Thank you, Persona 5, for the inspiration.

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The Investigation Team wasn't as sure of themselves after finishing the first floor.

Yu watched what little control he had over the active Persona-users circling the drain as they moved onward. Now they didn't trust his judgment in dungeons, either. To be fair, they never had to retrieve a dog's Persona. Teddie could speak on his own – and him having his own Shadow was something no one had expected.

But a leader should expect the unexpected, shouldn't he?

Once again, Yu found himself regretting that he never took the initiative to sit with members of the Shadow Operatives and ask them about Makoto Yuki. The idea that there were other Persona-users out there took them all by surprise, and the fact that they were older, more experienced, and organized was both impressive and a little embarrassing. They even had a much better name for themselves. Yu had done all he could with what he had, having been the first (alright, the SECOND, after Adachi) Persona-user in town and the only one with access to information, as cryptic as it was. And he hadn't done that bad of a job, organizing a group of vastly different teens so they could defeat a god. Being a leader wasn't easy. Neither was being a teenage boy.

He was never going to be able to tell her.

Yu'd never expected to fall in love while staying with his extended family for a year...but she spent time with him, and he found himself wanting more. Then every girl began batting their eyelashes at him, and the sudden onslaught of attention after a lifetime with very little was overwhelming. So maybe he accepted a few too many dates. What was he supposed to do, say no? Igor told him to cultivate "Social Links", but he never told him what to DO with the fucking things!

The worst part was that no one was confronting him. No one blew up his phone asking for answers or demanding to know whether their relationship was one-sided or actually real. Kanji knew that he'd dated Naoto, yet his nose was still on his face – and in one piece! No one seemed to be upset with Yu. Instead, they were...resigned. They'd accepted his misdeeds at face value and moved on, writing him off as The One Who Got Away or a bullet they'd dodged. This hurt worse than any physical pain they could have caused him. It meant that they assumed the Yu they knew was a facade.

Was he?

At this point, even he wasn't sure.

Another slap in the face was the Shadow Operatives coming out of the same situation with a renewed sense of camaraderie. Now that the truth was out in the open, they were communicating more and making attempts to understand each other – meaning it WAS possible. But it had literally taken death for this situation to resolve itself, and it had been three years since it all happened. Yu did not want to leave his friends in relationship limbo for that long. Talking had to be done, and Yu had to start it.

...tomorrow.

If an outdoor shrine had surprised everyone, an alleyway completely eclipsed their expectations. Yu had not seen much of Iwatodai on the class trip, but he was pretty sure this was an actual location that none of them had any business in. It smelled of smoke, booze, and urine, and the only available light was from the garish neon signs advertising that this was absolutely not a location for them.

"Whose Shadow would be here?" he heard Yosuke saying.

The answer seemed to be coming from the back of the group. Several Operatives were trying to get the attention of Ken Amada, who was hyperfocused on something in a filthy corner. When Yu got back there to check, he found the boy breathing heavily over a blood-splattered chalk outline.

The unlucky victim appeared to be fairly short, perhaps a young adult. Judging by the twisted shape of the outline, they must have been horribly battered. What intrigued Yu most was the position of their arms. It looked as if they were reaching for someone or something at the moment of their death.

Naoto had moved forward, no doubt to examine the crime scene for clues, but jumped back so suddenly that she nearly collided with Yu. Before any awkwardness could occur, they saw why.

Right where she had been kneeling, a new chalk outline had appeared next to the first one, mimicking its position. A smaller outline...the size of a child.

"An unexplained accident," said a voice.

The small outline stood up.

"Ken-kun, get back!" Yukari's warning went unheeded, as did Akihiko's outstretched arm.

As the outline took a step forward, the chalk dissipated and a scrawny leg took its place. They watched as a human form materialized out of nothing to stand before them. Shadow Ken had not aged since whatever incident he was referencing, advancing on the teenager with a much younger body and a bedraggled figure, with blood dripping off his dirty, ill-fitting clothes. "He" turned to glare at the approaching Akihiko and Mitsuru with enough fury to stop even the Ice Empress cold. Naoto began watching them instead.

"It was an accident," Ken said softly. He still hadn't moved; he just stared at the remaining outline in case it, too, rose to taunt him.

"But was it unexplained?"

A new voice joined the conversation, one that made all of the Operatives panic enough that they assumed battle stances. It belonged to a pale, bedraggled man wearing only tattered jeans, his lanky frame and wild hair making him look like a reanimated corpse. "I think not," he continued.

"You son of a bitch." Junpei – goofy, fun-loving Junpei – practically growled at the emaciated man. He gripped his chest as if he were having a heart attack.

Akihiko lunged forward to attack the interloper – but Mitsuru caught him. "He's not real," she said as she struggled to hold him back. "He can't be!"

Not real? Yu looked back at Rise out of habit, and she nodded. Sure enough, the man had yellow eyes. But Shadow Ken was right in front of them...

Kanji spoke for all of them. "Wait, two Shadows? Who's this guy, then?" When the Shadow Operatives appeared not to hear him, he – in an admittedly smart move – turned to Naoto instead.

