September 30th, 2011, late evening
Somewhere between waking up and drifting off to sleep again, Naoto pulled the blanket closer. Her eyes pinched shut, then reluctantly slid open to see her dark living room.
A quick survey of her situation told her she was curled up on her couch, a blanket was on her, nearly too warm, one leg was poking out to cool off already. Something smelled of prepared food, but the scent seemed cool, as if the meal had been hours ago.
With that, she started up, remembering Kanji Tatsumi. He was here! He went to prepare me a meal and I went to sit on the couch and…
Hurriedly she untangled herself from her blanket and stood. "Tatsumi?" He had left. He had to have left! It would not do for him to stay, alone, here!
She found a light switch and turned the lights on. Blinking at the brightness she made sure that she was indeed by herself. No one was in the living room, no one was in her bed- or bathroom. She walked into her kitchen and found some okonomiyaki stacked between one right-side up plate and another one flipped on top over it. He had left the spatula behind, possibly to allow for the food to be reheated again.
Anger clawed its way up her throat, a bitter, heavy feeling of helplessness and embarrassment.
Not only had he, who very much was only an acquaintance at best, taken the time to bring her food, he had asked her to sit down and relax while he would serve it. And her thanks for it was falling asleep.
Had he stayed? Waited for her to wake up? Had he left at once?
What was he thinking of her now?
She needed so desperately to regain control.
As she walked into her bathroom to shower, she felt the tears that had insistently formed and now started to well over her lids. Standing before her mirror, she squeezed her eyes shut to try and deny them. Stripping from her clothing she grunted and roughly wiped at her face.
She opened her eyes to regard a young woman, cheeks reddened from the rough wiping-away of her tears, stared back. Her eyes were soft, vulnerable. Her stance was hunched, unsure of herself. Something troubled her, but she had no means of dealing with her turmoil.
Naoto started to frown, the girl in the mirror glaring back at her.
stopthat
She accepted the thought willingly. Yes. She would stop being that fragile little thing.
She grabbed a towel and walked away to wash up. She would not accept any further distractions from her goal. And that one was clear and easy to aim for.
Understand what is happening. Reassess. Solve her case. Leave. She needed to leave Inaba, soon. This place prompted too many uneasy feelings and thoughts.
October 2nd, 2011
She had prepared the small coffee table with a collection of her trimmed-down notes and case files. What she had used the most so far was a large note pad, and she took notes as fast as she could while Narukami-senpai listed off dates, places, and phrases she would absolutely need to look up at a later time.
"And you say you said 'Persona!' when the card appeared before you. Why? What does that signify?"
The boy scrubbed his hand through his shaggy grey hair. "Honestly, Naoto-kun, I've not got the slightest idea. It all felt so strangely normal. The card appeared and I knew if I destroy it, and call out, I would be helped."
"Indeed," she said, flipping back a page, "a blue tarot card. Zero-Zero, the Fool…"
"Yes. Within it I knew was a power to help me survive."
"But you also say you did not know why."
"Yes," he sighed.
"Peculiar. So far you have mentioned terminology of Jung's psychological concepts, including the archetype, the collective unconscious, the complex, and extraversion and introversion." She frowned at the pages before her, tapping the pen against her lips.
A polite cough made her look up. "I've no idea what you just said," her senpai admitted softly.
"Oh, I apologize. Carl Jung wrote a number of standard works for psychology, it's all quite basic, really, but he did create a number of still-used terms that are being worked with in the analysis of mental disease and general psychology." She leaned back, her arms crossing on the coffee table. "Without going into too much detail: Jung, much like Sigmund Freud, worked on the understanding and classification of the human emotional state, subconscious and individuation. He in fact worked with Freud in a close collaboration for some time, till he diverged and broke with him, stating that Freud's' concepts were too narrow and too negative. Where Freud stated the unconscious was dark and undesirable, formed by supressed emotions and desires, Jung wishes to state that there is more. He also included the formation of archetypes, the collective subcon… senpai?"
The boy twitched as if someone had woken him from a nap. "I… I'm sorry, Naoto-kun. I don't think I can follow all of this. Do you have an even smaller summary for me?"
