No one should stare into their own soul. That level of self-awareness may destroy lesser men. Life doesn't hold its punches. What you see is what you get, and sometimes what you get isn't very nice.
What separates men from weaklings, however, is what they do once they stare into their souls. Will they handle the truth and work with it, or will they blink, ignoring what they are afraid to admit?
The first time Adachi Tohru saw his soul he was only eight years old and had just killed a praying mantis. It was a majestic creature; green and black and noisy. Bigger than what his small hands could hold at that point. It was only passing by the Tohru family's garden when Adachi swiftly put an end to its life.
The remains of the creature were splattered on the floor, in which could be described as macabre modern art. His infantile mind had no specific feelings about it, but for some reason, he stared at it for almost ten minutes. It was a nice summer day, and his mother was baking dinner. In a couple of hours she would call him to wash himself, and no one would know what he had done.
Even if they did, Adachi knew no one would care. The praying mantis was not human; it was merely a bug. He didn't understand why, but all his life everyone had always killed bugs in front of him. Ants, cockroaches, mosquitos, none of those mattered. Therefore, the praying mantis shouldn't matter either, even if it was bigger.
In fact, he could tell his parents about it. Nothing would change between them. He could say it out loud and no one would bat an eye. One of God's creatures had just died because of him, but its life wasn't sacred for some reason. In other words, killing bugs was okay. Adachi didn't have to feel bad about it.
He didn't have to feel anything at all.
The second time Adachi stared into his soul was a couple of years after that; when he was fifteen years old. He had a bright future ahead of him; not the top of the class, but not the lowest denominator either. He'd had some girlfriends, gone on a few trips, his friends liked him. For all intents and purposes, he was a perfectly healthy young man.
His neighbors would notice the missing dog eventually, but it didn't matter to him. The whimpers didn't bother Adachi, and the crimson liquid that came out of its neck was fascinating. The dog was an it, after all. Humans liked to pet them, to feed them and to pretend that they were part of the family, but you wouldn't risk someone's life because of a dog's. You wouldn't actually believe the dog was worth as much as a person. That was stupid.
If you were technical about it, the word graveyard didn't apply to his garden. Even if the dictionary description stated that it characterized any burial grounds, there weren't actually any gravestones on it. His mother had started to take medication, so she slept through the night like a rock. He hadn't seen his father in years.
Adachi was getting pretty good at digging, however. Digging, and covering up his tracks. The first time he captured someone's pet he was almost caught, but he managed to scare the stupid kid away. It was a girl half his size, so he didn't think she would actually tell anyone. Even then, what would they do, anyway? It was just a cat. The first of many, in fact.
As he finished burying Skippy, he put the shovel in the garage, got inside his house and went to take a shower. His heart was still beating because of the effort, but he wasn't actually excited. This was getting boring. The rush of adrenaline he'd felt in the first few times was dimming with each consecutive hunt, and he was running out of animals to make disappear. It was getting harder and harder to care or to put his heart into it.
He finished his shower and went straight to bed, still trying to enjoy the weak satisfaction. He dreamt of the girl that owned Mona Lisa before he made it his first time.
Now that he thought about it, she was kind of cute.
The third time Adachi stared into his soul, he was busy. It had been a coincidence that had led him to find Kyoko Namimura. She probably didn't recognize him, drunk as she was, but he recognized her on the spot. She owned Mona Lisa all those years ago.
DWI. He was alone on the precinct. Everything his job dictated as obligation at this point was to fill her file and stick around for the night to guard her. It was a holiday, and he was the unlucky one to get the night shift. Bullshit.
She was half-smiling at him, probably not even aware of where she was. Luckily she hadn't hit anyone, but the beat cop basically shoved her in Adachi's face. "Deal with her for me, will'ya?" he said. The bastard's name was Kurokage, if Adachi remembered correctly. And he had a cat.
While Adachi was thinking about that, Kyoko started giggling on her holding cell. She was barely legal according to her file, and didn't even have a license to drive. He was stalling on calling her family, since he didn't really care and didn't know the number. Kyoko was coming back from a party in some nightclub stupid kids frequented. Her skirt was so short.
She probably wouldn't even notice, he thought to himself. The girl was too far gone to care about anything. She probably thought she was still partying. He didn't ask to get stuck on that dead-end job, or for that stupid shift, so why should he feel bad about her? It's her fault she was drunk.
Still, he'd never done something like that before. It was dangerous. Illegal and unethical in every way possible. But he knew the camera was busted, Officer Ishiyama was too lazy to get it fixed. They were completely alone for the rest of the night.
In the end, what sealed his decision wasn't the fact that she would probably not remember any of what he did to her. It was the memory of that Autumn night where he'd snuck Mona Lisa out of her litterbox on Namimura's garden, and broke its neck with his fingers. The cat's eyes were always staring at him, even after it was gone.
He'd never felt like that before.
After the deed was done, Kyoko did remember. And Adachi had to suffer the consequences for what he had done. Fortunately for him, the chief of police was a friend of his mother's, so he merely got reassigned to a city in the boonies. Honestly, he'd rather go to jail. Not that he had done anything wrong. It had all just been a minor slip-up.
The last time Adachi Tohru saw his own soul was on Magatsu Inaba, on his final confrontation with the Seekers of Truth. What a bunch of losers. Couldn't they see that this was for the best?
So what if he had tried to have his way with those two girls? He didn't know they would die, it wasn't his fault. If anything, Namatame was the real killer. But it wasn't really about that anymore. It was about that damned Narukami and his friends trying to play grown-up.
They didn't know. They hadn't been through what he had. The fact that his Persona was a better version of Narukami's was proof enough that he was right on his resolve.
Lately, nothing gave him that rush he'd had when he killed Mona Lisa. The murder investigation had been fun, but it had also overstayed its welcome. The world would be much simpler after he finished his job. None of the bullshit. None of the hypocrisy. No one to tell him what was right or wrong, or how to live his life. For the first time in forever, he would be finally free. And all he had to do boiled down to pest control.
They were just more bugs.
He felt nothing for them at all.