Chapter Text
During his time in SEES, Minato found that the group ended up collecting a lot of strange members. Meeting a sentient humanoid robot was odd, but apparently Aigis was made for fighting Shadows like this, so she was a good teammate to have. (Even though she did seem strangely obsessed with him.) Finding out that a dog could have a Persona was surprising, but Koromaru was cute, loyal, and eager to fight, so he couldn’t mind. Having a grade schooler want to join was mildly concerning, but the Chairman approved it, so Minato got used to it. Then things got even weirder when a new duo joined.
When SEES found Ren and Morgana, he was just as surprised as everyone else to find that a kid younger than Ken was running around in the Dark Hour with a talking kitten riding in his hood. After they heard the kitten already had a Persona, it seemed inevitable that the Chairman would invite both of them to join SEES, so it was no surprise that’s exactly what happened.
At first, it seemed like Morgana was the stranger of the two. After all, he was an intelligent, talking kitten who could summon a Persona and sense Shadows. And to make it weirder, only some people could understand him, while everyone else just heard meowing. It was easy to consider him the strangest memer of SEES.
By contrast, Ren seemed to be a perfectly normal kid, not much different from Ken. He even acted more his age than Ken; Ren was curious, mischievous, maybe a little impulsive, and more willing to show emotions than the slightly older boy. Maybe the strangest thing about him was that he didn’t seem to have any difficulty using an Evoker, but that was hardly worth noting. Otherwise, he was just another Persona-user.
The first time Minato got a hint that Ren might be anything unusual was when several members of SEES were talking about their Personas, and how they all had different Arcanas. Mitsuru, Fuuka and Junpei had shared what Arcanas their Personas were, then asked what Ren’s was.
Ren didn’t answer right away. He just blinked a few times, staring into space. Finally his face scrunched into a pout and he grumbled, “It sounds stupid.” Minato idly wondered which Arcana sounded stupidest as Yukari encouraged Ren, which finally got Ren to grudgingly admit, “Fool.”
Minato’s eyes instantly snapped to Ren. From what Igor had said, having a Fool Persona could only mean one thing: infinite possibilities, and multiple Persona. Which should mean Ren was just like him. But so far he’d never seen Ren use anything other than Sisyphus. He also hadn’t seen Ren enter the Velvet Room. Was he actually a Wild Card, but just hiding it for some reason? Or maybe something else was going on, like he was going to be a Wild Card, but hadn’t gotten the ability yet. Minato wanted to figure out which it was.
So when Fuuka commented that she hadn’t seen Personas of the Fool Arcana before, Minato told Ren, “Some of my Personas have it. Including my first one.” He watched closely to see how Ren reacted to that. If he really was a Wild Card, he ought to know the significance of a Fool Persona.
Ren just said “Oh,” started to look hopeful, and added, “Then maybe it’s not so bad after all?”
When that was all he said about it, Minato figured that was all he’d get for the moment. He’d have to figure out some other way to check if Ren was a Wild Card.
The easiest way to check if Ren was a Wild Card was to try bringing him to the Velvet Room. So when Minato ran into Ren on the way home from school, he did exactly that.
After inviting Ren to get something to eat, he led the boy to the back alley of the Paulownia Mall. When he stopped in front of the blue door of the Velvet Room he greeted the woman waiting beside it by saying, “Hey, Elizabeth.” He figured that if Ren couldn’t see the door, he wouldn’t see Minato talking to anyone. It seemed that during SEES’s visits to Tartarus, whenever he was talking to Elizabeth or visiting the Velvet Room, everyone just saw him staring into space.
“Good day,” Elizabeth answered. Then she peered at Ren with open curiosity and asked, “And what might bring this child here today?”
“I’m just trying to check something,” Minato answered. Then he looked at Ren to see his reaction.
Ren was looking back at him with his head tilted, open confusion on his face. He didn’t react when Elizabeth said, “How fascinating it is to see one of your compatriots outside of Tartarus.”
Ren just looked around the alley, his eyes sweeping right past the glowing blue door. After a moment he turned back to Minato and asked, “Is there something here you wanted to show me?”