"Takaya Sakaki," she replied, "An unrepentant murderer."

Another murderer? He certainly fit the profile; deranged look in his eyes, cocksure smirk at realizing he'd unsettled the Shadow Operatives with his presence, a gun haphazardly tucked into his waistband. Or was that an Evoker? Could it be that Adachi wasn't the first person to receive a Persona and immediately use it for evil?

Takaya set his sights on both Kens, who were trembling at the sound of his hypnotic voice. "You know the truth. You've always known the truth. Yet you willingly accepted a lie."

"No…!" Ken gripped his spear so tightly that he was sure to snap it in two, his breathing becoming more and more erratic.

"She was all you had," Takaya gestured to the remaining outline, "and she was taken from you...by an 'unexplained accident'!" He yanked the gun from his belt and pointed it at Ken's head as if it would actually fire. "Call it what it was! It. Was. MURDER!"

"BULLSHIT!"Akihiko screamed, his voice breaking, Mitsuru sobbing on his shoulder as he fought to escape her.

Takaya found this hilarious as his eyes lit up. "You were angry, were you not? You had been robbed...deprived of someone close to you. You wanted to pay them back. You wanted...vengeance."

Vengeance...vengeance...An eerie chorus repeated the word throughout the little alley.

"Guys…" Rise sounded worried. "You might want to get away!"

"You were given the power to take your revenge. You were blessed by the goddess Nyx herself. She bequeathed her own daughter to you – a child wronged by the death of their mother!"

Oh. Ohhh. The IT had long wondered why Ken's parents were okay with their son hanging around with a bunch of adults and jetting off to Inaba so often, even if one of them was rich and powerful. The answer was they didn't exist.

Shadow Ken grabbed his head and screamed. Waves of power emanated from him as...was that a Persona? It looked like a compass threaded through a saw blade. Cold and metallic, with a manically grinning face embedded in its chest, it gave off an aura of pure hatred.

"Nemesis," he named it.

It didn't escape their notice that the Shadow's shoulders visibly sagged, as if the Persona was a physical weight he carried around with him. No wonder Ken seemed so mature for his age – he had purged himself of a childhood much, much too early.

Akihiko had stopped struggling against Mitsuru and had buried his face into the crown of her head. Had he been involved in this incident, too? Did Naoto find any information in her investigation of the Kirijo Group about Ken and Akihiko? Yu wished she would talk to him once more. It was impossible to lead a team full of secrets.

"Vengeance was the breath that filled your lungs," Takaya kept egging the shadow on. "The purpose that pulsed through your veins. There was nothing left of your soul but hatred, and it fueled every moment of your cursed existence."

"I know what I saw," Shadow Ken began glowing in some sickly shade of green, "but they wouldn't believe me! No one believed me...I'm going to find that bastard that killed Mom, and I'm going to kill him myself!" There was so much fury in that little body, it didn't seem like there was room for anything else.

"And did you?" the sneering face of Takaya asked. "Did you keep the vow you made over your mother's corpse? Did you take back your justice?"

So Ken was Justice. Yu could see that. If someone had killed his mother, he would want that killer brought to justice, for sure. But to carry that out himself?

"I…"

"Then your gift was wasted,"Takaya spat, "as was your life."

Nemesis' blade began spinning wildly, hitting the sides of the buildings and raining down sparks like a fireworks display. A fire broke out and moved towards the trembling teen as if it were alive and sentient. Smoke filled the alleyway, making it almost impossible to see what was going on.

"I think this is it!" said Rise-through-Kanzeon.

"Really thought we were s'posta wait for the 'You're not me!' here," Kanji was muttering somewhere to his...left?

"WHY DO YOU LIVE WHEN YOU WERE FATED TO DIE?" a voice that was both Ken's and Takaya's at once bellowed.

"Okay, get ready!" Yu hoped he still had enough respect left to command any kind of team. Ken, they said, had some electricity, but specialized in Light magic. That was tricky. "Naoto! See if you can knock him down."

Naoto had her Persona at the ready, and her gun trained on the Shadow...but he couldn't help noticing that her hands shook a bit. Oh...I'm an idiot! He should have realized that dying parents obviously would have triggered her. It didn't escape his notice that Kanji had found his way to her side. At least she would have him once the dust had settled and Yu was once again leaving it all behind.

Nemesis tanked quite a bit of Dark magic before her wheel stopped spinning and tipped to one side. "Kanji, Chie, with me!" Yu cried as they dogpiled the rogue Persona. He felt confident that they'd beaten the stuffing out of it, until…

"Argh, she healed herself!" Rise's exasperation nearly drowned out his own. Right...Ken's a healer, too.

Speaking of Ken…

The teen was still rooted to the spot his life had changed forever in. He wasn't looking at the chalk outline anymore; instead, he focused his gaze on a spot on the ground several feet away – where a blood stain was slowly growing.

"I was...supposed to die," he murmured.

(Nemesis had shaken off Yosuke, Teddie, Koromaru and Labrys while Yukiko was trying to heal the first party.)

