OOC -- Application and concrit post
Now this is a story all about how Kanji’s life got flipped, turned upside-down. It’ll only take a minute (some details I’ll skip), I’ll tell you how he became an airman on a diplomat ship.
In northeastern Ivona, born and raised, sewing plushies was how he spent most of his days. Chillin’ out, knitting, acting all cool and all, beating up gangs and skipping outta school, when a guy named [SPOILER], he was up to no good, started killing people in his neighborhood. He got kidnapped just once and his friends got scared, they said, “We’re splitting up and tracking down the killer in the air!”
He signed up on an airship that was called the Amestris. When they heard he could sew they said, “We need a seamstress!” If anything, Kanji didn’t get what they meant, and said, “F-FORGET IT, I AIN’T STRANGE, SO GET BENT!”
PLAYER INFORMATION-
Name/Nickname: Krystal
AIM/E-mail/Contact: AIM: crystalclearcase / E-mail: stringrocksmystocks@yahoo.com
LJ: crystalcleared
CHARACTER INFORMATION-
Canon Character and Series: Kanji Tatsumi, Persona 4
In-Game Name: Kanji Tatsumi
Age: 17
Gender: Male
Position & Ship: Airman, Amestris (for now)
Appearance: Kanji looks like a punk. His hair is bleached blond, short and slicked-back. Piercings gleam in his face, and he wears his jacket slung around his shoulders like he’s too cool for uniforms, preferring instead to sport tight-fitting shirts with skulls emblazoned on them. He’s built pretty strongly for his age, tall and broad-shouldered. He favors dark colors and will wear the occasional accessory he thinks is cool, like the locket around his neck. When it’s cold, he’s got a leather jacket with a silver design on the back, and he’ll usually stomp around in black pants and boots, especially since he’s pretty much quit school and doesn’t have to wear the uniform anymore.
Personality: Kanji takes care to come off as loud, rough, and rude. He gives off a dangerous aura, despite being only 15 years old. His appearance is intimidating, and he acts like if you set him off, he’ll punch you in the face without a second thought. He is forceful, speaks his mind with no hesitation, and if you don’t like him, then tough. His temper is very hot, and he’ll go off on anyone (and I do mean anyone - this includes policemen and gangsters) who gives him shit. While he doesn’t pick fights for no reason, his idea of a “reason” to fight might be different from someone else’s (such as hinting that he might be “strange,” or if a gang is keeping his mother up at night).
That, actually, is your first clue to Kanji Tatsumi’s true nature. Though there is truth to the raging hair-trigger street punk, it hides another side. Kanji still harbors his childhood interest in sewing, cute things make his knees weak, and he’s got a heart of gold. He’s the sort of guy who’d step in if someone was getting beaten up or offer to repair a torn bag (though he would be incredibly awkward about the offer itself). He can cook wonderfully and keeps his things very tidy and organized. Kanji loves his mother very dearly and feels guilty about all the trouble his behavior causes, but he’s not comfortable enough with himself to get rid of the masking attitude that’s become part of who he is. Though he’s made an effort to change recently, thanks to his friendship with one Souji Seta, real change takes time.
He knows that he brings this trouble on himself and that his attitude and appearance don’t help in the slightest, but he’s very far from comfortable with his hobbies. He’s still very awkward about his “feminine” interests; they’re a source of embarrassment for him. They come off as weak, something he cannot reconcile with what his father said on his deathbed, to become strong. This doesn’t fit with Kanji’s love of kittens and sewing, so he compensates by being an abrasive punk who doesn’t let anyone push him around. The best example of this dual nature is the locket Kanji wears around his neck: it’s silver and shaped like a bullet, but inside it Kanji keeps adorable pictures of kittens. (Occasionally when he’s upset about something, Kanji will open it and meow at the pictures to make himself feel better.)