Her jaw set and she exhaled slowly. "The terminology you seem to simply know without an explanation is…" She stopped herself once more. "Think of the persona as a mask you show to the outside world. What you want others to perceive of you. And the warning is, that you should never strive to become that mask you use to the outside world, else it consumes you. The result would be enantiodromia, a cataclysmic event which breaks the persona and brings forth the shadow aspect. The shadow being an unconscious aspect of the personality which the conscious ego does not wish to identify in itself and may in fact reject forcefully. However… no, that is too simplified, as the shadow may also well contain positive aspects which may also remain hidden…"
She stared at the table, frowning. How to break something as complex as persona identification, disintegration, negative restoration, absence and finally restoration into bite-sized chunks?
She decided to skip that part for now. "Suffice to say, senpai, that this is all found in generally accepted medical terms. I'll find no hindrance in finding out more on these matters on my own. Which would lead me to my next question then..." She flicked through her note pad while her senpai poured himself more tea. "Ah, yes, how do you fight? We have covered how you found the world, how you found one another and even how you found Kubo. While I was... being held, I could see your group approach darkness, or have darkness moved towards you, then it would consume you... but I was unable to make out anything other than that. What happens when you approach these 'lesser shadows', exactly?"
He shifted, settling down more comfortably, as she flicked to a new page and watched him expectantly. "Well… you mentioned you were able to see something from the outside. Tell me what you saw, maybe I can elaborate on it then."
Naoto frowned at her question being turned right back around to her, but nodded. "Very well. I could not see a whole lot, truth be told." She noted down his question and her answer as she spoke. "I saw a formless black mass that seemed to become attracted to your group, you were surrounded by it, then I saw a wavering darkness and now and again one of the team staggering back or swinging a weapon, but naught else. After a while, the darkness would clear like fog and I could see you again."
"Huh. So that's what you see. To us, the shadow turns into a specific shape. I mentioned them, the shadows, wearing masks. They seem to align somehow to one another, they will always take on a new form and split into up to five lesser shadows. When they split, they seem to be able to take on different forms or aspects, however, it seems they like to always group up into specific … kinds, I guess?"
The detective scribbled eagerly, trying to soak up the information the leader of the teenagers provided.
"You know, it would be easier to simply show you all of this, Naoto-kun."
"Perhaps so, but if I am to perform within the group, I need to be brought up to their level of expertise," she replied, frowning at her notes. "There is yet so much I do not fully comprehend."
The grey-haired boy sighed and leaned on the table. "Actually, Naoto-kun, there are other things I would rather speak of with you, especially concerning the team."
"Yes?" She halted, looking up from her notes. "Should I open a new page for this?"
He chuckles softly. "A new page… yes, you should absolutely turn a new page, Naoto-kun."
Confused by his mirth, she kept his gaze held with hers, flipping over a few pages. "You see, Naoto-kun, I was speaking with the others in the last few days. They made it clear how urgently you wished to talk to me. And, yes, I did get each message you had them send me."
Slowly her eyes widened as he spoke. "So you wilfully ignored my requests to talk to you? Even knowing how urgently we needed to speak?"
As a reply, he picked up his tea cup and slowly sipped. His gaze remained on the cup as he put it back down. "Yes, Naoto-kun. I had decided that you needed to rest, more then you needed to gather information."
The glower came unbidden. Naoto very deliberately put her pen down and steepled her fingers, slowly bringing them to her face. She needed a moment.
While she heard him go on, explaining his reasons for blatantly ignoring the case, she fumed quietly. She had endured her secrets being torn from her before these teens. Had suffered through days of being ill – which still wasn't explained to her fully as of yet! – and the obnoxious visits her new comrades had insisted on pushing on her. On top of all of this, she was now, curtly, being informed that again someone else had decided for her how to address matters.
"You realize you are directly interfering with an ongoing police investigation by wilfully withholding information from me?"
Narukami looked thoughtful for a moment. "Yes." With that he simply waited for her to continue.
"And you hopefully also realize that every minute we wait could lead to another victim?"
"Mhm, it could happen, yes, but we would know."
"Are you telling me you are pleased with simply waiting till something happens? Do you not feel responsible to stopping this… situation?"
"Sure I do. But we are high schoolers. We have classes. We need to have a social life. We must ensure we are safe. And I highly doubt even you would be able to convince the police to join us inside the TV world."
"It has been months," she snapped, "and we have precious little to show. You should have seen me days ago, Narukami-senpai, so we could devise a plan to-"
"Naoto-kun. Listen."
