What if Akechi was the protagonist?

What if Goro Akechi was the protagonist of Persona 5?
And what if our original protagonist was the villain of Persona 5?
Before we start, we have to look at one of prevalent overarching themes that impact both Akechi's and Akira's character traits.
In Persona 5, one of the overarching themes within the story is Nature vs. Nurture.  A specific example given in the story is a character we meet very early on: Ryuji.
In short, Ryuji's character and place in the beginning of the story was the result of his actions of being provoked and hitting Kamoshida when he was coaching the Track team.  Kamoshida injures Ryuji's leg, dismantles the Track Team, and blamed Ryuji for the sport being dismissed from Shujin.
Now, a question arises here, is Ryuji's character a result of his actions? Or the situation that caused his actions?  Nature vs nurture.
I bring this up because of how deeply embedded this idea is within Akechi.  Akechi's personality in our timeline is that of a cold-hearted, murderous psychopath who never had anyone to love or love him growing up.  But when he was around Akira and the Phantom Thieves, we got see another side to him.  You may recall this and think to yourself, "Oh but that was a fake side of him.".  And I understand your concern about this.  However, Persona 4 established that none of these pultiple personalities, or personas, we present to others are our "real selves".  "There is no real me." As Rise Kujikawa put it.  Even Adachi in Persona 4 states his friendly attitude toward Yu Narukami was a fake version of himself.  Yet at the end of the game he still writes and sends a letter to him, with a small section at the end of how he misses the times he spent with Narukami, Dojima and Nanako.  Because of these past examples, I do not believe Akechi's friendly persona is "fake" or "real".  All these facets of our personality make up our true selves.
Alright alright, so what is Akechi's "true" nature then if we were to put him in a different environment or upbringing?
It's been implied in-game that Akechi and Akira are quite similar in their crappy situations, and their ability to summon multiple personas.
The main difference between them however, is that Akira had friends to help him, while Akechi was am orphaned child who had no one around him growing up.
Akechi's personality as a detective was a very inquisitive, sociable, friendly, charming individual especially on camera.  He was able to grab the attention of his audience with his looks and his intelligence, and was able to influence them into thinking the PT were not just in their cause.
As a PT, Akechi's intellect and inquisitive nature proved very useful in navigating and solving many of the obstacles in Sae's palace.  Perhaps as a way to make himself seem innocent, and as a way to prove himself, this is where he really took charge in the infiltration and proved he was a very essential asset to the thieves.
I think Akechi's personality here would make for very different and interesting interactions with the main and supporting cast of P5 as its protagonist.
So without further ado, let's begin this What-if.

In this alternate timeline, the beginning of the story would more or less be the same.  As the protagonist, Akechi would be a 16 year old student on his way to Shibuya to make his way to his new area of residence, Yongen-Jaya.
He still discovers the metaverse app on his phone and promptly deletes it asap.
When he makes it to Yongen, his inquisitive and more intellectual nature allows him to navigate the area and find Sojiro's house much quicker than Akira initially did.
He then gets redirected to Leblanc cafe and soon makes his way there thanks to the help of a stern-faced, serious looking police officer.
The same thing plays out, a news story is talking about another psychotic breakdown incident.
The customers leave and Akechi finally gets to meet his new, temporary guardian for the next year.
They greet and exchange words more or less the same.  Except Sojiro is a little taken aback that someone like Akechi, based on the way he looks, could be considered a criminal at all.  Though this doesn't seem to matter at all as he still treats Akechi like shit, like he did with Akira.
Sojiro shows Akechi his new bedroom and instead of being passively concerned about the state of the dirty attic, Akechi's more socially aggressive nature makes him instead question why not he just sleep in Sojiro's house?
Naturally, Sojiro immediately and aggressively shoots down this suggestion as he tells Akechi that he simply does not have any living space for him at his home.
Akechi then further probes Sojiro's living situation by commenting that his house seemed big enough for two people from the outside.
But Sojiro is less than please with this, and sternly suggests that Akechi drop the smartass act and know his place.
"Back home you may have been some straight A wunderkind student.  But here?  You're just gonna be seen as a typical loser and punk with that attitude.  Drop it."
Things progress the same, Akechi cleans his room and goes to bed and attends his first "visit" to the Velvet Room.