So he couldn’t see the Velvet Room or Elizabeth after all. Well, it was possible he was just pretending, but that seemed unlikely. So Minato just told Elizabeth, “That’s all for now. Bye,” then turned and left the alley. As he brought Ren to Chagall for coffee, he tried to think about how else he could figure out what was up with this kid.
(And then it turned out Ren knew more about coffee than Minato expected for someone his age. So Minato bought a coffee pot and beans for the dorm. It didn’t hurt to do something nice for the boy.)
Later that evening, Minato went back to the Velvet Room alone. He had some fusing he wanted to do anyway, but mostly he wanted to talk to Igor.
After hearing Igor’s usual greeting, Minato said, “Hey, one of the kids on my team has a Persona of the Fool Arcana. Doesn’t that mean he should be a Wild Card, too?”
“Ah, the Fool. A most unusual Arcana,” said Igor. With a wave of his hand, a Fool card appeared floating in the air above his table. As Minato gazed up at the picture of a traveler, Igor continued, “The Fool is like the number zero: it represents both beginnings and infinite possibilities. However, it remains to be seen whether any such possibilities will come to pass.”
Minato waited for the explanation to continue. When Igor remained silent, he asked, “But what does that mean? Like…Ren might be a Wild Card someday, or something?”
Igor just grinned his perpetual grin and answered, “Who can say what the future may hold?”
So it seems that was all he was going to say on the matter. Minato supposed he should have expected something like this. Aside from the mechanics of fusing Personas, it was hard to get a straight answer from either of the Velvet Room residents. So he was left to speculate.
If Ren had the Fool Arcana, he probably had at least the potential to be a Wild Card. But would he gain that ability soon? As far as Minato could tell, that would just require signing a contract with the Velvet Room. But Minato had no idea why the Velvet Room offered a contract to him, of all people. Maybe they could have only one guest at a time? Maybe they’d offer it to Ren later? Or maybe he was a possible guest, and even the Velvet Room didn’t know if he’d become one. It was always possible that Ren was supposed to Awaken his Persona much later, and become a Wild Card then. In that case, maybe getting involved in SEES made Ren awaken too early.
Like Igor said, there were infinite possibilities, and Minato had no way of knowing which were true. He could only hope that being in SEES and awakening his Persona now wouldn't cause problems for Ren in the future.
Minato initially hadn’t given any thought to the fact that he didn’t have a social link with Ren. After all, out of all the members of SEES, he only had social links with Fuuka and Yukari so far. Maybe he’d develop links with some of his other teammates later, and maybe he wouldn’t. It seemed kind of random who he got links with.
But eventually, Minato realized that even though he didn’t have social links with them, he could feel some kind of bond forming between himself and most of his male teammates. Periodically, Junpei, Akihiko, Ken, and even Koromaru would all invite him to hang out. As he learned more about them, he felt a connection forming.
But that didn’t happen with Ren and Morgana. Morgana didn’t seem particularly motivated to hang out with anyone but Ren, and Minato didn’t even know what he might do with the cat, so he didn’t think it was too weird to not have a bond with Morgana. But he felt like he should have some kind of connection with Ren. Still, he initially waited for Ren to make the first move to invite him to hang out, like everyone else.
After he heard Ren had the Fool Arcana, Minato started to wonder if the lack of a bond was due to Ren’s Arcana. Maybe them both being Fools was interfering with a bond forming. Maybe Ren couldn’t form bonds until he was a proper Wild Card. (If he wasn’t already. Minato still wasn’t sure about that.) Or maybe Ren could form bonds, but Minato just needed to be proactive. So he tried taking the first step and inviting Ren to hang out.
That proved to be the right move. When he’d invited Ren over to Chagall, he’d found that Ren was unexpectedly interested in coffee, and apparently had learned to make it the previous year. After learning this little tidbit about Ren’s past, Minato finally felt a bond start to form.
Minato wanted to nurture this bond. Not only did Igor and Elizabeth keep encouraging him to form bonds, but if Ren really was a Wild Card, it would undoubtedly be helpful for him too to form bonds. If talking about coffee helped, then he could work with that. And since Ren did say he could make coffee at home if he had the supplies for it, Minato promptly went out and bought some for the dorm.
