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[... ugh.]

"Skilled with a needle" was how he put it to me. I'm sure you remember. He wanted me to engage him as a tailor.

Edited 2023-09-22 17:02 (UTC)

Yes. Kanji is very skilled with not only knitting, but with tailoring and modifying his own clothes. His interest in crafting got him a lot of flak when he was younger, which in turn was why he sculpted that "bad boy" demeanor.

It was a shield to intimidate others, so they wouldn't think him "too soft."

I'm not surprised he related to that.

[After all, what had he been doing at twelve, really? Still playing nice like an idiot, with that desperate hope behind his smile.]

I can't say how long this headache will last. He may be better by morning, or he may be unwell for days. After I awakened it was a week before I felt—["Like himself"? No, that's not the right way of putting it at all.]—well again.

I appreciate you taking care of him, especially on such short notice. I'll try to find some way to make it up to you later.

[It's only fair, after all. A task like that is no easy feat for someone as jaded as his other self.]

With all that said, do you wish to discuss the information he shared? I imagine it's quite a lot to grapple with.

Edited 2023-09-22 17:13 (UTC)

You'll just have to owe me. There's no money here, after all. I can't so much as cadge a free meal out of you.

[Does he wish to discuss the information, though? It's going to take some thinking through, for sure. But the thing he keeps returning to, the thing that's anchored under his skin and torn it off, is that both of them—the older one and the kid both—can likely now begin to see him for what he is.]

I'm not ashamed of any of it. I'm not even sorry. Given the knowledge I had at the time, I'd do every part of it again.

You did what you felt was necessary, given your circumstances. You didn't have hindsight, nor did you see the big picture, and the world had failed you, so you had no fucks to give about those you were assigned to kill.

[Perhaps there's more to it, but it's the best summation he can come up with.]

I don't think you'll lose any faith you've earned from my younger self, however. He may be young, but that loneliness is still recent for him. His bitterness remains, even though he's begun to find renewed hope.

In short, I doubt much will change, other than him being sad that you endured such things. He won't hate you.

[You don't get it, other-him. That just makes it so much worse.]

You're saying, in essence, that he views me the way I viewed Shido. That his crimes and personal failings are at worst irrelevant, at best something to aspire to. Is that it?

["Irrelevant" is perhaps not the best way to describe his view of Shido's ocean of crimes. But they've never factored into his decision-making in recent times.]

Edited 2023-09-22 17:24 (UTC)

I doubt he views your crimes as aspirational. I suspect it'll be like me.

We can see past the crimes. Understand that you walked this path as a matter of circumstance, because you wanted to be seen. To be needed.

[Hmm... He pauses, thinking back.]

But you are, in many ways, more relatable to him, because he isn't me yet. He was taken so early, when he'd only just begun to walk the path of a Persona user and still hadn't properly awakened.

He's known you almost as long as he's known Kanji, Nanako-chan, and Dojima-san now.

It's how children are drawn in by vile adults. You know that. They need to be needed. They offer understanding when all there should be is condemnation. There's an endless litany of abuse written in the naivety of children.

But you aren't Shido.

[He lets that point sink in for a moment.]

You've shown nothing but kindness and patience to him and to Hawk. At any time, you could have hurt them. Used them. But you never did.

Understanding can be frightening. It's why I pushed the others away for as long as I did. Understanding can be so easily exploited. Like slithering through a crack in the armor to strike at a vital spot...

I'm sorry that you had to endure so much hardship alone.

[Feeling ten things at once, all bad? Try twenty or so—though admittedly many are the same thing.]

Don't say that I'm sick to death of hearing it. I'm sick to death of your understandign

But why?

I'm not trying to be snide here, for the record.

[Sometimes, you just need to destroy anything good you have, before it can be taken away. He types furiously.]

Try this, then. I *want* to be like Shido. I admire how he operates, what he does. How he takes what he wants. How he can't be hurt. When I see myself grow like him, sometimes I feel sick, yes. But sometimes I'm glad. That that strength is in me, if I can cut away the rest The only reason I object to him, or anything he's doing, is that it's *him doing it*

With all due respect, I find that a bit hard to believe.

What I do believe is that you've told yourself this because it allows you to proceed down this path. Sunk cost, in other words. Strength, control, armor to shield you from the hardships of the world- I can see the appeal in that, especially with the life you've led.

