Ren Amamiya from Persona 5 [Affirmation]

Just to say the intro'll be slightly different (didn't know where else to put it) as Ren's going to have a Persona equipped that gives him the powers of affirmation, rather than the physical object of the ring. Personas can be turned into equipment anyway, so maybe I'll turn it into a ring later, but until then he just has it on his spiritual person.

Spoilers for P5 up to the casino level.

''Asphyx.' Of the Demon Arcana.'

‘It makes the answer: Yes’.

Huh.

Wonder what that means?

Such a vague extra ability for a Persona to have. Usually when I look at the descriptions it talks about the detailed history of the demon, not something as simple as this. Will it help with negotiations on other personas? Like an auto win? That’d be pretty useful.

Though after we take down Sae and her palace we won’t be needing our personas much anyway. It really has been quite a crazy few months here in this quiet little attic above a cafe.

Which is all why it’s a little strange that a brand new persona appeared in my mind’s eye. The manifestation of my soul took many forms thanks to my power of a wild card, but with all the strange creatures and monsters under my employ thanks to this ability none had ever looked so… basic before.

The new persona was just a ring. Just a single golden circle that seemed to sway back and forth on my soul. With the ability description saying ‘makes the answer yes’ all that the Velvet Room were willing to divulge for me.

Weird.

“Ow… stupid dogs… why don’t they ever realise I’m not a cat…?” I heard the voice of Morgana, sounding a bit more pained than usual. I was never sure why he was so against being a cat since the ladies all love to stroke him, but to each his own. Right now he was hobbling up the stairs with one paw clearly hurting.

“Woah, you all right?”

He instantly put his weight back on the paw I thought was injured, “Yeah, of course.”

“Oh,” I replied, “Thought I heard you mumble… well, you don’t have to put on a brave face if you are hurt, okay?”

“Hmm, don’t worry, I’m totally alright Joker.” He smiled before hopping up onto my chair, “Don’t go soft on me now. Remember I may look frail a frail cat, but don’t forget I’m still a human under all this fur!”

Of course I remember. He never stops reminding everyone he can talk to that. “Mmhmm, yet someone can’t help letting a certain other human scratch behind the ears?” I teased, thinking of our resident blonde bombshell and making the cat frown.

“Low blow. I’m not a moron who would turn down pets from the beautiful Lady Ann!” He boasted loudly before yawning and curling up on himself in the chair, “Anyway, did you do everything you needed to do tonight? We have a busy day tomorrow so no going outside anymore…”

“I know, mother.” Hearing a cat click his tongue was always amusing, “But yeah, I just went and spent some time with Iwai then sorted out my personas.”

To be fair to him it was pretty late right now, so I shouldn’t be upset that Morgana was already falling asleep in the chair, “Mmhmm. Anything good?”

“Sort of. Managed to sacrifice one into this neat little ring, but the effect is so vague I can’t make heads or tails of it.” I said, admiring the little golden thing once more. The way it shone even in the real world felt a little unnatural, but neither Caroline or Justine had made a single comment about it. Even if Igor looked smirkier than usual…

“Wait… weren’t you going on a date…?” Softly grumbled the cat in the last dregs of his consciousness.

I smirked, turning off the small lamp light by my bed and getting under the nice warm covers, “Hmm, I’m supposed to be the jokester here, you know.” I chuckled softly, “I’ve told you how bad I am with women. Even if they show any attention to me I manage to muck it up by saying something stupid. Like some asshole is controlling my dialogue to say all the worst things possible…”

Morgana wasn’t wrong, I was supposed to go on a semi-date thing tonight with Hifumi Togo. A rising star shogi player that I’d been getting sort of closer to, but she’d cancelled on me mid way through the day. Didn’t even really bother to give me a reason, even though I’m supposed to be a sort of confidant to her, just texting me some platitude about a raincheck like I hadn’t been excited for it the last few days.

“Zzzz…”

Okay, when the cat is asleep I know it’s time for bed. With another disappointing day in the record books I decided to ignore my annoyance and look ahead at tomorrow’s infiltration.

We had only 3 weeks to get all the way to the end of Sae’s palace.

If any of our plans go awry I’ll either die by Akechi, go to jail because of Sae, or god knows what else in the actual palace.

This was no time to be getting distracted by girls.

“No! Joker! Girls only!”

I was quickly shoved away by the short ginger gremlin I knew as Futaba. “Hey! Fine, geez!”

“Apologies, Joker. We don’t get to have this time together as a four very often.” Haru giggled from behind Futaba while I brushed my big black coat off.

“Yeah! Keep out!”

I clicked my fingers in an exaggerated way to keep the energy up, “Darn. Guess I’m chatting with the boys~” With another big shrug I walked over to the other side of the fairly large safe room. In all honesty, I didn’t really care that they were having a girl talk. Far be it from me to keep them from bonding. This was our designated half hour break time in the middle of the infiltration day, and if they wanted to spend it chatting then more power to them, whatever helped relax the soul.

