**Once again, reminding you that in this series, Chidori is still dead.

Trigger warning: abuse

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The walk back to the temporary dorm was unusually solemn considering the Persona-users just had their fourth victory. The Shadow Operatives had their own navigator now, an indefatigable robot, and some decent fighters back in the game...yet they did not seem optimistic. Perhaps it had something to do with the fact that the remaining Inoperatives had more unspoken trauma than their juniors before them, and were not looking forward to revealing it.

Junpei was especially quiet this time. Naoto had come to regard the man as an evolved form of Yosuke; the clown most likely to boost morale with humor at various levels of appropriateness. But Junpei simply went to the facsimile of his room with no fanfare whatsoever.

"Hmm. Perhaps he is next," Naoto mumbled to herself.

"He is." Akihiko had come up behind Naoto while she was blocking the stairway. "We'd just gotten shit started when I found him out there during a Dark Hour."

"You'd think he would be more enthusiastic about the possibility of having his Persona once again."

"Well, see, that's the thing: it's not just his Persona." Akihiko looked as if he'd seen a ghost – which considering all that had happened recently, was entirely possible. After a shaky breath, he added, "This one came from his girlfriend."

"I beg your pardon?" Nothing Naoto had read or experienced could have prepared her for that statement. "Is that even possible?" It occurred to her just as she asked the question that Akihiko might not actually know how to answer it. He was the group's muscle, after all.

But Akihiko knew when to be cagey. "Asking the wrong guy," he replied, and patted her on the shoulder as he slipped by.

Well, this was unfortunate. Junpei certainly hadn't looked in the mood for a conversation with "Nao-cakes", but his senpai had implied that it was a story only he could tell. Naoto was only proficient in interrogation, which even she was aware was the wrong tactic for a situation like this. Why was it so difficult for her to just talk to people? Rise made it look so easy. She'd strike up a conversation with a potted plant if it suited her, whereas Naoto's lips were virtually glued together unless there was something to say to Grandpa...or Kanji.

Hmm...

Perhaps she could make her limited reach work to her advantage.

Kanji had been nearly as skeptical about his skill in conversing as Naoto had about hers, so it was time to head out again before she could reconvene with him.

"So, it's pretty messed up," he began. "You remember that hippie Shadow with a gun we saw on Ken's floor?"

Naoto nodded. "Takaya Sakaki."

"Well, he had his own team of freaky Persona-users, and there was somethin' wrong with all of 'em." So far, none of this was new information. The Kirijo Group's files on Strega were fairly detailed – a fact which had surprised Naoto. Mitsuru allowing an outsider to view her family's dirty laundry implied a level of trust Public Safety was sure to abuse. Perhaps she considered it penance.

"There was a girl, uhh...Chi...Chidori, yeah! She was like, evil Rise," Kanji continued, "and I guess she was pretty in a creepy, dead bride kinda way, because Junpei-san fell in love with her."

"How very Shakespearean tragedy," Naoto couldn't help but retort.

"Yeah, and it almost ended with both of 'em dead, too." Did...did Kanji just get an intellectual joke? The surprise must have shown on Naoto's face, because Kanji was quick to reply, "What? I read shit sometimes! I mean, when I gotta...for school...ANYWAY! Yeah, they fell in love, but the hippie guy didn't like that, so he shot Junpei-san dead-"

"I'm sorry, WHAT!?"

"-Well, he was supposed to be dead, but this Chidori chick kinda entered his head or somethin'...and she gave him her powers and took the shots instead...somehow...my head kinda hurts, Naoto, I don't really understand what the hell he was tryin' to say. Plus, Junpei-san was startin' to cry on me and it was gettin' weird." He shook his head. "He's got somethin' now that lets him get health back every time he gets hit, and his Persona changed thanks to her."

"Ah. Perhaps the thought of envisioning his lost love once again is worrying him. At any rate, thank you, Kanji. I had hoped Junpei-san would be more comfortable opening up to you than he would myself."

"I don't know about comfortable, but it seemed like he wanted to talk to someone about it, and sometimes a guy just needs to talk to a guy, you know?" Kanji had seemed satisfied with his own reasoning, until he saw Naoto studying him. He panicked. "No, wait, I didn't mean it like that! Shit! We were just talkin'. There ain't nothing wrong with two dudes just talkin'! Like dudes! We were talkin' like dudes! HEYlet'sgogetaPersonahuh?" Before Naoto could even try responding to that, he fled in the direction of Tartarus 2.0. It seemed he still hadn't quite shaken the fear of being negatively "different".

With Kanji on the defensive, and Junpei apprehensive, the tension going into Tartarus was so thick that not even Yosuke could cut through it with his wit or his kunai. This did not stop him from carelessly juggling and dropping them, however – though Chie was not as quick to heckle him as she usually was. When Yukiko also began acting friendlier towards the boy, Naoto realized that they were buttering him up in order to extract the name of Yu's crush.

