Akira takes the clipboard. The top page is a pre-surgery checklist listing a blood draw, signing the consent form, and affirming solemnly to the surgeon that you're willing to participate. 

The second page title is CONSENT TO HEART TRANSPLANT. A little further down the page includes the text, in all bold caps, I UNDERSTAND THAT MY CURRENT BODY WILL DIE AND IT WILL HURT THE WHOLE TIME, AND AFFIRM THAT THIS IS WHAT I WISH TO ACHIEVE A MORE IDEAL FORM THROUGH FUSION. There is a space to sign one's name. 

... Whoever this is, they certainly aren't beating around the bush on making it clear what the consequences are of this.

This is... Different than she was expecting. Especially after that opener from Igor. Is he really so desperate to rig all this? She doesn't know the extent of his powers...

Can she trust this person who looks like her?

"Listen, Akira. If you had a surgery that could give you your ideal form, that would be awful, horrible, torturous, but at the end you'd magically have a body that you felt at home in in every detail, would you or would you not sign up for it?"

"... Yeah, I'd sign up for that."

"Then let the other pieces of yourself have that chance. That's all I'm saying."

Joker hops down from the altars and stretches her arms. "Or we can leave this aside. Find some other way to get strong. Build our power somehow else. I'm not gonna force you. Not like that bastard Igor wanted to."

She scuffs her boot against the floor. "What do you think?"

"I..."

And then she hears a familiar voice from behind her. "Hello, moitiés. It's good to see you both, and to wear a more casual form than when we do battle."

A tall, slender young woman, an inch or two taller than Akira, has entered from another room. She's wearing a sharp blazer in black, a white dress shirt fitted snugly enough to emphasize the curve of her breasts and unbuttoned enough to show a hint of cleavage, a barbed wire necklace in gleaming silver, crisp black slacks that hug her hips, and a rapier hanging from her belt. She has wavy, chin-length, brown hair, kind eyes, and something between a warm smile and a smirk on her face.

Something about her feels familiar.

Joker smiles. "Ah, Julie! Magnifique! I was just explaining to our self."

She steps past Akira, running a hand affectionately across her shoulders and kissing her cheek as she does, then crosses the distance to Joker, pulling her into a kiss.

Akira flushes. Uh. What? She's very, very distracted. This is just too many new things all at once. 

Joker kisses Julie back. With one hand, she brushes Julie's hair away from her cheek, thumb tracing along the joint of her jaw. 

She sighs warmly, caressing Joker's cheek, lingering there for a moment, then turns back to Akira, stepping close and taking her hands.

"It truly is lovely to see you properly, chérie. I imagine you're un petit peu overwhelmed, though. Ask your questions."

"... so you're supposed to be me," Akira says to Joker, and then looks over at Julie. "And you're supposed to be Julie. But I am still very confused. Where are we? How is this possible? Why the mad science setup? You two... have a kissing relationship...?"

"Between all the stresses you've been under, and the sudden and essential opportunities of the Metaverse and your found family, the whiplash was enough that you... fragmented, mon cœur. The sweet girl who treasures being able to be honest and forthright," she squeezes Akira's hands, "and the fierce defender who will curse whatever she must to protect those she loves." and then gestures indicatively at Joker.

"You are both real, both parts of the greater whole, but you have different perspectives, different specialties. Both of you are my moitiés, and I love you both deeply."

"You mean she's a — split personality?"

"I'm myself, as well as you. But close enough. Do you remember that website with House of Crows you looked at when you were just getting into high school and you wished you could be multiple people like them?"

Joker spreads her arms and takes a mock bow. "Tada."

"I don't super buy it, but it's at least as sane as anything else that's happened to me in the last few days, so I'll suspend judgment for the moment."

Akira looks back at Julie. "What does 'moitié' mean, anyway?"

"It's a French term of endearment, a quite tender one."

She brings Akira's right hand to her lips and kisses it softly.

"It means 'other half'."

Akira flushes. 

"I... see..."

She ducks her head. 

"... please, continue your explanation, I interrupted."

She looks around, smiling softly. "As for where we find ourselves, this place is inside your mind, chérie. It is a world Joker and I built, though we would like your help as well, as it cannot be fully stabilized without the aid of all who live here. When she first formed, we made a fairly basic sitting room, though we changed things up over time. When that enfoiré," she briefly scowls as she mentioned Igor, "gave his manipulative explanation of fusion, we knew we had to effect your escape. We did not wish to lose anything in the doing, though, so I explained everything I knew of fusion to Joker, and we pushed hard on our mindspace with that knowledge and her understanding of your shared aesthetique to create this place. You truly do not have to use it, but I did not want our jailbreak to cut off an option for you. 

"Making a living area beyond this 'mad science setup', as you put it, will require a group effort, however."

"I really threw everything I could into making this place. Think I broke something in the process. I don't think that prison was supposed to be escapable. I did something, something to our mindscape, something to us, getting it to connect properly and lock into position so I could steal you away. We used to be closer, more the same person. But now..." Joker shrugs.

"If I can control this place, that would be some evidence. But..." 

She looks over at the surgical tray with its grisly instruments, the bloodstained altars. "I still don't buy that any version of me would want to — make something like this."

"C'mon, doesn't it give your gothy little heart at least a little appreciation for the drama of it? It's fucked up, I'll admit it, but it's a kind of fucked up we're into."

Joker picks up one of the needles. "You've been scared of these things ever since you were six, but you fought through it until you could watch your own blood being taken. Isn't there an underlying fascination there? A part of you that wants to push the boundaries a little?"

"Wasn't there something alluring, seeing a beautiful woman in a medical office puncture that thin barrier separating you from the outside world?"

Akira has no words. She just stares at Julie. 

"I —" She wasn't turned on by that, it was a routine medical procedure, Doctor Takemi is just hot —

That thought quickly spirals off into the weeds again. Doctor Takemi is like twice her age, she shouldn't —

"I mean, it's not — I'm not —"

"Some kind of pervert who gets turned on when attractive doctors who share your sense of style touch you intimately yet clinically?"

Joker raises an eyebrow. "Strange. I seem to recall you actively fantasizing about getting The Surgery late some nights..."