She snapped her mouth shut, glowering.
"We cannot move forward. Not yet. The problem in all of this is not a lack of understanding, but a lack of knowing. So far, Yukiko, Kanji, Rise and you yourself were taken. But unless you have a great new break to reveal, then I can tell you that none of the others remembered even being taken. We have nothing new to go on. We try, and we do our best to protect anyone who is taken, no matter who they are. But running ourselves ragged will not help anyone, we'll only drive ourselves crazy."
The young Shirogane chewed on the words madly racing through her brain. Who did this teenager think he is, that he would attempt, attempt to try and tell her how to lead an investigation? She had lead entire departments years ago during cases she spearheaded. Her experience would out-value anyone he could even dare to hope to work with.
"Also," he continued, not waiting for her to reply, "there is another thing we really need to talk about."
Naoto chose to simply quietly glower at him.
"Your behaviour." He sighed, rubbing his hands over his face. "You've been a jerk. Or, to put it differently," he continued as she bristled up, "you are showing yourself excessively hostile to the team."
"Because they are trying to baby me," she shot back. "I am just as old as you are, and yet it seems no one wishes to even show me a shred of respect as you would amongst peers. Indeed, I have been treated as a witless child a number of times by all of you!" The raising of her voice had not been intended. She didn't mean to yell, did not mean to be abrasive towards him, but her patience was at its very limit.
"You have been sick. Indeed, everyone who had been abducted before you didn't get as bad as you did. You've been the worst we pulled out so far. We honestly care. We're scared seeing you like this. Both Chie and Yukiko have told me that they would rather have someone here overnight every day. They only recently stopped because they started to chafe under your very... abrasive behaviour." It was his turn to frown. "We're on your side. We are worried for you."
She sat back, staring at him with an absolutely blank expression. "You do not even know me…"
"You're a fellow student. We know what we would of your job like anyone else in town. And we know that you have seen and experienced things close to what all of us had to experience and see. In a very real manner, we know you better than any other seven people on this globe would know you. And still you push us away." Narukami shook his head. "To the point of being hurtful. We have offered you nothing but our help because we knew you're in bad shape."
Naoto pressed her cool fingertips to her forehead and glowered at the table. Had she really been… a little tone-deaf in her interactions perhaps?
"I must ask you this now. Do you wish to join the team, Naoto-kun? Please think carefully on your answer. If you say no, I will get up and leave and we will no longer trouble you. I would hope you could stay with us, but I first need to know if this is even something you actually desire."
"Of course I would seek to join forces with you. You are, after all, my best lead in this case."
"So why are you not acting like you indeed want to be a part of the team?"
"What?" She looked up at him in confusion.
"I should possibly not tell you this, but you upset Chie enough to make her cry the other night. She asked me what to do, what she had done wrong. And I had to tell her she hadn't done anything wrong. She simply tried to be there for you, and you pretty much made her feel miserable about herself and about spending any more time with you." It was his turn to lean forward and rest his chin on his closed fist. "Do you think the team would accept you if they feel uneasy about spending more time with you?"
Satonaka-senpai. Crying. Those two words would not mix in her mind. It seemed impossible for her to make the connection.
But something else rang true. If she was to join this group, making enemies was not the way to go. The bigger problem with this however – she had not realized how her behaviour affected those around her.
It was a problem that most certainly wasn't new to her. In some level, she knew that the manner in which she interacted with others was felt as being cold, detached, and even abrasive. It possibly was part of her problem when working on cases for a longer period of time, too. While others wished to blend social life with work, she would prefer to keep the two separated. She also knew where this behaviour originated from.
"I am… poor at making friends, Narukami-senpai. In part due to never having made many friends of my own age to begin with. In part due to my desire to keep my work purely professional and without emotional attachments."
"I can see that." The boy nodded at her, but did not smile. "I really, honestly can see that. But we are all friends. We need to be, in order for us to do what we do. I do not believe we could face what we face without the emotional support of one another. And I firmly believe even you would benefit from this support. But you'll need to work on regaining it now."
He made to rise and Naoto stood with him. "You are leaving?"
"Yes. I think you'll need to think on things for a while, and I would rather make sure that you have some time before you give me your answer."
Narukami gave her a brief nod and saw himself out.