However, that didn’t lead anywhere, besides Minato getting to see Ren happily drinking coffee. That was nice, but not what he was going for. So he needed to try something else.
Inviting Ren out to a cafe had started the bond, so maybe talking over food could keep it going. So he tried inviting Ren out to restaurants. But that ended up being a dead end, too. Mostly Ren talked about mundane things like school, cute things Morgana did, and cooking. Minato tried to listen for any more hints about Ren’s interests or past, but nothing really stood out. And the bond didn’t go anywhere. But Minato didn’t have any other ideas, so he kept trying to invite Ren out, hoping that something would eventually click.
Eventually the next full moon rolled around, and Minato had to pause his efforts to deepen his bonds so he could focus on the mission. He expected there would be a hard fight against one or two Shadows. He was even prepared for Strega to try to interfere again. But he couldn’t have anticipated what else would happen.
When they heard that Shinjiro, Ken and Koromaru were missing, Minato did find it a little odd, but he was so focused on the upcoming fight that he just started figuring out how to adjust their battle strategy to compensate for the missing teammates. Without knowing what kinds of Shadows they would be facing, Minato needed to decide what team would be best suited to handling the greatest possible range of threats.
It completely caught him off guard when Ren started yelling at them all for not caring that people were missing. When Ren said he was upset because last time people were missing they were in danger, Minato did start to feel a little bad for not caring. But Ikutsuki urged them to focus on the mission, so Minato tried to prioritize.
Not long after, they heard what had happened in the past, with Shinjiro losing control of his Persona and accidentally killing Ken’s mom. Now Minato could agree that there was reason to be worried about Ken and Shinjiro. But Minato still couldn’t forget that it was a full moon, so he glanced towards where Fuuka sensed them to be and mused, “We do have to deal with the Shadows, though.” He just needed to figure out how to handle both. Could they split people into two teams?
Turns out they had to, when Ren yelled at them again, took matters into his own hands, and ran off with Koromaru and Morgana.
“Wait, we should plan…” he tried to call after them, but they were already down the road.
Fuuka started to wring her hands nervously, offering, “Um, should I call them back? I can still reach them.”
But Minato just watched the figures rapidly disappearing down the road and shook his head. “No, it’s OK. I’ll figure something out.”
Not that it would be easy, with their most versatile fighters missing. Ken and Koromaru were both useful because they could use two different elements, and Ken could even heal. Ren and Morgana were a valuable duo because Ren could hit anything with his Megido spells, Morgana added another teammate without taking up space on a crowded battlefield, and Morgana could heal, too. Losing any one of them made the upcoming battle harder. But there wasn’t anything he could do about Ken being missing, and Ren and Morgana seemed unlikely to listen to Minato right now, so there seemed little point in trying to call them back. And he couldn’t send anyone to help Ren either, since with half the team missing, he didn’t have anyone to spare. So instead he called for everyone else to head towards the Shadows. As they ran, he started mentally adjusting their strategy again.
The fight against the Shadows was hard, as expected. Each Shadow they’d fought had new tricks up their sleeves, so Minato had to think on his feet and figure out how to counter whatever they were up against. He got so wrapped up in that that when they finally took the Shadows down, for a moment the only thing he could think about was being relieved that they’d managed to beat it.
Then he turned and realized that half their team was missing. And then he remembered why. Hoping it wasn’t too late, Minato called, “Fuuka, can you find Joker and the rest?”
With a little jolt, Fuuka said, “Oh, right! One moment.” She summoned her Persona, and there was a tense moment of silence. Then she called out with her voice echoing in their heads, “There you are! What’s happening?”
Through the connection formed by Fuuka’s Persona, they heard Ren say in a rush, “Boss has been shot, Flash is probably in shock, and I don’t know if Mona’s Dia is doing anything.” He sounded serious, but his voice was steady. It reminded Minato of a situation report that Mitsuru or Akihiko might give.
Fuuka gasped, then she answered, “We’ve defeated the Shadows, so we’ll head right there.”