When Kanji reveals the softer, “girlier” side of himself, he acts very awkward. Sometimes he’ll put his foot in his mouth, or get carried away. Often he’ll act like it’s no big deal and if you don’t want the adorable bunnies you made you can just throw them away you know it’s not like he’ll care. Other times, though, he can be surprisingly intuitive, picking up on the emotional side of things and galvanizing his friends in moments of crisis. This boy has the heart of a shounen hero and the skills of a housewife. Oh, and while we’re on the subject of awkward, Kanji is still awkward around girls outside of the investigation team. He doesn’t understand them, and doesn’t like the stereotypical gossiping, almost cruel girl very much. Kanji is surprisingly calm around “cute” celebrities, like Rise, and will find the occasional girl very attractive. However, confront him with, say, Naoto, and he will grow more and more awkward, blustering and putting his foot in his mouth. Unless there’s something more serious to focus on, he freaks out. Kanji is still very much trying to figure out who he is.
Abilities/Weapons: Thanks to his experience in his “dungeon,” Kanji can summon an entity called Take-Mikazuchi. It’s about twenty feet tall, translucent (though very solid) and looks like a giant black robot-ish thing with a painted-on skeleton and carries a giant lightning bolt. It’s essentially a part of his soul, being a manifestation of his subconscious energy under the control of his ego. Through it, he can do various things. He casts two lightning spells that drain a magical energy from him. “Zionga” and “Mazionga” basically electrocute one target or many targets, respectively, though Mazionga drains four times as much mental energy from him - he can’t cast them more than two or three times without needing to rest. Then, there are the physical attacks, which actually injure Kanji directly. By weakening himself, Take-Mikazuchi can attack targets. It has two attacks: Cruel Attack and Mighty Swing. Both are limited to one target.
Kanji can only keep it summoned for a few seconds - any longer than that is dangerous and painful, and there’s really no reason for it. Besides summoning his Persona, Kanji has some pretty hardcore physical strength stats. He doesn’t have super-human strength at this point (though Take-Mikazuchi does), but this kid beats up motorcycle gangs and can swing a chair or a school-desk around like they’re nothing. And those are his starting weapons, before he gets even stronger from fighting monsters. Kid’s tough.
His weapons tend to be whatever heavy objects might be on hand at the time; Kanji’s good at finding/improvising blunt weapons. He works best with shields and metal plates, though he didn’t take the one he used against the Shadows with him when he left home. He did, however, keep the sunglasses that can see through fog and other harsh weather conditions, courtesy of a certain bear.
Kanji’s most important skill, though, is his ability to sew adorable and elaborate stuffed animals in a short time. He’s good at making crafts of all kinds, and knows about sewing clothes. He cooks a decent meal, too.
How well can your character hack?: Ahahaaaa NO. Not at all.
Weaknesses: High winds aren’t Kanji’s element, thanks to Take-Mikazuchi’s elemental weakness to wind magic, and he’ll be edgy if caught in a windstorm. This makes being on the deck of an airship while it’s flying at high speeds uncomfortable for him (though it’s no problem for a real man to overcome with willpower!)
Personality-wise, Kanji is a complete and total hothead. His buttons are ridiculously easy to push, and if you push the right ones, he’ll wildly overreact to little things. He’s a proud guy, and for the sake of his “man’s pride,” he’ll do things he normally wouldn’t - often stupid things. Mentioning his sexuality is a sensitive point still, and he’s ridiculously tsundere defensive about his hobbies. Also, despite his occasional intuition into the emotional side of things, Kanji is clumsy and awkward, and he’s not the brightest crayon in the box. All these factors can and do lead to him putting his foot in his mouth.
He still pushes people away, to a degree - Kanji is difficult to approach, and he tends to assume the worst about policemen especially (a side-effect of being a troublemaker in a small town). He’s taken the first few steps towards accepting himself, but while he’s willing to befriend those who accept him, he still says “screw you” to the ones who don’t get him. He doesn’t bother to put effort into making people understand him, since it’s easier to just push them away.