The flavour of safe room this time was in the form of a staff meeting room. Probably some workplace break area in the real world, but here it was where the ‘casino staff’ would have their rest. It also didn’t need to be as stylish as the rest of the casino, with a chess board like floor, a set of simple red wooden chairs, and an overused yellow couch that somehow stank even here. It was as gaudy as that sweater I wore when I let Yusuke pick out my clothes for a day. Mona said it was a cognition thing, but I know when he uses that as a hand waving excuse.

Ryuji and Yusuke were sat on it, drinking a soda and eating some curry respectively. Akechi was doing his ‘I’m a nice guy but also too cool for this’ routine by leaning against the wall nearby and stroking his chin like he was a big nerd thinking about things. And Morgana was sat on a chair while glaring his cartoonishly sized eyes over at the girls.

“Hello lads, as ordered by the others, I’m here to chat.” I announced, dragging an extra chair over and resting my legs on it, “The curry still good, Fox?”

“Yes, of course. A fresher meal my wallet could not afford.” He smiled gracefully before taking even more of a frantic pace to eat his meal than he had been.

“Huh, cool. Though… ‘fresh’? I think I made that at about midday.” He didn’t stop , “Two days ago…”

Ryuji entered the conversation with a final slurp of his soda and a wiping of his mouth, “You could have made that two weeks ago and he’d still be gobbling it like his life depended on it, dude.” He chuckled, doing that thing he’d started doing in the cognitive world to crush his can on his skull mask before tossing the frisbee in the nearby waste basket, “Wait… your life doesn’t actually depend on it this time, right?!”

“No, mph.” harumphed Yusuke into his food, “My diet is perfectly healthy. Even without this delicious meal, I make do. How could something as natural as… er nevermind…” He trailed off, making the blonde next to him lower his eyes.

“...you’ve been eating leaves again, haven’t you?”

Looking away from our probing questions answered us perfectly fine.

“Dude, can you please stop eating whatever you find on the ground?” I asked with a sigh.

Weirdly, instead of getting defensive about it, the man in the white mask simply smiled, “Very well. If it is a sincere request from our leader then I shall no longer eat anything I find off of the floor.”

“Oh, okay, cool.”

“Yes, I’ll be sure to climb up trees for fresher leaves!”

“No! Not better!” Ryuji barked in frustration, “Ugh, whatever. Baby steps I guess. Just eat your curry like a normal person.”

While he did not need the instruction, he did in fact follow the order. As I felt the break was making me more tired I looked over at our newest member, “How about you, Crow? Going to follow in Yusuke’s path and eat leaves out of a tree like your namesake?”

“Why don’t you mind your fucking business, Joker.”

Whaaat the hell? Why did that get him to drop the doughy act? He spat that so angrily but also looks really embarrassed and angry for some reason, stomping his ass away to the bathroom at the back of the room and slamming the door on us. I swear he never does anything but watch us from the corner whenever we’re together, why did that dumb joke make him freak out and run off?

Needless to say, boy time talk was going in a strange direction.

“That was weird, right?” Ryuji asked, I’m glad it wasn’t only me. “Do you think he actually eats…? Nah… nevermind.”

Our resident expert finished his curry and placed the plate down on the nearby table, “Perhaps my acts of nature consumption aren’t as insane as the two of you made it out to be? I wonder, has Akechi found a secret about oak leaves and pancakes I did not know about…” stroked Yusuke’s chin, “I shall have to bring up this topic again when we are out of the palace.”

“I wouldn’t if I were you…” I shrugged before deciding to cut my losses on the conversation again, “Okay, Mona. You’re up. Why with the scowling?”

“Shhh! I’m trying to listen in!” He harshly whispered, cat ears twitching in the direction of the four ladies all casually chatting together, “Lady talk means boy talk! That means they might tell us who they like or what kind of dashing thief boys with round head they find attractive!”

“Snrk, yeah, good luck with that.” chuckled Skull. Though even with the light grilling roast, it was clear the blonde was beginning to warm to the idea. “Like they’re just going to blurt out any crushes in a palace… but, uh, if you happen to hear anything then let us know. K?” He turned back to me, “Couldn’t hurt to find out some things that girls like, right?”

“Guess not. Though I’d still find a way to mess it up even if I had a cheat code book for women. Remember Maid Kawakami? Or the first time I spoke to Yoshizawa?”

Having seen my previous failures to say the right thing, Ryuji just sighed for me. “I don’t get it man, you got the looks and the dark past. How are the girls not falling for you all over?”

