[RL with Minato] (Backdated to yesterday if that's OK)

[screwloose]

The lobby of the White House was a shambles, but the doors were well sealed and none of the zombies roaming around outside could get in. Stein glanced out the windows and watched them shambling around, thinking with wry amusement that it looked like any other day in the seat of his country's government.

Which was part of why he followed the Grim Reaper instead of bothering with mortal politics. Let the humans take care of themselves. He had witches to worry about.

Normally, when he could go to his own world without going insane.

But right now he was waiting for a teenaged boy who apparently had several personas. He couldn't wait to get a look at his soul. And more. Good thing he and Birkin had taken the time to bring some laboratory equipment and set it up in one of the rooms. They were going to get good use of it today.

Comments

backdating is fine |Db

[dormition]

For Minato's part, he wasn't entirely sure what he was doing there. He hadn't had such an odd Social Link in a while, but if it really did help figure out how to fight the Shadows, he couldn't regret it.

Still, he made sure his mirror was safely in his pocket when he arrived, glancing around with the evaluation of someone ready to fight if need be. Sure enough, though, the zombies were all outside. Sword, Evoker and mirror together were enough to make him feel secure.

He glanced over at Stein and nodded, thinking that enough greeting.

[screwloose]

Stein watched the boy arrive, wondering how he'd managed it. So far as he knew, the people from that world were normal, other than their personas. Adachi had no world hopping abilities. So how had this kid done it?

A question for later, perhaps.

He beamed at the boy. "Welcome, Minato. Shall we go somewhere a bit more private?" He swept his hand in invitation towards one of the side corridors and then moved off in that direction, to lead Minato to the temporary lab he'd cobbled together.

[dormition]

"Okay," he said agreeably, following him without complaint.

In a new situation and with a new person, Minato drew on his old fall back: silence, and waiting. He took in his surroundings, idly wondering if the White House in his world looked anything like this. Presumably there were less zombies, though.

[screwloose]

Quiet kid, but Stein could tell he was watchful and competent. He was used to being able to handle himself, Stein could tell at a glance.

In fact, from what little he'd seen so far, he would love to have the kid as one of his own students.

He led Minato through a door into a room that had once been a board room. The huge boardroom table had been removed and a gleaming operating table stood in its place. Stein straddled the back of a rolling office chair that looked to have been stitched together from random bits of grey fabric, and beamed up at Minato.

"Well now, no point in wasting time. Have a seat, and let me take a look at you."

The only place to sit other than the chair Stein had just taken was the operating table.

[dormition]

It was an odd setting, but nothing ventured, nothing gained. He removed his sword from his belt and laid it across the table, hilt pointing out, and then hopped up beside it.

"I don't know a lot about Persona," he admitted. "The only people that did are all dead."

Minato was taking a definite chance trusting Stein. But, aside from how important helping his cousin was, this truthfully wasn't the most dangerous position he'd put himself in. He trusted his own ability to get himself out of any possible danger, and failing that, he trusted his friends. So he was less uneasy than most people might've been at sitting on an operating table in front of a man with a bolt through his head.

[screwloose]

Stein had no particular intention of hurting Minato - well, other than a strong desire to vivisect him and see what made him tick. But he might not actually get to something so invasive, and he didn't really think of that as hurting Minato.

He rolled his chair closer with a kick of one foot, looking up at Minato through his glasses. He pushed them up, so they flashed in the overhead lights, and suddenly focused his gaze.

It felt like Stein was undressing Minato with his eyes. He bored through him with his gaze, looking deeply into him, and directly into his soul. It was a strong feeling of violation, though it stopped quickly when Stein jerked back and nearly fell off of his chair at what he saw.

"Holy shit," he gasped, reaching into his pocket and pulling out a cigarette package with slightly shaking fingers.

[dormition]

It was uncomfortable, but Minato had experienced weirder. He wasn't altogether surprised at Stein's reaction.

"My soul's not like anyone else's," he stated, eying him as he fumbled for a cigarette. However long it'd been since he'd last seen Pharos, since he'd last heard a voice in his head, part of him could never forget that he was fundamentally different. His memories didn't stretch back far enough for him to remember being normal, to remember his parents and his childhood, and Naoto as a girl. It was vague, like a distant dream.