History: Kanji is from a small town a few miles away from Tulgim, called Inaba, where his parents ran a textile shop. Since he was very young, Kanji has heard things like, “Cloth is alive” and “dyes are one with the universe!” He grew up among these things, and could hold a needle almost before he could walk. He was a very kind boy, but the older he got, the more trouble he had making friends. He’d always rather go to Home Ec than P.E., and the other kids thought it was weird that Kanji liked sewing. The boys thought he was girly, and the girls thought he was strange. “You like to sew? That’s so weird.” “What a queer.” “Why aren’t you manly?” When Kanji was in grade school, a girl he liked broke the strap on her bag, so Kanji fixed it for her. The next day, though, all the girls were teasing her and Kanji, and it made her cry. Kanji associated that teasing with what would happen if he let people know he could do that sort of thing, so after his father’s death, Kanji started compensating for his interests, hiding them behind a tough, rude façade.
Kanji hid behind being angry and loud. He was sick of being rejected, so he began to push people away instead, before they could hurt him. He dyed his hair, pierced his ears, skipped school, and generally acted like an insufferable delinquent. His mother was forced to apologize for his behavior many times, a source of shame for Kanji. He still loved his mother dearly, even to the point of beating up a gang whose loud yells and general ruckus were keeping his mother up into the night. He didn’t have anyone who he could really call a friend, because he didn’t want anyone to know the real him. He wanted people to hate him before they could hurt him.
When he was fifteen, rumors started to spread among students about a journal frequency that only came on at midnight on a rainy night. The urban legend said that if you looked into a turned-off journal on a night like that, you’d see the name of your soulmate. Kanji dismissed the rumor as just that: an urban legend meant for lovestruck girls and gullible teenagers. Besides, he had another reason for not wanting to look: ever since his childhood, Kanji had been uncomfortable with girls. He didn’t like how cruel they could be, or how they would tease and gossip and talk behind your back. So a deep, dark part of him wondered: What if I’m the sort of guy who never gets interested in girls? This, however, was just about the least manly thing he could think of and was something he couldn’t accept, so he tried hard not to think about it.
Then, two murders shook his hometown. A reporter named Mayumi Yamano was found dead, hanging from a radio antenna on somebody’s roof. Not three days later, a high schooler named Saki Konishi was also found dead, strung up on another radio tower. The coroner could not identify the cause of death, and the police had no suspects. A classmate of Kanji’s, Yukiko Amagi, disappeared mysteriously for several days, but came back alive and unharmed. All this was just a distant concern of Kanji’s, until one day when a group of reporters came to Inaba, looking to do a special about gangs. Kanji, though he was not part of any gang, wound up running into them and was quoted in their article as he yelled at them to get out of his face.
That night, his name (though blurred) appeared on the midnight journal frequency, though he didn’t know it. The next day, he was approached by what looked to be a young man, slender and soft-spoken. This young man wanted to talk to him, saying that he was “interested” in Kanji, and who arranged to meet him after school the next day. Kanji was rather uncomfortable about the whole thing, because a boy had just said he was interested in him and then made what sounded suspiciously like a date. Understandably, Kanji was flustered and nervous the next day, and fretted about it in the bathroom beforehand, fixing his hair before coming out and trying to act all cool.
The boy wanted to know if anything unusual had happened to Kanji lately. Kanji was distracted the whole time, too distracted to notice the two fellow students trying to tail him. He noticed eventually, though, and confronted them, defensive about being caught on a suspicious (at least to someone as paranoid about it as Kanji) walk in the park with another boy. One of the students, Chie, put her foot in her mouth and said, “There’s nothing strange about it!” which Kanji reacted badly to. He wound up chasing her and her classmate, Yosuke, through the town before he lost them and realized the boy he had been with was gone.
Returning home, Kanji planned to go to sleep in his room, and doesn’t remember much after that. He has the vague impression that someone came to the door, but the next thing he knew, he was waking up on the floor of an unfamiliar bathhouse in a dungeon filled to the brim with monsters, faced with a flamboyant gay man that looked exactly like him.
Kanji had no idea what was going to happen.
