Smile (P5/Royal Story x OC/Male reader)

Chapter 58 Recollection

No one's POV

After rescuing Joker from death, refusing Lavenza and freeing the real Igor, both Tenor and Joker started to make their way through the halls of the Velvet Room in search of their friends and the first one to get found was Ryuji and he looked up and saw Joker standing in front of him from behind the bars of his cell.

Ryuji: Yo...Looks like we're both somehow still alive and kickin...

Tenor: Uh, I guess you can say that.

Ryuji looked up completely shocked and saw Tenor walking next to Joker.

Ryuji: Nhazul?! Y-You're alive?!

Tenor: Yup. I'm not going to stay down that easily. But we need you to come with us.

Ryuji: Where are we even at?

Joker: Somewhere safe.

Tenor: But we don't have time. We need to go.

Ryuji just looked down and around his cell.

Ryuji: Man...this cell kinda reminds me when the three of us first met...

Tenor:...-_-...Yeah. Kamoshida in a speedo...an image that's sadly burned into my mind...

Ryuji: You wouldn't know, Nhazul, but Shibuya was all effed up...it was like no body was seein what was going on...

Tenor: Yeah, so I've been told.

Ryuji: No...it was more like they didn't wanna see any of it...What the hell...Even all them people who were suffering and cheerin for us to come help em...In reality, they would've rather just had everything stay how it was? Did what we were doing have any meaning at all?

Joker: Of course it did.

Tenor: Everything. Did.

Ryuji: Man...you're both so freakin tough...Back when I thought we were gonna die without learning the truth about all this...I kinda felt for the first time that maybe we hadn't been doing the right thing...That maybe we deserved to lose...

Tenor: So what you're saying is that it would've been okay to let Kamoshida get away with breaking your leg and getting you kicked off the track team, physically and sexually abuse his students, rape and drive Shiho to commit suicide and try have him try and force Ann to sleep with him. You're saying that we deserved to lose for stopping that?! Do you even hear yourself right now? If that's the case, why did you even become a Phantom Thief?

Ryuji:... I...I started all this cause of how pissed off I was....Maybe it's never been about winning or anything like that...Maybe all was doing was just continuing my own defiance...

Joker: And that's fine.

Ryuji then looked at them confused.

Ryuji: It's...fine...?

Tenor: More then.

Joker: It was our defiance that got us to this point and it will be what help us overcome this.

Ryuji then looked at Tenor and Joker.

Ryuji: I get it now...you're right. We're doing this to make sure people don't gotta go through the same crap we did. It doesn't matter if they think we're just or not. We gotta do what we believe in!

Ryuji then started to stand up.

Ryuji: And it's not like people think much of me anyways. I'm gonna dash through this the only way I know how!

Tenor and Joker both smiled at him.

Tenor: Good.

Joker: Then let's get started.