"After all, there was nothing else to live for, was there?"

"Ken?" Akihiko had overheard the boy, and a fearful recognition was dawning.

(Yukiko was taking her sweet time getting to Yu, so he had plenty of opportunity to observe while his head was spinning.)

"I should have died that night, too. But I didn't. Whatever had killed Mom left me alive. Why was I alive?" Ken's voice shook as his eyes filled with tears. "I told myself that I lived for revenge, because I couldn't see any other reason to go on living. I only stayed alive to find out why she died! And when I did-"

Akihiko reached him and grabbed him by the shoulders just as he broke down in tears. It was enough to stop Nemesis in her tracks as she readied another attack.

"...I ran out of reasons to live."

So many people gasped that Yu couldn't be sure if he had been one of them or not.

But something had already begun to change in Ken...a realization that had been a long time coming. "So, why was I alive?" he said. "I thought it was because Mom wanted me to avenge her death…

...but I was wrong."

The wheel that powered Nemesis and her hatred began to slow down.

"Mom saved my life...because she wanted me to live it."

Nemesis fell to her knees. Akihiko smiled as he let Ken go, seeing, at last, his resolve.

"The power that I wanted to use to kill...I used it instead to save others. Because of that power, I found others like me – I made friends. When I saw them die…" Here, Ken shook his head violently to ward off the tears. "I saw that they were willing to die because it meant that someone else would live!"

One final headshot from Naoto, and Nemesis dissolved into the Shadows of Takaya and Ken, the latter's smile no longer chilling, but proud.

"VENGEANCE IS NOT JUSTICE!" Ken cried as he drove his spear into Takaya. "Others died to give me this life, and I am going to MAKE THE MOST OF IT!" The Shadow crumbled into dust, and was gone.

Ken fell to his knees. "I'm so sorry...Aragaki-senpai." he sobbed.

Akihiko was also crying as he scooped Ken up in a hug that really should have broken several of his vertebrae. "He's so proud of you," he whispered, "I know that he is. And I'm so proud of you."

Where Nemesis once loomed, another Persona took shape; a muscular figure with its upper body encased in steel pauldrons resembling an hourglass. He bore this weight himself, proudly shouldering the burdens that Ken once carried on his own.

"Kala-Nemi!" Ken shouted...and then collapsed in exhaustion.

Yu took this opportunity to fully collapse onto the ground as well. Naoto, you have got to fucking tell me what the hell this was all about later!

She really hadn't meant to...but she should have.

It had just slipped from Mitsuru's mouth the moment she started talking. After all, Akihiko was darling to her, was he not? They'd been through so much together. He'd saved her life. She'd lost her virginity to him and could barely sleep at night without him by her side. It made perfect sense, then, for this devotion to make itself evident through her actions. She called him "darling" because she was head-over-heels in love with him.

There was just one small problem.

She couldn't seem to tell him.

Akihiko had been telling her that he loved her nonstop from the moment she'd begun to listen. He had no problem at all gifting her with little terms of endearment and as much affection as she could possibly want. But though he would never admit it, the flames in his eyes flickered every time she did not return his sentiments. He couldn't be sure that she loved him. And now, when they had returned to the empty imitation of their old dorm, and Akihiko simply slid to the ground with the weight of his past oppressing him, not even caring as the back of his head hit the wall while he struggled to blink away tears, where was she?

Cowering behind the counter in the lobby.

If there was ever a moment that Akihiko needed the woman he loved to reassure him that he was still the man she fell in love with, it was now. Yet Mitsuru could not bring herself to utter the words. She'd been amazed that she'd even managed to express herself at all that night. Why? She loved Akihiko more than she ever thought she possibly could, and it grew with each passing day. What was she afraid of?

Perhaps actions could speak more than words, for now. Perhaps if Mitsuru went to him, put her arms around him and pressed her forehead to his in silent comfort, it would be enough. His watery, grateful smile knew she was trying, didn't it? If she kissed him deeply enough, would it give her back her voice? If only she had a way to send her thoughts into his head...

...again.

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Imagine for a moment that you have no friends and very little loved ones. Over the course of a few months, you suddenly find yourself bombarded by a dozen people who actually like having you around, and your head just starts spinning and spinning and by the time you come out of it, you've agreed to everything asked of you just to feel that rush of affection once again. It's no wonder Yu Social Linked with practically everyone in town. He'd never had anyone in his life, and no idea how to process things or divide his time effectively.

I took the idea of Cognitives from Persona 5 to solve a problem that I ran into while plotting out the chapters. You'll see where and why later.

When Shadow Ken/Koromaru win a battle in Persona 4 Arena: Ultimax, the teen figure briefly changes into an 11-yr-old, hinting that perhaps those past issues haven't really been resolved yet.

The wiki says that Nemesis (Ken's first Persona) is the daughter of Erebus and Nyx in Greek mythology, and the goddess of divine retribution. While Ken had her, he was obsessed with getting revenge on his mother's murderer and refused to acknowledge the idea that it was an accident, and Shinjiro was crippled by guilt because of it. Perhaps this is why she was chosen for him?