Luckily, there was a group of people in his hometown with the power to help him. A recent transfer student to Yasogami High named Souji Seta, and his friends had been the ones to rescue Yukiko when she’d disappeared, and did the same to Kanji, fighting their way through his bathhouse, finally confronting the fundoshi-clad Shadow. Kanji frantically denied the accusations of the Shadow that he liked men, so the Shadow transformed into a great big muscle-bound monster, which took the efforts of all four schoolmates to defeat.
When they did, Kanji finally admitted something he’d known all along: that this thing came from inside of him, and was part of him. He came to terms with the fact that he was afraid: afraid of being rejected. But not before he punched the thing to the ground and yelled at it. When Kanji accepted this, the Shadow transformed into something called a Persona: the strength of the id under the control of the ego, it took the form of a Japanese god called Take-Mikazuchi.
From then on, Kanji was a member of their team. Though school went on as usual, the small group grew slowly, and they tried to figure out who was behind the mysterious journal frequency and the kidnappings/murders that went with them. Kanji befriended his rescuers, especially Souji, who was willing to believe Kanji when he denied accusations of bullying. Kanji treasures this friendship a lot. Mostly this is because Souji is an all-around cool guy, but also because he’s a good listener, and Kanji has told Souji things he’s never opened up to anyone else about. Souji is the one who helped him start to change, finding out about Kanji’s skill at making stuffed animals and encouraging it when he made a replacement animal for a little boy.
However, this couldn’t last forever. About a year and a half ago, the team decided to split up in the interests of learning more about the case, about Shadows, and about who’s behind it all. They all went their separate ways, taking airships to travel around Reial and find clues. He still feels guilty about not telling his ma the real reason why he was leaving town, and the parting was full of tsuntsun. (He totally didn’t have tears in his eyes during it. He denies this forever. HE HAD A COLD OKAY.) Kanji hopped from airship to airship for the past year and a half, failing spectacularly at finding anything out. He’s moved on to that ship everyone’s making a huge fuss about, the Amestris. That would be a good place to start looking, right? There are tons of important people there. Maybe someone’s got a clue…
Also this post is where you go anon and tell me how much I suck, or alternatively gush about how you want my babies. GO ON, HIT ME, I CAN TAKE IT.
In northeastern Ivona, born and raised, sewing plushies was how he spent most of his days. Chillin’ out, knitting, acting all cool and all, beating up gangs and skipping outta school, when a guy named [SPOILER], he was up to no good, started killing people in his neighborhood. He got kidnapped just once and his friends got scared, they said, “We’re splitting up and tracking down the killer in the air!”
He signed up on an airship that was called the Amestris. When they heard he could sew they said, “We need a seamstress!” If anything, Kanji didn’t get what they meant, and said, “F-FORGET IT, I AIN’T STRANGE, SO GET BENT!”
PLAYER INFORMATION-
Name/Nickname: Krystal
AIM/E-mail/Contact: AIM: crystalclearcase / E-mail: stringrocksmystocks@yahoo.com
LJ: crystalcleared
CHARACTER INFORMATION-
Canon Character and Series: Kanji Tatsumi, Persona 4
In-Game Name: Kanji Tatsumi
Age: 17
Gender: Male
Position & Ship: Airman, Amestris (for now)
Appearance: Kanji looks like a punk. His hair is bleached blond, short and slicked-back. Piercings gleam in his face, and he wears his jacket slung around his shoulders like he’s too cool for uniforms, preferring instead to sport tight-fitting shirts with skulls emblazoned on them. He’s built pretty strongly for his age, tall and broad-shouldered. He favors dark colors and will wear the occasional accessory he thinks is cool, like the locket around his neck. When it’s cold, he’s got a leather jacket with a silver design on the back, and he’ll usually stomp around in black pants and boots, especially since he’s pretty much quit school and doesn’t have to wear the uniform anymore.
