A crossover by TheArkatex312 that brings the Ashen One to the world of Persona 5 in the body of Joker. From there events begin to change.
Can be found on Archive Of Our Own here.
The fic has not been updated since October 2023.
Persona 5 Royal King Of Swords contains examples of:
- Adaptation Name Change: In Persona 5 supplementary material the main character's name is either Akira Kurusu or Ren Amamiya. In this fic, Ren Amamiya takes on the form of a spirit guiding the Ashen One, who is inhabiting Ren's body. As a result the Ashen One does not respond to this name. He instead chooses to name himself Ash.
- Adaptation Personality Change: The main character of Persona 5 was brash ,confident and a bit of a prankster and kind. Ash is kind but he is blunt ,wise, stoic and introspective. On top of this his experiences have left him guiltridden, short tempered and unyieldingly stubborn . At a very deep level he is fearful of death and intimacy as well as failure.
- Adaptation Relationship Overhaul: The Lord of Hollows inhabits the body of Ren Amamiya from Persona 5 Royal. As a result, his presence has an effect on canonical relationships.
- He reveals his Outside Context Magic to Takemi and reveals the truth about her old boss's lies about her old patient Miwa dying. As a result she calls him her knight at the end of her confidant route when in canon she called Ren her Guinea Pig
- His relationship with Kaoru (Iwai's adopted son) is impacted by his physical appearance so much that Kaoru does not trust him at their first meeting and only becomes enamored with Ash when Ash saves his father.In the original Persona 5/Royal Kaoru is cordial towards Ren from the beginning.
- In the case of Shiho Suzui, Ash saves her from being raped by baring his soul to Kamoshida. However, this also traumatizes her as she is present in the room, which causes her to form a palace. After the Phantom Thieves erase it she becomes Ash's friend and goes to therapy with him.
- Adaptational Hairstyle Change:As a result of Ash inhabiting Ren Amamiya's body, half of his hair changes to white; he decides to slick it back. Canonically, Ren had full black hair and kept it curly.
- Is also a case of Power Dyes Your Hair as the Ashen One(Ash) is VERY powerful.
- Ascended Extra: Wordof God states that Shiho Suzui will have a larger presence in the story than in canon, whereas in Persona 5 Royal proper she only appeared onscreen two more times after Kamoshida's castle, in Ann's Confidant prior to leaving Tokyo and in Maruki's reality.
- Beware the Nice Ones:Ash is kind but only to people he is close to .To his enemies he is a force of brutality who will not hesitate to kick a person off a ledge and he fights to kill so any dirty tactic goes.
- Big Bad: Yaldabaoth, retaining his role from vanilla Persona 5. Unlike in the original game, where he schemed under the guise of Igor until after Shido is taken care of, as he's exposed much earlier, he becomes much more personally invested in killing Ash, due to his machinations being uncovered much earlier.
- Brought Down to Badass: When Ash is brought to the Persona 5 world he is comes without the Firelink Greatsword. Without it he is incapable of using true Estus and is barred from using the miracles and armor he has collected. Also his journey has caused his heart to be so damaged that he cannot unlock a Persona.However he is still able to use pyromancy and healing and can create pseudo Estus from oven flames. His body is also very durable and is able to take massive amounts of punishment and has a healing factor. He is also extremely strong and skilled beyond his teammates and has been able to defeat many Palace rulers and bosses and enemies.
- Crossover: Between Persona 5 and the Dark Souls series, and to a lesser extent Demon Souls and Sekiro.
- Central Theme:
Word of God has stated that the central theme of this fic is Healing. This is shown by Shiho who after almost being raped begins to see a therapist to help cope with here trauma as well as Ash whose heart is healed (even though he does not realise it) by his interactions with the Phantom Thieves and Confidants. - Combat Pragmatist: Ash is a Dark Souls player character, a series of games where backstabbing an enemy is one the effective ways to survive, which translates to him using every opportunity an enemy gives him including kicking a dangling enemy off a ledge.
- Does Not Like Men: Even after Shiho's palace is cleared, the trauma of her Near-Rape Experience causes her to suffer panic attacks whenever she's around any male, except Ash.
- Earth That Was: According to Word of God the world of Dark Souls that Ash comes from no longer exists.
- Eye Color Change: As a result of the Ashen One inhabiting the body of the Persona 5 protagonist, his left eye changes from grey to orange red.
