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[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.

[That fucking counsellor. But wait a second.]

Come on. You know I was joking about that, I hope.

But you still said it. And judging by the way you reacted to my flag, I doubt you have any interest in women, let alone that sort of commitment in the first place.

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

You're making a grave mistake if you think sex is about attraction. More of your romantic nonsense, I suppose.

[He's sure it would have entered his toolbox eventually. Lucky he plans to die first. But he hasn't denied that he is, in fact, as gay as San Francisco in June.]

I'm well aware of the societal pressure to have a "traditional family" and "carry on one's bloodline."

All the more reason to live, I'd argue. So you can go mask off at the right time, shock the legions of fangirls who parasocially imagined themselves with you. Laugh at their tears.

You can spite Shido. You can spite everyone's expectations. Revel in the glorious anarchy...

I'm not doing that shit, no matter how long I live. But if I've learned nothing else around Shido, it's that sex is a weapon like everything else.

[And he doesn't want to be like that. It's one of the few things about Shido that he's always seen for just what it is, and has always despised. A child she never wanted to be born....]

Please don't bring my fangirls into this pleasant conversation we're having. They're more unhinged than I am.

For what it's worth, I do understand that much.

[Of course he's internalized it as well. Hard not to, really.]

Part of why I haven't

Well. Let's just say I'm very conscious of these things. I don't want to be a puppet to those urges. I don't want to move too fast, or hurt anyone in the process.

But you know, speaking as someone who's also had to deal with incessant swooning from idiotic schoolgirls, I had quite the thrill when Ren and I became official. The mere sight of us holding hands sent a rather profound message.

I loved the looks on their faces. It was catharsis.

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