Personality: Kanji takes care to come off as loud, rough, and rude. He gives off a dangerous aura, despite being only 15 years old. His appearance is intimidating, and he acts like if you set him off, he’ll punch you in the face without a second thought. He is forceful, speaks his mind with no hesitation, and if you don’t like him, then tough. His temper is very hot, and he’ll go off on anyone (and I do mean anyone - this includes policemen and gangsters) who gives him shit. While he doesn’t pick fights for no reason, his idea of a “reason” to fight might be different from someone else’s (such as hinting that he might be “strange,” or if a gang is keeping his mother up at night).
That, actually, is your first clue to Kanji Tatsumi’s true nature. Though there is truth to the raging hair-trigger street punk, it hides another side. Kanji still harbors his childhood interest in sewing, cute things make his knees weak, and he’s got a heart of gold. He’s the sort of guy who’d step in if someone was getting beaten up or offer to repair a torn bag (though he would be incredibly awkward about the offer itself). He can cook wonderfully and keeps his things very tidy and organized. Kanji loves his mother very dearly and feels guilty about all the trouble his behavior causes, but he’s not comfortable enough with himself to get rid of the masking attitude that’s become part of who he is. Though he’s made an effort to change recently, thanks to his friendship with one Souji Seta, real change takes time.
He knows that he brings this trouble on himself and that his attitude and appearance don’t help in the slightest, but he’s very far from comfortable with his hobbies. He’s still very awkward about his “feminine” interests; they’re a source of embarrassment for him. They come off as weak, something he cannot reconcile with what his father said on his deathbed, to become strong. This doesn’t fit with Kanji’s love of kittens and sewing, so he compensates by being an abrasive punk who doesn’t let anyone push him around. The best example of this dual nature is the locket Kanji wears around his neck: it’s silver and shaped like a bullet, but inside it Kanji keeps adorable pictures of kittens. (Occasionally when he’s upset about something, Kanji will open it and meow at the pictures to make himself feel better.)
When Kanji reveals the softer, “girlier” side of himself, he acts very awkward. Sometimes he’ll put his foot in his mouth, or get carried away. Often he’ll act like it’s no big deal and if you don’t want the adorable bunnies you made you can just throw them away you know it’s not like he’ll care. Other times, though, he can be surprisingly intuitive, picking up on the emotional side of things and galvanizing his friends in moments of crisis. This boy has the heart of a shounen hero and the skills of a housewife. Oh, and while we’re on the subject of awkward, Kanji is still awkward around girls outside of the investigation team. He doesn’t understand them, and doesn’t like the stereotypical gossiping, almost cruel girl very much. Kanji is surprisingly calm around “cute” celebrities, like Rise, and will find the occasional girl very attractive. However, confront him with, say, Naoto, and he will grow more and more awkward, blustering and putting his foot in his mouth. Unless there’s something more serious to focus on, he freaks out. Kanji is still very much trying to figure out who he is.
Abilities/Weapons: Thanks to his experience in his “dungeon,” Kanji can summon an entity called Take-Mikazuchi. It’s about twenty feet tall, translucent (though very solid) and looks like a giant black robot-ish thing with a painted-on skeleton and carries a giant lightning bolt. It’s essentially a part of his soul, being a manifestation of his subconscious energy under the control of his ego. Through it, he can do various things. He casts two lightning spells that drain a magical energy from him. “Zionga” and “Mazionga” basically electrocute one target or many targets, respectively, though Mazionga drains four times as much mental energy from him - he can’t cast them more than two or three times without needing to rest. Then, there are the physical attacks, which actually injure Kanji directly. By weakening himself, Take-Mikazuchi can attack targets. It has two attacks: Cruel Attack and Mighty Swing. Both are limited to one target.
Kanji can only keep it summoned for a few seconds - any longer than that is dangerous and painful, and there’s really no reason for it. Besides summoning his Persona, Kanji has some pretty hardcore physical strength stats. He doesn’t have super-human strength at this point (though Take-Mikazuchi does), but this kid beats up motorcycle gangs and can swing a chair or a school-desk around like they’re nothing. And those are his starting weapons, before he gets even stronger from fighting monsters. Kid’s tough.