Typical.

It's not like she needed to know. She and Yu had dated and both realized they were better as friends. He seemed convinced that Kanji had designs on her, and Naoto had to admit that her senpai was right. Her feelings for Kanji were...complicated...and her energy was better spent figuring that relationship out. Besides, Yu had also been dating Rise, Yukiko, Chie, and – if gossip was anything to go by – several other girls in school, at the same time. Before he could pursue a serious relationship with ANY of them, he needed to sort himself out first.

Was that what this past year was all about, though? Had Yu acknowledged his mistakes, and had this sort of internal debate with himself, before finally realizing that there was one girl in particular he wanted to be more than friends with?

If so...who was she?

Kanji had been right; spending too much time analyzing a problem in your head was indeed an expressway to a migraine.

Kanji knew some shit. He DID! He just...didn't always remember he knew it until Naoto said so. For instance, he'd read that shake-the-spear story about the two stupid kids who thought they were in love but their parents hated each other so they snuck off and got married but everyone found out so they killed themselves. And he didn't cry, not once!

Okay, he cried like three times. But it didn't stop him from picturing him and Naoto. Before he'd met Grandpa Shirogane, he'd been terrified of some snobby old fart looking down on him and using some big, hard-to-pronounce word that meant he was trash. He knew he wasn't good enough for Naoto, but he was trying to be, and she'd told him as much, plenty of times. Naoto didn't care that he made clothes, that he didn't have a dad (she didn't have one, either), or wasn't very smart. She liked that he cared about kids and animals, and that he didn't care what she wore in her kickass job. And Old Man Shirogane, well, he seemed to accept that. All he cared about was that Kanji treated Naoto right. Which he intended to.

Yeah, Kanji knew plenty of shit when it came to how a guy felt about a girl. Which is why he knew Junpei was in deep trouble.

Talking to the dude was harder than he'd thought it would be, because the mere mention of Chidori made his lip tremble. From the way he spoke, you'd think they'd been dating for years, but in reality they'd only known each other for a few months. He fell really hard and fast, though, and Kanji could sense something of a kindred spirit in him. Jeez, first Akihiko, and now Junpei? How was he supposed to feel optimistic about love when all these guys older than him were having such bad luck?

Junpei's floor was a hospital. Fitting, considering that's where Chidori was almost the whole damn time he knew her. He was in the back of the group dragging his feet, looking like he was gonna puke. Even Yukari was being nice to him, which was supposedly as weird as Chie being nice to Yosuke. What was that about? Well, one thing at a time.

Everyone had stopped, and someone dragged Junpei up to the front. "Wh-what do I do?" he stammered.

"Junpei?" a voice replied. It sounded like a girl who had passed out 'cause she was drunk...but it was very familiar to Junpei, who froze even without Mitsuru's help.

"Chidorita?"

Turns out "creepy, dead bride" was a good description. The Shadow girl in front of them wore all white; a torn dress two sizes too big for her, and frayed ribbons in her hair. The headband was cute, but why did it look like she had a sword through her head? Did she get off on looking like a mental patient from some horror movie? And Junpei fell for this chick?

"Typical Junpei. You haven't a clue what's going on here, do you?" she said. Her eyes – while yellow like all the other Shadows – were flat and dead, and she sounded bored. "You don't even know what day of the week it is. What happened to your Persona? Did you misplace it? Is it buried under a week of laundry and potato chips?" She finally looked up. "Did you not like my gift, Junpei? I made it myself...from my last, dying breath."

"Chidori…! I did really good, I promise! I tried so hard to live for the both of us! I got...I got a job, I help these kids who don't have anywhere else to go, did you see me?"

"I only see Junpei. The same, aimless, pathetic Junpei. Still chasing after glory he will never receive...because his father was right about him all along."

Junpei's face fell, and someone – might've been Yukari or Fuuka – gasped. Oh, shit, his old man? They never talked about that!

"You're not a hero. You're just a boy. A boy dreaming of an alternate reality in which he didn't receive nightly beatings."

More gasps. Kanji couldn't process all of this fast enough. Junpei's dad hit him? Growing up, Kanji had idolized his father, and the feeling seemed to be mutual. He yelled sometimes, but he always apologized for it later. Not once did he ever raise a hand to Kanji – though there might have been times when he probably deserved it. The man didn't have a single mean-spirited bone in his body.

Kanji hadn't realized how lucky he'd been.

"How did you expect to save me from death when you couldn't even save yourself?" A new Shadow showed up where Shadow Chidori was pointing: a little boy with a black eye who looked like he was about to run and hide any second. He couldn't have been older than the kid Kanji had made the rabbit for. What kind of man would beat him?

Kanji really should have known not to ask stupid questions like that anymore.