These kinds of events, like someone staring into his soul and swearing in surprise, were what he expected.

[screwloose]

"No kidding," Stein muttered, sticking a cigarette in his mouth and lighting up. The nicotine steadied him, and he got to his feet, pacing towards Minato with that penetrating look on his face again.

"I've definitely never seen a soul like yours, Minato. The stamp of Death is on it, but it's not just that." He looked up and met Minato's fathomless eyes. "You...shape yourself to those around you, don't you? Shape yourself to be who they need."

He smirked around the cigarette, his eyes alight with curiosity. "Even me."

((FYI for when the Social Link goes PING, Stein's arcana is the Moon))

[dormition]

He sighed at the news that Death was still there. It was too much to expect he'd ever be free of it, but confirmation was different.

"It's easier that way."

They were starting to tread into territories Minato wasn't comfortable with even Itsuki approaching. A stranger he'd just met would have to dig a lot harder to get him to explain the intricacies of how he functioned.

To distract from that truth, he added, somewhat dryly, "I can be difficult if you want."

[ooc: Ahaha, alright. Thank you :D He needs a Moon S. Link!]

[screwloose]

Stein noted the soft sigh. So nothing he had said was a particular surprise to the boy - that was even more interesting.

At the dry attempt to deflect him - and what else could it be? - Stein only grinned. "No thanks. I'll only need to dig deeper if you do that. Besides, aren't we here for the same purpose? If I can understand your soul, I'll be closer to understanding personas and shadows."

He took a drag from his cigarette. Let the kid have some time to chew on that while he approached the subject from a different angle. "So tell me how the shadows you fought originally are different from the ones cropping up now."

[dormition]

"Like I said, my soul is unique," he answered, not readily placated by that. "I'm not sure how useful understanding it would be.

"The Shadows I fought appeared in the real world during a time called the Dark Hour," Minato went on, transitioning to the new topic without pause. "The only people awake for it were Persona users. Not everyone - "

Pause. The voice of the Moon Arcana as the Social Link was established slipped through his mind, and after it had passed he went on like nothing had happened. It, too, was normal.

"Not everyone could use Evokers to control them, though. If they got out of hand they would try to kill the user like regular Shadows."

[screwloose]

Stein shrugged. "It can be the exceptions that give shape to the rules of science," he said, smiling and hopping up onto the table next to the boy as he spoke.

"The Dark Hour," he mused. "So the shadows could only get out into the world during a certain time. And now the shadows would only be able to get out if that fog were present. There was no fog during this Dark Hour?"

He cocked his head. "And what's an Evoker?"

[dormition]

There was a beat of silence as he thought about that. "There was, actually," he said. "I never put it together before. The sky and moon would turn green and water would turn into blood. There was fog everywhere."

To answer the other question, Minato pulled his Evoker out of his pocket and passed it over without comment. It wouldn't do anything unless Stein fired it at his head, after all, and however difficult Minato was being verbally he did honestly want answers.

[screwloose]

Stein chewed on the end of his cigarette a little as he pondered that. "So maybe it's not that different," he murmured. "That's one connection you hadn't thought of before. But it's strange that the shadows would come out of the televisions just for an hour. Was it every day this would happen?"

He blinked as the kid drew a gun and handed it to him. He turned it over in his hand, frowning at it. "I assume this isn't just a normal gun?"

[dormition]

"Yeah, every day at midnight."

Then he shrugged. "Fire it."

[screwloose]

"Midnight. Not that surprising," Stein mused.

His eyebrows quirked and he raised the gun. He pointed it away from them both and squeezed the trigger.

[dormition]

There was a faint sound like glass shattering wrong - there was no other way to express it - but aside from that, nothing.

"If I shoot myself in the head, it summons my Persona," explained Minato, nonchalant about the whole thing.

[screwloose]

Stein considered that, examining the gun again from all angles. "Interesting," he said thoughtfully. "What happens if you don't have a persona and you shoot yourself in the head?"

He'd noticed there were no bullets, but he wasn't about to just try it for fun.

[dormition]

"Not much. It probably feels weird," said Minato. "Captain Harkness tried it a while ago."