His weapons tend to be whatever heavy objects might be on hand at the time; Kanji’s good at finding/improvising blunt weapons. He works best with shields and metal plates, though he didn’t take the one he used against the Shadows with him when he left home. He did, however, keep the sunglasses that can see through fog and other harsh weather conditions, courtesy of a certain bear.
Kanji’s most important skill, though, is his ability to sew adorable and elaborate stuffed animals in a short time. He’s good at making crafts of all kinds, and knows about sewing clothes. He cooks a decent meal, too.
How well can your character hack?: Ahahaaaa NO. Not at all.
Weaknesses: High winds aren’t Kanji’s element, thanks to Take-Mikazuchi’s elemental weakness to wind magic, and he’ll be edgy if caught in a windstorm. This makes being on the deck of an airship while it’s flying at high speeds uncomfortable for him (though it’s no problem for a real man to overcome with willpower!)
Personality-wise, Kanji is a complete and total hothead. His buttons are ridiculously easy to push, and if you push the right ones, he’ll wildly overreact to little things. He’s a proud guy, and for the sake of his “man’s pride,” he’ll do things he normally wouldn’t - often stupid things. Mentioning his sexuality is a sensitive point still, and he’s ridiculously tsundere defensive about his hobbies. Also, despite his occasional intuition into the emotional side of things, Kanji is clumsy and awkward, and he’s not the brightest crayon in the box. All these factors can and do lead to him putting his foot in his mouth.
He still pushes people away, to a degree - Kanji is difficult to approach, and he tends to assume the worst about policemen especially (a side-effect of being a troublemaker in a small town). He’s taken the first few steps towards accepting himself, but while he’s willing to befriend those who accept him, he still says “screw you” to the ones who don’t get him. He doesn’t bother to put effort into making people understand him, since it’s easier to just push them away.
History: Kanji is from a small town a few miles away from Tulgim, called Inaba, where his parents ran a textile shop. Since he was very young, Kanji has heard things like, “Cloth is alive” and “dyes are one with the universe!” He grew up among these things, and could hold a needle almost before he could walk. He was a very kind boy, but the older he got, the more trouble he had making friends. He’d always rather go to Home Ec than P.E., and the other kids thought it was weird that Kanji liked sewing. The boys thought he was girly, and the girls thought he was strange. “You like to sew? That’s so weird.” “What a queer.” “Why aren’t you manly?” When Kanji was in grade school, a girl he liked broke the strap on her bag, so Kanji fixed it for her. The next day, though, all the girls were teasing her and Kanji, and it made her cry. Kanji associated that teasing with what would happen if he let people know he could do that sort of thing, so after his father’s death, Kanji started compensating for his interests, hiding them behind a tough, rude façade.
Kanji hid behind being angry and loud. He was sick of being rejected, so he began to push people away instead, before they could hurt him. He dyed his hair, pierced his ears, skipped school, and generally acted like an insufferable delinquent. His mother was forced to apologize for his behavior many times, a source of shame for Kanji. He still loved his mother dearly, even to the point of beating up a gang whose loud yells and general ruckus were keeping his mother up into the night. He didn’t have anyone who he could really call a friend, because he didn’t want anyone to know the real him. He wanted people to hate him before they could hurt him.
When he was fifteen, rumors started to spread among students about a journal frequency that only came on at midnight on a rainy night. The urban legend said that if you looked into a turned-off journal on a night like that, you’d see the name of your soulmate. Kanji dismissed the rumor as just that: an urban legend meant for lovestruck girls and gullible teenagers. Besides, he had another reason for not wanting to look: ever since his childhood, Kanji had been uncomfortable with girls. He didn’t like how cruel they could be, or how they would tease and gossip and talk behind your back. So a deep, dark part of him wondered: What if I’m the sort of guy who never gets interested in girls? This, however, was just about the least manly thing he could think of and was something he couldn’t accept, so he tried hard not to think about it.