Real quick, we're gonna go to that cutscene with Sae Nijima meeting the the SIU Director.  When she goes downstairs to meet up with her assistant, it's none other than the Detective Prince Akira Kurusu.  The protagonist from our timeline.  We see here that Akira's more of an aloof, Clark Kent-type person around his superiors.
He does this to prevent others from thinking he's capable of doing anything harmful or malicious.  Though in reality, he's a very intelligent, calculating, devilishly charming, risk-taking, psychotic murderer.  Unlike Akechi who comes off as Extroverted and charming in the public eye, Akira comes off as introverted and a bit clumsy.  We'll see more of his behavior when he first runs into the thieves at the TV station.

So the first day of school comes and it's on a rainy day no less.  Akechi meets Ann the same way Akira did, except Akechi is a little more taken aback by Ann not only by her obviously non-Japanese looking appearance, but also by her charm and beauty.  He feels pleasantly surprised by her but chokes up a little in her presence.  Unlike Akira, he actually makes an attempt to say hello or say something.  Unfortunately his opportunity becomes squandered by the appearance of Kamoshida.
Now Akechi gets to meet Ryuji!
Ryuji's actually a bit more menacing to Akechi because of his more goodie-two-shoes appearance.  To him, Akechi looks like someone who'd be willing to call the police on him.  A NARC if you will.
Akechi's also a little surprised by Ryuji's behavior, but genuinely questions who he's referring to when asked about Kamoshida.
The same thing plays out, and the app on Akechi's phone takes them into the metaverse.
From here the same events play out, they get imprisoned, shadow Kamoshida shows himself and beats the shit out of Ryuji and prepares to kill both him and Akechi.
But of course, a voice rings in Akechi's head and he beings to awaken to his persona, Arsene.
Though, I imagine Akechi's interpretation of Arsene being a little more brighter in color compared to Akira's.
And before you start asking why Akechi has Arsene, it's because when I said Akechi and Akira were switching roles, this also meant they'd be swapping personas.  Their personas represent their roles as characters in the story.  Arsene and Satanael being the protagonist, while Robin Hood and Loki are the villains.  Also thematically, Arsene just makes the most sense as the protagonist's persona as the protagonist is also the leader of the Phantom Thieves.  And Arsene is indeed a Phantom Thief.
Anyways, Akechi awakens to his Persona and quickly takes out Kamoshida's soldiers and he and Ryuji get the hell out of dodge.

The escape plays out the same way and our heroes get to run into Morgana just like in the original timeline.
This time however, Akechi's a lot more open and trusting to Morgana offering them help in exchange for getting him out of his prison.
Morgana's actually relieved and ecstatic about Akechi's trustworthy nature and proceeds to trade insults with Ryuji.  In this timeline, unlike Akira, Akechi actually learns much faster and catches on to the Metaverse and its inhabitants due to his naturally inquisitive, intelligent nature.
In this timeline, I would say Morgana is a lot more impressed with Akechi's performance than he was originally with Akira as Morgana called both Akira and Ryuji idiots.
The same thing more or less plays out and our heroes escape.  Hurray!  Except, Ryuji and Akechi are super late to the the first day of class.
So they make their way to school and Akechi now has to make his way to the teacher's guidance room to meet with Kawakami.
Through the school halls Akechi would hear the rude and disturbing comments and rumors surrounding his arrival.
"Is that really him!?"  "He doesn't seem like a bad guy..."  "Yeah, I heard that's how he draws you in."  "I heard he killed someone."  "I heard he keeps knives in his bag."  Etc.
Akechi eventually makes his way to greet Kawakami and she is not at all pleased with his late arrival.  In this timeline, Kawakami is a tad less annoyed and stressed out that she has to deal with a delinquent, but more disappointed that Akechi's late arrival proves her own bias.
She sighs, and comments "I was really hoping you wouldn't be THIS troublesome.  Not only are you late, but you were also with that Sakamato-kun.  Just don't get involved with him alright?  You don't want others to think worse of you than they already are."
Akechi would be intrigued and shocked at her last statement. He would then ask why people think he's so bad already.
To which Kawakami ignores the question and remarks that "Being anymore late isn't going to help your criminal record.  *sigh*, just follow me to class."
Akechi finally gets to attend his class, introduce himself, notice Ann, and the rest of the day goes pretty much how it did in our timeline.
Ryuji and Akechi meet on the rooftop, they talk about what they just went through, and devise a plan to go back and confirm the metaverse's existence.  Though, in this conversation, Akechi's very skeptical of Ryuji's theory that the metaverse was simply a dream.  Despite his skepticism, they are both stumped and head home.