A/N: I always like Mitsuo as a character foil to Yu. There's a real chance that if Yu never met his friends or never established himself as someone who wasn't empty he really could have turned out to be like Mitsuo. I could go on for days about this subject. I analyzed the dialogue and subtle body language in the anime (which was probably me just making up what I wanted to see), but I guess I'll save that explanation for another day.

Kill me, Quiet Me: Mitsuo Kubo

It was difficult to categorize their relationship. They were never friends, and they never would be, but they weren't necessarily enemies either. Admittedly, they were for a moment when he was surrounded pixels and fabricated dungeons. It was hard to look past the situation Mitsuo put him in before. He was trapped in a nightmare—haunted by the idea of being left alone and abandoned but now their positions were never thought in a million years he would be standing before a broken Mitsuo who was currently cornered into a pixelated room staring emptily at the TV screen. With a deadpanned stare, Yu noticed the isolated teen bashing his fingers on the video game controls as if he were on the brink of winning the final round, but the screen was glowing with a neon sign that read: "Game Over."

Mitsuo's eyes were vacant as always, but something about his expression was uncomfortably empty. In his glassy eyes, Yu could easily see his own reflection and the bright red Game Over. His lips turned into a visible frown and he could feel the hairs on the back of his neck standing on its end.

Mitsuo was never an ordinary high school student—who else would feel the need to falsely accuse themselves of murder?—but his current condition was of an entirely different scale. Yu's first question was how Mitsuo ended up in TV Land in the first place, but upon asking Mitsuo, the Leader was left with nothing but a haunting stare.

Yu's hands rolled into a tight fist. Even now, after all of the bonds he had created, he could clearly see his past empty self in Mitsuo's curled form. Any slight change in his life, and he was sure that he could have ended up the same—alone and unwanted. He never wanted to admit it, but in a way facing Mitsuo's Shadow and experiencing the illusion of losing his friends saved him. If anything it made him grab on to the fraction of hope he had and solidified his friendships with the team. It might not have been Mitsuo's intention to "save" him, but there was no denying that it brought Yu back to his senses. His dedication to bringing Mitsuo back from TV Land wasn't the fact that he was returning the favor or what Adachi called a "holier than thou" reaction. In a sense he was saving his past self.

Yu took a step in front of the TV to block the screen, but Mitsuo looked straight through him as he continued to rapidly press the buttons on the game controller. Out of the corner of his eye, Yu could see Mitsuo's Shadow lurking in the darkness. Unlike the others, Mitsuo never faced his Shadow and even now Yu could see it haunting him by whispering into Mitsuo's ear how worthless he was.

"You're not empty." Finally he caught Mitsuo's attention even if it was something as fleeting as a quick twitch of the eye. "You don't need to kill people to be worth something."

The Shadow eerily smiled as if it knew Yu's words were pointless. It was hard to forget what the Shadow had stated before during their past encounter. It was what Mitsuo considered his own lack of talent that made him doubt his existence. For Yu it was his disconnection the world. He had no friends during his countless transfers and his parents were just familiar faces in old photographs. The bonds he created saved him, but it wouldn't work the same way for Mitsuo. What Mitsuo needed was a realization that he wasn't worthless and that mindless video games weren't the only thing that he was capable of conquering.

"You're better than this Mitsuo," Yu angrily added as he tore the game control out of Mitsuo's deathly grip. "You're out of jail now. You can start over." He paused as he saw Mitsuo's empty look transforming into a pitiful look of self hate.

His hands were still shaped as if he had the controller.

Yu wasn't sure if it was the Shadow speaking or if it was his own realization but it dawned on him that his actions were pointless. When he confronted Adachi, a part of him knew there was someone who was desperately trying to find retribution. For Mitsuo, it was beyond the point of no return. Everything Yu said or had planned to say would only backfire. It was like how Yu would purposefully stay silent in school. It was an act of protest as well as a cry for attention. If his teachers noticed his lack of morale, his parents would be called and for at least a few hours he would feel their concern before he was whisked away to another school to start fresh. His parents had always assumed it was the environment that made him act that way, but they never saw the problem lied within themselves.

In this situation he was acting the same ignorant way his parents did. The fact that he was spouting encouraging words to Mitsuo only dug the knife deeper. Yu was the one with Wild Card ability—something he knew was a once in a lifetime gift, something even he thought was something straight out of a fantasy game—while Mitsuo stood silently in the corner with nothing but the biting words of his forum. Yu was the one who Yukiko admired and loved while she looked at Mitsuo with wary fearful eyes. He was his own poison. Yu looked up at Mitsuo to see him mouthing the words:

"Kill me."

Everything he stood for and everything he fought to defend would be thrown away if Yu chose to kill Mitsuo now, but he knew it was the only way. The answer to the question he had before revealed itself to him. Mitsuo didn't enter TV Land on his own accord. His friends who had their own Shadows unconsciously had the power to defeat their darkest thoughts which manifested into a Persona. For Mitsuo it was the opposite. His Shadow was overcoming him and it was evident that his fate would be to stay trapped in TV Land until his Shadow overwhelmed him entirely. With a grave nod, he unsheathed his sword which made the Shadow convulse in alarm. He quickly summoned Izanagi and with a swift attack of the blade the Shadow screeched in pain as in disintegrated along with the pixelated walls of the dungeon. Yu's eyes lowered, unable to look at the source of where his blade hit flesh.

As the dungeon unraveled around him, he made sure he had killed the Shadow before the blade reached Mitsuo. This way he would die without being haunted til death by his Shadow.

And at least this way he would die the way he wished he could. A hero.