- For Want Of A Nail: The presence of Ash has ripple effects on Persona 5 Royal's timeline:
- Zigzagged in the case of the Yoshizawa twins. He is the one to save Sumire Yoshizawa from her accident and is also able to save Kasumi from dying. However Sumire is still brainwashed into thinking she is Kasumi.
- Using his power of lie discernment he is able to find out Yaldabaoth's trickery earlier than canon; this causes Yaldabaoth to leave the Velvet Room, allowing Igor to return and Caroline and Justine to fuse back into Lavenza.
- However, due to the above incident Yaldabaoth steps up his game in order to quickly kill Ash. The result is that palaces gain new areas and enemies that are taken directly from Soulsborne game worlds. These include the Demon Prince, Tower Knight, Storm King, Lady Butterfly, Great Ape, Genichiro Ashina, Isshin Ashina, Hollows, and various associated boss arenas.
- He prevents Suguru Kamoshida from raping Shiho Suzui. However, he loses control of his powers, causing him to traumatise Shiho and Kamoshida simultaneously. This results in Shiho developing a Palace.
- His blunt personality and inability to keep secrets causes Sojiro and Futaba to find out that he is the leader of the Phantom Thieves months earlier than in canon.
- Godzilla Threshold: Ash is forced to unleash his full power when Yaldabaoth brings Pontiff Sulyvahn back as a Reaper in Mementos complete with his own Palace. It causes the Darksign (Dark Soul 3 world's sun) to appear in the real world.
- Improvised Lightning Rod:In the fight with Genichiro Ashina ,Ryuji's lightning attack is redirected by Genichiro towards Ash using the Lightning Reversal Technique from Sekiro that involves jumping in the air and redirecting the lightning using his sword.Ash later uses his own lightning reversal technique to defeat Genichiro which involves channelling the lightning through his own body while on the ground.Ash later uses Genichiro's technique near the end of Ryuji's confidant ,which involves a no holds barred fight, stating it to better than his original technique.
- Knight of Cerebus:An odd case in that it's the main character who is one.Ash's existence as well as his actions have derailed Yaldabaoth's plan.This has caused Yaldabaoth to transform the palaces into Soulsborne.This mean that the difficulty has been amped up and due to the inclusion of real humans as palace bosses the psychological trauma that is inflicted on the thieves is greater.
- Living Lie Detector: Due to housing innumerable souls, among them Aldia, Ash is able to discern when others are willfully lying; this allows him to discover Yaldabaoth's deception far earlier than Ren does in canon.He is also able to discern that something is wrong with "Kasumi" when she tells him her full name.
- Older Than They Look: Ash is the Ashen One as the Lord of Hollows inhabiting the body of Ren Amamiya. The Lord of Hollows lived for millennia or more in his world; Ren is a high-schooler.
- Roaring Rampage of Rescue: One of the many diversions from canon caused by Ash's Outside Context Magic, he manages to rescue Shiho Suzui from Suguru Kamoshida and prevent her attempted suicide, but his actions also terrify her in the same way he terrifies Kamoshida, forcing the thieves to clean up the cognitive mess by venturing into her palace.
- Stronger Than They Look: A result of the Ashen One inhabiting Ren's body. The body becomes stronger the longer that Ash inhabits it. In the beginning he was able to survive getting hit by a truck and later he is able to heal his wounds.Word of God also states that the body has grown more muscular. Also as the Ashen One is the Lord of Hollows and comes from the world of Dark Souls he has many abilities including pyromancy, miracles and sorceries. He also has his fighting skills and The Firelink Sword.
- Tarot Motifs: From the Persona side. Ash's tarot is the King of Swords which represents discernment, mastery and power.It ties into the fact that Ash has the ability to discern lies from truth, mastery with weapons and magic and has more power than his teammates and enemies. It also refers to the fact that Ash was a King or specifically the Lord of Hollows.
- Willfully Weak: Ash is told, in response to the Darksign appearing in Kamoshida's Castle, that as an outsider God to the world of Persona 5 he can enforce his rule upon the world .If he fully enforces this by using his full power then his original world's(Dark Souls 3 Darksign) sun will appear in the real world and thus the real world will become like Dark Souls' world. As a result when he gains his power back in Madarame's castle he is careful in unleashing his true power and only uses it under emergencies.
