Plurk paste

They find out the news had Ken’s age wrong a week before his birthday – his <i>tenth</i> birthday, as Aki reports when he gets home. All three of them know they’re potentially going to have an epic fight on their hands.

Mitsuru sighs. “I thought we’d have at least another year. And I can’t even tell him he’s too young, in good conscience, once he reaches that milestone.”

“He <i>is</i> too young,” Shinji says. “We all are. The last thing I wanna do is drag a ten-year-old into Tartarus, but if he’s that convinced he can help I don’t think we can stop him trying.”

“And if we don’t assist him, he might try to find a way on his own, and hurt himself or someone else in the process. You’ve interacted with Amada the most, Akihiko. What do you think – is he capable of making the attempt?”

Aki’s quiet for a long few moments. “I think if we don’t let him try, he’s going to hold a grudge like no other. He’s still pretty angry about losing his mother, and he’d probably see it as us not letting him avenge her. I don’t know if it’ll work, and I doubt he’ll have a <i>stable</i> Persona for some time if it does, but it’s better if we let him try and he fails than if we don’t give him the chance at all.”

And so, the weekend after Ken’s birthday, they drag a ten-year-old into Tartarus. At least Shinji convinced Mitsuru to leave Ikutsuki out of this for the time being; whatever ends up happening, Ken is <i>definitely</i> too young to be a regular member of the group, and two and a half people wouldn’t be enough to get much of anywhere in the tower anyway.

Ken is way too calm about the prospect of shooting himself in the head to get the job done, especially for a kid his age. If Shinji wasn’t already convinced suicidal tendencies were required to use an Evoker, he would be now. For a couple seconds after Ken fires, nothing happens, and then a figure Shinji can only describe as a mess of gears wielding a club appears, for a split second, before fading out again.

Ken calls it Orion.

He also immediately starts arguing for his chance to fight some Shadows, which would look slightly less ridiculous if he wasn’t leaning on a spear half again as tall as he is. Ken barely, grudgingly accepts a compromise of joining them every other weekend to practice, and that’s mostly after Aki points out they’re barely doing more than that as it is – and after Shinji asks if Ken wants to risk hurting someone by rushing into things before he’s ready.

He’d feel worse about that, but someone’s gotta slow the kid down long enough to gain full control over that thing. What good’s he going to do if he can’t even summon it long enough to fire off a spell?

They set Ken up in a spare room in the dorm for the night, and then the three of them head for Mitsuru’s room, not quite dead on their feet but close enough.

“I should tell my father,” Mitsuru says, half into her pillow. “Even if Amada’s not joining the group, as such… if something were to happen, he needs to know.”

“Yeah, probably.” Shinji’s still not sure what difference it would make, but at least Mitsuru’s dad is a good guy. “Think he’d leave Ikutsuki out of it for now?”

Aki sighs, from Shinji’s other side. “What do you have against the chairman, anyway?”

“Same thing I have against anyone who claims authority and does jack shit with it. He hasn’t explained a damn thing to us in over a year, Aki. Besides, he’d probably try to push us into the tower, and we’re not ready for that yet.”

“Shinjiro’s right about that much. I’ll talk to Father about it.”

It’s not the answer Shinji was hoping for, but he’s pretty sure that answer wasn’t likely. If he can spare Ken Ikutsuki’s awful puns for a little longer, at least, then he’s done some good here.