Joker steps into the room behind her, and her gaze follows Akira's to the cluttered table. 

She rolls her eyes. "Of course. You got your memories of our parents all tangled up in what you imagined, didn't you?"

Akira exhales. 

"Yeah." She steps over to the table and looks at its contents. Technical manuals for coding, mystery novels, newspaper clippings, bureaucratic forms...

She recognizes some of these forms. This is her arrest paperwork. 

She has a sinking feeling in her gut.

Julie comes up behind Akira, wrapping an arm around her waist and kissing her cheek, taking Joker's hand with her other hand.

"Oh, chérie," she sighs softly. "I suppose it's to be expected. Our soulspace borders the Metaverse more closely now, so things we have not processed will make themselves known."

She shakes her head. "Whatever we find, I will be here with you, holding you both through it all."

Akira tenses up for a second when she's hugged, but then her brain catches up to it being Julie and she relaxes a little.

Joker leafs through a few of the newspaper articles, then nods. "It's probably for the best to clear this all off and see what it all is." She looks over at Akira. "It won't be easy for you, but it might help you process some things."

Akira takes a breath, and then nods firmly. 

"Alright," she says. "Let's sort through this." 

She picks up one of the technical manuals, and then swears and nearly drops it.

There's a bleached-white human skull underneath, staring directly up at her with its empty eye sockets. 

"—  what the fuck." 

Joker rolls her eyes and picks up the bleached skull. She puts it on the counter behind Akira, leaning it up gently. 

"It's only a skull. It can't hurt you, it's already dead." A small smile comes to her lips. "I think it goes with the newspaper articles, actually."

"... The newspaper articles...?" 

Akira picks up one of the articles, and is confronted with an obituary for the Amamiya family. Burnt to death in their apartment, no survivors. Suspected case of arson. Their fortune has been inherited by their daughter, one Akira Kurusu.

She scowls. "I don't —" 

" — wish our parents were dead? Not even a little? After everything they've done to you, denying your transition, failing to back you up on your criminal charges, discarding you like trash?" 

Joker crosses her arms. "There's no sense in denying it, Akira. The evidence is right here in front of you." 

Akira goes quiet. 

"... My parents weren't so bad," she says. "They introduced me to reading, to computing, to... caring about other people..." 

"They had a few redeeming qualities. Any person can have good things about them. But when push came to shove, they discarded you." 

Joker nudges some of the newspapers aside, and comes up with a second skull in her hands. This one is a little smaller than the first. "That's why in your safest place, they're dead. You don't want to have to interact with them ever again. You don't feel safe with them alive."

She sets the second skull on the countertop as well. "It's that simple."

Akira sighs, and brushes the newspapers aside as well. She comes up with a dusty copy of The Maltese Falcon in her hands. 

"If it wasn't for my mother, I'd never have met Sam Spade or Philip Marlowe. I still... I wish I could convince her. Wish I could get her to see me as I am. But she refuses to acknowledge me, just like my father. I guess she was always in love with the son she thought I was."

She brushes the dust off the cover, and tries to flip through the well-thumbed book, but it falls to pieces in her hands, the pages coming apart, and dissipates into a cloud of dust. 

"Despite her few redeeming qualities, moitié, she was not worthy of the respect you held for her. It hurts, to let go of hope that someone will love you back, will see your truth, but it is freeing. Hold onto what you value, but accept that she cannot see the beautiful daughter she cast aside, and never will."

She presses a gentle kiss to the back of Akira's head and squeezes her tenderly.

Akira leans back into Julie's embrace, and softly exhales. 

"... I'll do my best to. It really is time I moved on, it's been months."

"It's hard to let go, I know. But you have people who really do care about you now. Boss. Ann. Ryuji. Takemi. Shiho. More friends than you've ever had. You can have love, if you look for it. You don't need to go back to your family for acceptance. You have it right here." Joker lays a fist over her heart. "And that's where it counts."

"Exactement, chérie. We love you, your friends care deeply for you, and all of that is based on the truth of who you are: a brave, clever, beautiful, magic-touched trans girl with a heart full of love, trying to recover from old hurts."

She smiles softly. "Revel in the acceptance that surrounds you, and it will be easier to stop looking for water in a dry well."

Akira nods. "... Alright," she says. "Let's get this table cleared off." 

She reaches forward and starts picking up coding textbooks. Once disturbed, they crumble apart, leaving behind a mound of newspaper clippings and arrest paperwork. Akira gathers these together into two neat piles, and within a few minutes the table is mostly clear.

Joker pats the skulls on the counter. "I think it'll take more than thinking about it for the rest of this to go away. It's relatively easy to dismiss them as people: less easy to let go of the hurt and the anger." 

She picks up the smaller skull, the one that would be Akira's mother. "Personally I don't mind these hanging around, they're kind of cool, but if you'd rather not have them staring at you all the time we can put them somewhere else."

"Please." 

"Alright. We'll get to that once we have the rest of the house made. I just know we'll discover more as we go, better to file everything at once rather than doing it piecemeal. Also... Calling up a place to hide all our hurts in sounds dangerous, no?" Joker frowns.

Akira nods tiredly. "Yeah, I hear you."

"I'm proud of you both, chéries."

She takes each girl's hand, closes her eyes, and takes a deep breath.

"A room where we can sit, read, share memories. A place with soft couches where we can curl into each other and breathe together. A living room, moitiés. What is it like?"

Akira closes her eyes, and imagines. Soft couches, firm and gentle. Her old CRT TV with its game console. A place to sit or lie for an afternoon and stay, close with the people she loves...

Joker closes her eyes as well, her hand finding Akira's.

She knows what she wants, too.

The power flows out of Julie, through Akira and Joker, and into their world in a sudden wave.

Julie's eyes snap open as she feels the ripple changing the space. "Let's look, bien-aimées. It's here."

The door to the fusion room has been replaced, a new door standing in its stead.