'll change his."
"The you in reality?" Oracle asks.
"My other self," Joker agrees. "Can you promise that? If I go into his dungeon, and can't get out, will you find him?"
"Absolutely," Oracle says, without missing a beat. "Definitely, Joker! We'll find him and change his heart and save you."
Joker isn't totally sure she's getting what he's asking for, that he's not asking for her to find his other self to help Joker himself, but because that is him. That's the person he needs to be whole, and completed, and.... and not lost. But if the worst happens, at least she's promised to find him. And maybe that means he'll get to the right place eventually. Maybe it even means that he doesn't have to cut himself off until then.
"Do you... want me to tell the others?" Oracle asks.
Joker shakes his head immediately. She might have been understanding, but he doesn't have any reason to think they'll all be ready to believe in a Shadow. "I think Fox might know already," he says. "I can't exactly tell."
Oracle shrugs and then nods in agreement.
"But I've never asked him," Joker says. "So I don't know. And if he doesn't know, I don't want him to. I don't want anyone else to, either."
"Got it," Oracle says. "Then I promise I won't tell them."
Joker nods. "...thank you," he says.
"Of course," Oracle says. She bounces a little, and offers him a hand up off the bench. "Now come on! We're meeting at the top of Mementos soon, and you're coming too. They'll all be really happy to see you again."
Joker lets himself be pulled, and not for the first time thinks, so this is what it's like to have friends. Bonds. People that care enough to pull him out of the mud when it's dragging him down.
It's a really good feeling.