“Maybe it’d be better if I were one of those ‘silent protagonists’.” I laughed, imagining the world where I only had to speak the right thing once every thirty minutes of gameplay like an RPG game. Looking back over at the women, I sighed, “But then the new problem would be I’d be dense as hell. Oh? You’re saying our lady teammates are all fighting for my attention?” I mockingly joked in a stupid accent to mimic one of those protagonists.

And then Ryuji scowled at me.

I, uh, really wasn’t expecting that reaction from him after just joking around a bit.

“Yes. Dude. Obviously. You really are that dense if you can’t figure it out.” He practically spat his jealousy at me. Crossing his arms like I’d just insulted both his honour and intelligence with a single jovial question. “I’m fine with it but you don’t have to rub it in, jerk.”

“S-sorry…” I mumbled, caught off guard by the whole thing.

But he wasn’t the only one. Morgana was also frowning deeply at me, and Yusuke… okay, he was thinking about syrup on leaves, but if he was concentrating he may also be scowling at me… like the women were.

The lighthearted giggles and laughter that had been occurring over at the other side of the room had pretty much stopped. In fact apart from the sounds of the casino the room had become eerily silent. Now all the women were looking directly at me, eyes over their shoulders or just locking onto my location with a very strange determination.

And a blush when I made eye contact with them.

What the hell was happening?

Honestly I had never thought even one of our lady friends were that into me, if anything I had a closer romantic bond to my teacher than any of the four, though not through lack of trying.

Ann always kept our conversations on Shiho. Makoto always talked about her sister or tried to get me to study. Futaba just wanted a friend to help escape her room and experience some quiet Tokyo locations while chatting anime. And Haru was too busy with her late father’s company to probably even think of me, we’d barely hung out at all.

I had chosen to just give up on pursuing them romantically since they showed little interest in me and I valued their friendship more anyway. Something about making a girl my friend was so much easier than tongue tying at embarrassing moments of intimacy. But I definitely wouldn’t be against it if any of them confessed to me…

By the way they kept glancing over to me and whispering… was there something?

Futaba was hiding behind Makoto like I couldn’t see her poking her eyes up, Haru was blushing hard every time we made eye contact, Ann’s tongue was playing with her drink straw in a way that made my lower half blush, and Makoto had that restless leg when her emotions were getting the better of her.

Thankfully it was interrupted as Akechi returned from the bathroom, he got us all back on track, returning to his calmer smiley tone after his leaf based hissy fit, “Is break time over then? Shall we return to the infiltration?”

The rest of the time in the palace was very strange. Yes, even stranger than having multiple monsters to control while diving through the alternate version of the courthouse or as Futaba called it: Casino Mind Zone Act 1. It wasn’t just that Akechi was with us, the energy of the team was off.

Something about the ladies had changed.

Not physically at least. Just an attitude shift that made them all act really strangely.

At first it seemed innocuous, harmless, almost like all four of them were flirting with me. More touches than usual, like Ann hugging me from behind for defeating a shadow, or Haru leaning in quite close while we opened a chest together. Both of those instances the pair seemed to focus on grazing my arms with their, uh, large pairs. I thought nothing of it, but I did notice an escalating tone to the advances as the infiltration went on. Almost a competitive air surrounding the girl’s attempts to get my attention.

Peering around the cover of a slot machine and having Makoto be unafraid to shove her entire ass into your crotch was hard to miss.

I was worried something about the palace was getting to them, but it didn’t seem like the other guys were noticing anything wrong. Rolling their eyes as I babbled in confusion.

It was when it started affecting our fighting that I got really concerned.

Whenever one the three in battle got a baton pass situation they’d always insist on rushing towards me to pass it my way. As if my very touch was to be rewarding them. The diving in front of me to take hits even when I was going to dodge took it too far. I had no idea what was going on but I insisted that my team be only the guys for the rest of the day.

Which gave Futaba a lead on the others. Oracle focused on only healing and praising me whenever I lost even a sliver of health or accomplished anything. Much more specific praise too, “Looking really cool and tall today, Joker!” she’d yell when I used agidyne on an enemy, “As usual, Joker downed another enemy! That’s our brave and gallant leader!” When I managed a lucky shot on a different shadow, “I’m analysing Joker for anything that could have happened to him! Analysing… hm, yeah, analysing really… thoroughly…” She began that after a shadow hit me with a drowsiness spell. Drowsiness. It was the weakest of all the status effects and yet she spent the rest of the three minute battle just ‘analysing’ me.

It was too much. The guys were giving me glares, barring Akechi’s indifferent pragmatism. His attempts to come across as an aloof strategist made him seem oh so more alien than if he’d just be jealous like the others. Or he’s gay, who knows. Who cares? This was about the ladies!

Now, I really should have called off the quest earlier in the day when I realised something was off… but I couldn’t help but enjoy the attention. Even being nearly drained of energy and health, my desire to fight on was swelling as much as… nevermind.

Realism soon found its way into my head and at the next rest stop we agreed to head back to the real world.