[screwloose]

Stein considered that, pondered whether the boy might not be lying, then decided he probably wasn't.

Well, in the interest of science, he supposed it had to be tried.

With far less hesitation than most would display, he raised the evoker to his own temple and fired.

It did indeed feel weird. He felt his soul writhe inside him, and he dropped the Evoker as his fingers spasmed with surprise. His soul was far larger even than Minato's, and he was far more connected with its particular wavelength and properties than most people. He felt its wavelength shift, and the soul tried to escape through his spine.

He fought it down and regained control of himself, coming back to reality with his elbows on his knees, panting heavily as if he were going to be sick.

"Wow," he managed, straightening and wiping sweat from his forehead. "Fascinating."

[dormition]

Minato raised his eyebrows in surprise, but since his reaction was only slightly dramatic he didn't take it as cause for concern. He retrieved his Evoker and holstered it smoothly.

"Do you want me to demonstrate?" he offered, after he'd given Stein a moment to recover himself.

[screwloose]

Stein nodded without a trace of hesitation. He'd seen it once before - seen a persona - but on that occasion he had actually forced the persona out of Junpei's body using his own soul's power. It would be interesting to see the way it was normally supposed to work.

"Please, go ahead and demonstrate. Is this room big enough?" he asked, gesturing at the high, vaulted ceiling. He recalled Trismegistus being very large.

[dormition]

He glanced around. "It should be fine. I'll summon a smaller one." Of course, small was relative with the higher level Persona, so Minato would have to make do. A little larger than human size should be fine.

Minato hopped down from the table and walked to the center of the room unhurriedly. He balanced himself, took a deep breath, and in one motion pulled his Evoker from his hip and fired it.

He rocked back on his heels, the loud sound of broken glass matching the gleaming blue shards that appeared like an exit wound. A ghostly shape appeared above him and settled to his side, silent and ominous.

"This is Chernobog of the Moon Arcana."

It shuffled within its robes and raised its head, eerie skull-shaped face peering out from beneath its large, fungus-like hat. Minato wondered if Stein would feel the affiliation with his Arcana more keenly than most, and rather suspected he would.

[screwloose]

Stein jumped down from the operating table when the Persona materialized. The eerie look of the creature didn't bother him, and he walked towards it with an eager glint in his eyes.

"Beautiful," he breathed. His fingers reached towards the creature, heedless of the sword in its hand, and touched one of the fungus-like feelers or tentacles that grew up from around its feet.

He did feel a connection to it. It called to that madness inside him, the madness that fueled his curiosity and made him strong.

[dormition]

Chernobog swayed toward him, a sound like a quiet hiss escaping. Unlike some other Persona, there was little that was human about him; wholly surreal, he embodied the inexplicable, the fog and illusion of the Moon.

"He's the same Arcana as you," said Minato upon seeing his amazement. He stood beside the apparition comfortably, holstering his Evoker once more. "Most people are attuned to one." And they're inclined to trust me when I have it with me, he thought but didn't say.

[screwloose]

"Arcana?" Stein tore himself away from the magnificent weapon to look at the boy again. "Do you really mean like the tarot?"

It wasn't something he knew a great deal about. Magic in his world didn't really utilize such things - they were tricks for regular people, not real fortune-telling devices.

"You say that I correspond to the Moon? You can tell that?" he was fascinated, still absently stroking one of Chernobog's feelers as he looked hungrily at Minato.

[dormition]

Okay, that stare was kind of eerie, but Minato remained focused.

He nodded. "When I get to know someone, I learn what Arcana they are," he replied. "Exactly like tarot. You could tell I was Death." He shrugged expressively. "There's characteristics to each one."

Stein really did fit the Moon, he thought in retrospect. Shinji-kun had been the Moon, too... Minato tried not to let that influence his opinion.

[screwloose]

Stein considered that, glancing up at the gleaming skull face of Chernobog. "I don't know much about the Tarot," he admitted. "I recognize Death, not from that, but because he's been my employer and friend for nearly my entire life."

He glanced at Minato again, beaming. "This is fascinating. I think I understand much better now."

