(no subject)

Player: bayleaf
Age: 30
Contact: bespin
Current Characters: n/a

Character: Goro Akechi
Canon: Persona 5 Royal; endgame plus roughly a year of CRAU at empatheias
Age: 18


Background Information: Link! Beyond his canon experiences, Akechi spent about a year in empatheias from a vanilla P5 canon point before returning home to experience the events of Royal's third semester. Akechi's time in Empatheias was complicated, to say the least. While initially keeping up the appearance of a composed, polite young man, the nature of Empatheias' emotional magic made it very difficult for him to conceal his true feelings. Despite his best efforts, a few of his fellow Otherworlders grew closer to him, to the point where he began to let them in and glimpse his true self, as well as his complex and bloody history. Akechi knew this was a gamble, but after no longer being motivated purely by revenge on his father, he found himself at his wits' end, and could no longer foot it alone, much as he tried. It wasn't perfect, and his scars had only begun to heal when he disappeared home once more, forgetting those he had considered friends until the very moment he arrives in Songerein.

Personality:

Who hasn't heard of Goro Akechi? Brilliant, likeable, and charismatic, Akechi is the ace detective. A prodigy, a star, a heartthrob, a straight-A student. A paragon of justice, he has criticized the Phantom Thieves from the first for their methods in handling dangerous criminals. Akechi only wishes to know the truth, and to see those who have committed crimes brought to justice through the proper channels. He will always do what's right in serving the law.

Or so he would have you think.

To be sure, Akechi is brilliant, but this is about where the similarities between his public image and his genuine self end. Rather, he is cold, self-interested, calculating, and severely emotionally damaged. Akechi's public image is nothing more than a facade he has carefully cultivated over the years in order to make his end goals come to fruition. Akechi plays the long game, working for years in a partnership alongside the very man he has sworn to himself to taken down: his father, Masayoshi Shido. Akechi isn't interested in justice for anyone but himself, and he even went so far as to use his powers to cause others to go psychotic and then "solved" the crimes they committed. There is nothing off-limits if it means taking down his father right when he reaches the apex of his career. Making it to that moment is Akechi's singular motivation for every choice he makes, and it has made him into a liar, a manipulator, and a serial killer.

Born to a single mother well after Shido had left the picture, Akechi grew up with his mother for only a short time before she committed suicide after being ridiculed for giving birth outside of wedlock. After being passed around by foster families, the young Akechi become focused on obtaining revenge on his father, whom he blames for this direction his life took. From a very young age, Akechi has been bitter and resentful, and because of his upbringing he has never really formed any meaningful connections with another person before. At a certain point, he began to see other people as little more than pawns to be moved on a chessboard. No one has ever been there for him, and so his heart has never been opened up to such relationships before. Because of this, he fundamentally doesn't understand why the Phantom Thieves are so supportive of one another, viewing their camaraderie as weakness. Even after infiltrating their group, it mystifies him. Why would anyone risk their own safety and comfort on the behalf of someone else?

But of course, Akechi's emotionally stinted outlook doesn't excuse him from the crimes he has committed. When he faces off against the Phantom Thieves in Shido's Palace, he rejects offer after offer to turn a new leaf and befriend the others. The Phantom Thieves are willing to give Akechi a second chance and offer him friendship, even knowing everything that he has done, and yet Akechi still rejects it. He is so consumed by his jealousy and anger that he throws these offers back in their faces and uses every resource he has to try and kill them. At that point, it's no longer about taking down his father; he is just lashing out recklessly, more vulnerable than ever, unwilling to let himself take the inevitable fall and face everything he hates about himself. He sees no way he can go on, and when broken down to his barest parts, his true wish becomes clear: acceptance, which he never received and never would receive from his father, and which he never believed he would receive from friends, even though the Phantom Thieves still offer it until the bitter end. Broken down as he is, Akechi has one final chance to do the right thing when the Cognitive Akechi in Shido's Palace threatens the Thieves. In the final moments of his life, Akechi makes a desperate gambit and throws his lot in with them, because he knows that they are capable of taking down his corrupt father.

For better or for worse, Akechi is persistent and hard-working. It took an incredible amount of tenacity and cleverness to get him to where he is, the right hand of a politician poised to become prime minister, and even the Phantom Thieves compliment Akechi on how much he was able to do all by himself. After finding himself unexpectedly alive in Maruki's reality, he does sit back and take things as they come; rather, he is the only person aside from Joker who is able to see the lie that their reality has become, and after being manipulated by his father, the last thing Akechi wants is to live under the control of another person. Ultimately, this is his greatest desire: to carve his own destiny. Working with the Phantom Thieves towards their common goal of toppling Maruki's reality, Akechi reveals his true colors, no longer upholding his polite and genial princely demeanor. He is cold, cunning, and ruthless, though he is not heartless, either. And whether he acknowledges it or not, he finally gets what he has wanted all along: a place to belong. Even still, he is willing to give it all up, including his own shot at a happy life, to take down Maruki. His conviction is steadfast as ever, and his personal justice will does not falter until the bitter end.

Abilities & Inventory: Like the protagonist, Akechi is a unique type of Persona user known as a wildcard, and thus able to use multiple Personas, though he is only seen to be using three during the game, and all are aligned to the same Arcana as himself: Justice. Personas are physical manifestations of psyches, and the one Akechi currently uses, Hereward, is the evolution of his two previous personas, Robin Hood and Loki. A summary of Hereward's skills can be found here.

Akechi's inventory upon arrival will include his regular clothes, as well as his Metaverse outfit (black mask edition), a handgun, and a sword.

Suitability & Plans: Between building off of his previous CRAU experience from Empatheias and his canon development from Royal, Akechi will not only be able to more easily integrate into the setting due to his familiarity, but he also is no longer keeping up his "nice guy" guise, meaning everyone he meets will see his true self straight-away. I'm looking to continue on the development that Akechi began in Empatheias, utilizing this setting's connections to dreams and emotions to put him into situations that he wouldn't put himself into that may allow him to grow and heal. Additionally, so long as there's something in it for him, Akechi is cooperative, meaning he will be on board with building on this world and making it a better place to live, as its the only place he has to call a home now. It's going to be complicated and he may be stubborn about it, but this game seems like the perfect setting for him to work out his issues and also become a part of something bigger.

Test Drive Sample: Sample

Questions: Any questions you might have.