Then, two murders shook his hometown. A reporter named Mayumi Yamano was found dead, hanging from a radio antenna on somebody’s roof. Not three days later, a high schooler named Saki Konishi was also found dead, strung up on another radio tower. The coroner could not identify the cause of death, and the police had no suspects. A classmate of Kanji’s, Yukiko Amagi, disappeared mysteriously for several days, but came back alive and unharmed. All this was just a distant concern of Kanji’s, until one day when a group of reporters came to Inaba, looking to do a special about gangs. Kanji, though he was not part of any gang, wound up running into them and was quoted in their article as he yelled at them to get out of his face.
That night, his name (though blurred) appeared on the midnight journal frequency, though he didn’t know it. The next day, he was approached by what looked to be a young man, slender and soft-spoken. This young man wanted to talk to him, saying that he was “interested” in Kanji, and who arranged to meet him after school the next day. Kanji was rather uncomfortable about the whole thing, because a boy had just said he was interested in him and then made what sounded suspiciously like a date. Understandably, Kanji was flustered and nervous the next day, and fretted about it in the bathroom beforehand, fixing his hair before coming out and trying to act all cool.
The boy wanted to know if anything unusual had happened to Kanji lately. Kanji was distracted the whole time, too distracted to notice the two fellow students trying to tail him. He noticed eventually, though, and confronted them, defensive about being caught on a suspicious (at least to someone as paranoid about it as Kanji) walk in the park with another boy. One of the students, Chie, put her foot in her mouth and said, “There’s nothing strange about it!” which Kanji reacted badly to. He wound up chasing her and her classmate, Yosuke, through the town before he lost them and realized the boy he had been with was gone.
Returning home, Kanji planned to go to sleep in his room, and doesn’t remember much after that. He has the vague impression that someone came to the door, but the next thing he knew, he was waking up on the floor of an unfamiliar bathhouse in a dungeon filled to the brim with monsters, faced with a flamboyant gay man that looked exactly like him.
Kanji had no idea what was going to happen.
Luckily, there was a group of people in his hometown with the power to help him. A recent transfer student to Yasogami High named Souji Seta, and his friends had been the ones to rescue Yukiko when she’d disappeared, and did the same to Kanji, fighting their way through his bathhouse, finally confronting the fundoshi-clad Shadow. Kanji frantically denied the accusations of the Shadow that he liked men, so the Shadow transformed into a great big muscle-bound monster, which took the efforts of all four schoolmates to defeat.
When they did, Kanji finally admitted something he’d known all along: that this thing came from inside of him, and was part of him. He came to terms with the fact that he was afraid: afraid of being rejected. But not before he punched the thing to the ground and yelled at it. When Kanji accepted this, the Shadow transformed into something called a Persona: the strength of the id under the control of the ego, it took the form of a Japanese god called Take-Mikazuchi.
From then on, Kanji was a member of their team. Though school went on as usual, the small group grew slowly, and they tried to figure out who was behind the mysterious journal frequency and the kidnappings/murders that went with them. Kanji befriended his rescuers, especially Souji, who was willing to believe Kanji when he denied accusations of bullying. Kanji treasures this friendship a lot. Mostly this is because Souji is an all-around cool guy, but also because he’s a good listener, and Kanji has told Souji things he’s never opened up to anyone else about. Souji is the one who helped him start to change, finding out about Kanji’s skill at making stuffed animals and encouraging it when he made a replacement animal for a little boy.
However, this couldn’t last forever. About a year and a half ago, the team decided to split up in the interests of learning more about the case, about Shadows, and about who’s behind it all. They all went their separate ways, taking airships to travel around Reial and find clues. He still feels guilty about not telling his ma the real reason why he was leaving town, and the parting was full of tsuntsun. (He totally didn’t have tears in his eyes during it. He denies this forever. HE HAD A COLD OKAY.) Kanji hopped from airship to airship for the past year and a half, failing spectacularly at finding anything out. He’s moved on to that ship everyone’s making a huge fuss about, the Amestris. That would be a good place to start looking, right? There are tons of important people there. Maybe someone’s got a clue…
Also this post is where you go anon and tell me how much I suck, or alternatively gush about how you want my babies. GO ON, HIT ME, I CAN TAKE IT.