But I have to question if you truly wish to cut everything else away, or if you're attempting it solely so they don't cut you out first. If it's you making the call, then you have the power. You aren't the one being hurt.

Except it still hurts, doesn't it?

Then you need to stop projecting for one second and see me for what I am.

You have this image of me as a victim, trapped by the sunk cost fallacy. But that's pathetic. What I do, I do because I want to. Because I choose it. Because I see success at the end. I'll have what I want, what I've *earned*. What others have paid for in blood while I lived the high life. That's all that matters to me. I may have to have Shido's blood in me, but I'll be damned if I'm not going to make it pay

[He has neglected to answer the question other-him asked, or to address it at all.]

You didn't answer the question.

Have you never once considered your own personal biases? You call my words projecting.

You have this image of yourself as a monster. You chose this path, yes, but I still recall how much the news shook you when I revealed that you had been a false god's pawn. To have the very foundations of your aspirations challenged, shaken.

Do you really see success at the end, after everything you've learned here?

I don't think it's too late to pave a more fruitful path, especially now that we have the knowledge provided by the Shadow.

If you survive, Maruki can't use you against Ren. So, don't get killed. Find a way to get your vengeance against Shido that doesn't end in your demise. After all, is your continued existence not the ultimate spite against Shido, when all is said and done?

[It pulls him up short. Of course he ends along with his plan. That's just symmetry. He can't imagine anything else.]

Are you seriously telling me I should stay alive for the good of the world?

It'd help, but also, I think that living would be the ultimate offense to Masayoshi Shido.

The man who sees you expendable, the man who intends to throw you out back once you've fulfilled your use to him.

Survive, and who gets the last laugh? Certainly not him.

[But it doesn't work. He picks up his cooling coffee, takes it to the picture window that faces down onto the park. An utterly black expanse, at this hour, in the bright fake Tokyo night.

Getting his revenge from afar. Remotely, with a phone in his hand, or a laptop at his command. Or in the Metaverse, assuming he could ever turn on Shido's bloated Shadow and win. It's just not....]

Do you know why I did it? What I did it for.

Was it for her?

[It's the first thing he can rationalize, at least. Vengeance for the woman whose life he ruined and for the son he abandoned before he was even born.]

Not really. She was just a pretext. I know that much.

[Not that he doesn't burn at the thought of it. Not that it can't still drive him mad, to the extent anything can. But it wasn't what drove him on.]

I did it for the look in his eye. When he knew who I was. When he knew he'd sown the seeds of his own ruin. I was going to take the reins from him, in person. And I was going to enjoy it.

So it's the personal satisfaction.

I can understand that.

As I said, I've toyed with our inevitable calling card to Shido being a grand display, projected on every screen in Shibuya, if not all of Tokyo.

A grand reveal of the "second coming of the Detective Prince," a revelation that Shido had spawned a bastard son who had worked alongside the elusive Phantom Thieves to unearth his conspiracy and drag him into the pits of hell.

But now that I know about the false god, I have to question if that would even work. Perhaps, in the moment, Shido would feel genuine terror. It would be a fitting final few moments before we sweep his distorted desires away, knowing that I did this to him.

[The temptation's still there, for that satisfaction alone. Such feelings aren't wholly lost to him.]

I think the best option would be to consider ways to adjust your actions in light of everything you've learned so far. Plus, you have that Evoker if things get wholly out of hand. Even Shido's most loyal underlings would be no match for Loki in the real world.

[... it's relatable.]

Maybe I'll steal that idea. But if Bug's story holds—[The guy with the butterfly]—I could strip naked in Shibuya in person and nobody would notice a thing. I do think the rest of you lack imagination. Killing Ren wasn't my idea. I don't care if he gets off. That false god doesn't necessarily pose a problem. It has interests, but so do I. I just need to outthink it. I don't even have to wait for the election, technically.

[Because he knows, really, that it wasn't the election he was waiting for. Again, it was a pretext, that gave him what he really wanted.]

I know I won't change his heart, but he doesn't. I could threaten him with what he fears most of all. The loss of that strength that draws others to fear and admire him.

Edited 2023-09-22 19:03 (UTC)

If you think that is worth a try, but please be cautious. The goal, I think, should be to get you through this alive so that Maruki can't use you as leverage and so that you have a chance to move forward.

[And it's here that he draws out a little levity.]

After all, you said yourself that you'd be getting a vasectomy at twenty.

Death just isn't the same.

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