Another Shadow appeared: a middle-aged man who couldn't take two steps without swaying back and forth. He looked like he hadn't showered or shaved in months, and it was a good thing Teddie was the only one who could smell Shadows – because this guy's cologne had to be booze and his own filth. He looked at them like they were roaches.

"Whoozz makin' all dat noise?" he belched. "Junpei! Goddamn lil' brat! Where'd you run off to, you waste of space?" He hobbled over to where Shadow Junpei was trembling and cowering with an evil look in his eyes. "Look at me when I'm talking to you!"

And he backhanded him. Slapped him right upside the head. Poor kid went down almost immediately, a quiet sob escaping him. Everyone started freaking out. It seemed like none of his friends even knew his dad was a mean drunk.

"Junpei…" Yukari tried to comfort the real Junpei, but he wouldn't even look at her. Instead, his eyes watered as he spotted something on the ground. It was a crumpled up comic book that Shadow Junpei had dropped. Costumed superheroes posed on the cover, with puny little citizens gazing up at them gratefully.

Shadow Chidori shook her head. "Poor Junpei. If only heroes were real."

"Wazzat?" Shadow Iori-san had finally noticed he had company. "Who the hell told ya you could speak, you crazy emo bitch?"

"No!" Junpei called out as the man approached the girl, but it went unheard. "Wait-!"

"No woman backtalks me!" The slap was so loud, it echoed through the whole floor. Shadow Chidori – STILL showing no emotion on her face – fell to the ground as well. And Kanji may have been tired, but he could have sworn it was in slo-mo. He felt sick.

"Chidori!" Maybe it was the sight of his girl motionless on the ground again, like he'd told Kanji he remembered clear as day, because Junpei started breathing really hard, and the comic book fell out of his hand like it did with his little self. He looked at the kid, he looked at his dad, he looked at Chidori as she finally allowed a tear to run down her face, at the comic book's idea of what a hero should be...and stood up to his full height. Oh, shit.

Shadow Iori began taking off his belt and wrapping it around his fist. He pulled back his arm to throw a punch…

...and got a bat to the face.

"NEVER AGAIN, YOU SON OF A BITCH!"

Yeah! Slugger ain't striking out no more!

After all his trash talk, Iori-san went down like a chump, too, thanks to Junpei's bat suddenly catching on fire. "Batter up...Daddy." Unfortunately, after Junpei beat the shit out of him for a while, he got back up and went nutsoid just like the other Shadows, so the Investigation Team had to step in. Yosuke blew his hot air right back in his face, and it was all over.

Junpei seemed to deflate a little, like he didn't know what to do next, so Kanji took it upon himself to nudge him (You see that, Naoto? I'm encouraging and shit!) "You know, my pop spent the first half of my life trying to show me what it meant to be a man, and the one thing he always kept telling me was, 'any man who feels like he has to hit a kid isn't a man at all'. A real man doesn't sit by and let that happen." They both looked at the scrawny little boy. "I'm sorry every kid doesn't have a dad like that."

Junpei quietly added, "Me, too."

"Junpei?" Chidori got back up, looking bored again. Seriously, did nothing rile this chick up?

"Everything's gonna be all right, Chidorita," Junpei tore the comic book in half. "I'm my own hero now."

Chidori chuckled, the first ever smile on her face. "You're weird, Junpei," she said as she faded away with the boy Shadow and became Trismegistus.

While the others were leaving the tower, Aigis hung back so that she could get Labrys' attention. "Sister," she began, "now that I am fully operational, I can't help but register something suspicious on these floors – outside of the usual suspects, that is." Humor was still slightly out of her reach. "Have you noticed?"

"Like something's watchin' us? Yeah, me, too. It's the damnedest thing, though," Labrys always used more concise language, but she was just as capable of advanced thought processes as her later model. "I can't figure out where it's comin' from. I was gonna tell Mitsuru-san about it, but I don't really wanna upset her again, 'cause, I mean…"

"There's nothing to report," Aigis finished for her. "Indeed. Perhaps we should just continue to monitor things with an eye towards interlopers for the moment." But Aigis had begun delving into the human concept of paranoia...and was beginning to wonder if someone was actually out to get them...

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This chapter, when conceived, was what made me dip into Persona 5 a bit because I realized pretty much right away that Junpei's evolved Persona, Trismegistus, is almost as much Chidori as he is Junpei. So I borrowed the concept of Cognitives. It didn't take our heroes long to figure out that these people weren't really there.

Once again, reminding you that in this series, Chidori is still dead.

While Kanji doesn't seem like the guy who would read unless he had to, I also imagine him as a hopeless romantic. He probably would have read "Romeo and Juliet" to impress Naoto, only to get caught up in the drama. I had a lot of fun making him comment on the fight, too. Kanji's going to be enthusiastically telling this story for years.