Minato nodded. He had no idea how Shinjiro had gotten shot, but they needed to deal with that immediately. So he asked Fuuka to give them directions.
When he and the rest of SEES arrived at the scene, they found Shinjiro collapsed on the ground in a pool of blood. Both Ren and Ken were huddled nearby, bawling their eyes out.
As Akihiko and Mitsuru rushed in to check on Shinjiro, Minato was briefly frozen. Ren and Ken looked so little like this. Minato was suddenly reminded that they were just kids. They shouldn’t have to see things like this. And they shouldn’t have been left alone to deal with…whatever had happened here.
They should probably figure that out, actually. So he asked, “What happened?”
Neither Ren nor Ken responded, just kept sobbing. Koromaru whined and nuzzled Ken. It was Morgana who actually answered. The kitten looked up from where he’d been pressed up against Ren’s side and said, “It was those guys from Strega you mentioned. Well, before that Ken had apparently called Shinjiro out here because this is where his mom died, and Ken was, uh…” He trailed off and glanced at the spear lying discarded on the ground.
Koromaru whined again, then barked. Aigis translated, “Ken-san intended to kill Shinjiro-san.”
Morgana’s ears folded back anxiously as he hurriedly continued, “But he didn’t! And Shinjiro said he was dying anyway because he was taking some kind of Persona suppressants, and then the Strega guys showed up and tried to shoot them, so Ren and Koro and I tried to stop them! Ren was able to use his slingshot to shoot the gun off-target, but Shinjiro still got shot, and then we tricked the Strega guys into thinking more people were coming so they left. I tried to heal Shinjiro, but…” He hunched in on himself and added more quietly, “I don’t think my Dia was strong enough.”
Koromaru barked some more, and Aigis said, “Ren-san took charge and asked Ken-san to heal Shinjiro. Ken-san did not respond, so Ren-san asked Koromaru-san to keep Ken-san from running away.”
Ren took charge? Come to think of it, he did sound like that when they’d heard him answer Fuuka. He looked pretty far from that now, though. Minato looked over at Ren, and found at some point he’d stopped crying. Fuuka had gone over to coax him to get up, and was now gently leading him away from Shinjiro. Yukari was doing something similar with Ken.
As the two boys were guided away from the scene, Mitsuru looked up from examining Shinjiro to report, “He’s still breathing, though his pulse is weak. We’ll stay here to call an ambulance as soon as the Dark Hour ends.” Glancing over at Ren and Ken, she said a little more gently, “I think it would be best if you got them back to the dorm.”
Right, he could do that. Minato nodded, then gestured to everyone else to follow him. Junpei offered to give one of the boys a piggyback ride if they couldn’t walk, and Minato was ready to do the same. But it turned out the two could walk on their own, even though they were a bit slow and they looked dead-eyed. Minato didn’t rush them, and everyone else seemed content to let them go at their own pace.
The unhurried walk back gave Minato plenty of time to think. And there was a lot to think about. The revelations that Shinjiro had accidentally killed Ken’s mom, and that he’d been taking Persona suppressants that were killing him. The fact that Ken must have been holding onto a grudge for a long time that nobody seemed to have noticed. Except Ren, who’d mentioned Ken had been acting withdrawn lately. Minato felt bad that he hadn’t realized.
And then there was Ren. Who had gotten so heated about everyone not taking their missing teammates seriously that he ran off on his own to help them. Then was clear-headed enough to figure out how to help against Strega and help both Shinjiro and Ken afterward. Only now he was acting more like you’d expect from a kid, being so upset and probably scared that he was practically catatonic, barely reacting to anything as he was led down the street.
Minato couldn’t help wondering about Ren’s drastic changes in behavior. He’d never seen Ren act like this before. Was it some kind of stress response? Was Ren just like this and Minato had never noticed? Or maybe it was related to Ren being a Fool. If he really was a Wild Card, or might be one someday, maybe it would make sense for him to be able to take charge.
Eventually he decided that figuring that out could come later. Right now they needed to make sure the kids were taken care of. He was sure he wasn’t the only one who was thinking they needed to be better about that from now on.