He reached into his pocket and withdrew a couple of vials. One of them contained nothing but brown, dirty fog. The other had a black liquid inside it. "Bit of a shadow," he said, holding up the latter one. "Nao-kun told me that these unformed shadows are the arcana of 'fool'. And shadows have souls, that much I've observed for myself. But only partially."

He gestured to Chernobog. "Just as this fine creature has a part of your soul in it, but you retain the rest inside you."

((Shinjiro was Heirophant, actually? The Moon is the Gourmet King))

LOL other Shinji, dear. from Eva xD

[dormition]

There was some quiet as Minato gathered his thoughts, during which Chernobog flickered out of being. He wasn't used to having his Persona around for much longer than a few seconds in battle.

"Souls are kind of malleable," he agreed. "The Arcana have a lot to do with it. It's like a journey, with the Fool at the start. They get stronger as they're further into the suit."

Then, because he partly couldn't help himself, he asked, "What is Death like? The one that you know."

Ohhh, of course. I couldn't think of who else he was referring to and I was so confused

[screwloose]

Stein was sorry to see Chernobog disappear, though he watched as the soul rejoined the maelstrom of chaos that was Minato's soul and add to the swirling shapes.

"That makes a certain amount of sense. Is it the same with people? More powerful people are higher arcana?" He was pretty sure Moon was one of the higher ones, right? It could be so.

He cocked his head, turning his bolt once with a click. "Shinigami-sama is difficult to explain. He can be very grim, or very goofy. He takes his role in the world very seriously, though, however affectionate he is towards his people."

yeah he's kind of the ghost of the apartment at this rate, lol

[dormition]

After a moment of consideration, he said, "I don't think the correlation goes that far. It's more abstract with people."

The description of Death was familiar to him. Minato wasn't sure what he was expecting, but someone that sounded oddly like Ryoji was... strange to hear. He stuck his hands in his pockets and decided that this piece of information about his soul was easier to reveal than the other. The other about Nyx, that he carefully didn't think about most of the time, for fear his mind would slip back there and stick.

"I had Death inside me for a long time. Change," he said, the word standing alone. "I don't remember what life was like before it."

And well, I've got Shinjiro on the brain for obvious reasons

[screwloose]

Stein nodded and dropped back down into his rolling chair, still rotating the bolt and flipping the vials around in his dexterous fingers.

"Inside you?" he echoed, not really surprised by the information. "I'll bet that changed you indeed. I'm surprised a human could survive that."

He thought for a moment, flicking his spent cigarette away to burn a hole in the lush carpet on the floor. "Shinigami-sama's soul is so large it encompasses all of Death City, where I normally live. Though, his son isn't nearly so powerful yet."

yeah XD;

[dormition]

"I... didn't survive it, in a way," Minato confessed. Hands still in his pockets, he leaned back against the corner of some shelving, propping himself up. The relaxed posture, the pretense - it was innate. "I signed a contract. I ended up dying, in the end. Someone on the community brought me back."

Some people would've thought it freeing to say all that, but to Minato it just felt vaguely dangerous. He'd been living with that for over a year now, a long year in which he'd had no access to the community, to hardly any of his friends, and was just tired of the reality of it. There wasn't anything liberating in saying it out loud; he wanted to leave it behind.

[screwloose]

Stein considered that. He wondered what would happen to a child that would create such a malleable soul, and he could see why Minato almost didn't seem to care about anything.

No, it wasn't quite a lack of caring. But everything certainly seemed to roll off of his back.

"Did dying...free you from Death?" he asked. They'd gotten quite off topic now, but Stein didn't mind. He was very curious about this odd boy.

[dormition]

To Minato, it was all the same topic, wrapped up together in one year.

"There were thirteen Shadows that we fought throughout the year," he told him, diverging for a moment to provide context. "Bigger and more powerful than the rest. They followed the Arcana, and when we got to the last one, it came out of me."

[screwloose]

"Bigger and more powerful, like Naoto's 'Domination Machine'?" Stein asked, referring to the big shadow that Naoto's shadow had created to try to stop the investigation team from getting to him in time.

"Or are we talking about something else entirely?"

[dormition]

He shook his head. "Something else. I think I still have surveillance footage of the first one if you want to see it later. They're all gone, though... they have to be."

He frowned just thinking about it. No, he was sure. His sacrifice was for a reason.