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1.
The laboratory is, for the most part, empty. Naoto has noticed occasional visitors. Her—her ‘shadow’ self (that was what senpai had called it on the school trip, wasn’t it?) is alternately an energetic host and horribly crabby and irritable, and receives them in whatever way she wishes. Childish, emotional mood swings. Naoto is glad for the breaks. Her voice is sore and tired from arguing and managing the shadow.
When her shadow isn’t preparing for an operation (an operation Naoto can’t deny she doesn’t want, yet can’t accept, on the simple principle that this isn’t how she wants this to happen. But what she wants is a total mystery to her), she’s making other things. Other people, Naoto suspects. The shadow goes out into the secret hideout and returns with balls and balls of squirming black masses, and runs them through machines. Sometimes what comes out is a bouquet of flowers, a house, an owl. Other times it’s a decaying body, a horrible screaming that goes on for hours and hours, weapons and weapons and weapons.
“Look at what I’ve created,” says the shadow. “Look, look, look.”
“Are you always so eager to show the fruits of your labor?” Naoto asks. “What is it about affirmation that excites you so?”
“Tell me, why do you pretend that you do not what the praise of others?” the shadow booms. Naoto locks her knees, presses her hand into the side of her hip, and tries to pretend that the voice doesn’t reverberate with the syllables of the shadow’s words. “Why must a man pretend that he does not like to be praised? What is so manly about not taking credit for one’s creations? Only a woman would be content to fall into obscurity.”
“You have not done your research, I see,” Naoto says. “And are entirely lacking in knowledge of historical and political trends.”
“Oh?” the shadow says. “We will see about that.”
2.
“Tell me, Naoto,” the shadow commands. “What kind of stories do you like best?”
“Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes is perhaps—”
“You lie. Why do you do that? Why?” The shadow smirks. “Princes and princesses. Really, Naoto-kun. You aren’t much different from any of the insignificant little girls that chase after you in school and on the streets.”
“I’ve never liked those kinds of stories,” she says, because it’s true. The thrill of the detectives, of the mystery, had called her in from an early age. As a child she had thought that she disliked reading. As it would turn out, it was merely the fairy tales that bored her.
“Naoto-kun, Naoto-kun.” The shadow clicks its tongue. “You truly know nothing. Why don’t you analyze your precious stories more deeply, more seriously? The princely, handsome detective, determined to untangle the princess from her web of mysteries and tangled—”
“Perhaps you should have retaken your literature courses. Unless you believe scientists have no need for the philosophical and liberal arts?” Naoto can feel her pulse, hard and steady, in her wrists, her neck. “Your lack of knowledge and sophistication are the hallmarks of a child speaking without knowing what comes out of her mouth.”
“I’m nothing like that,” the shadow says, its yellow eyes wide and hurt. “Don’t say that. Don’t say that.”
“You’re—”
“Don’t say it!” The shadow pins its sleeve-covered hands to its ears, and presses hard. “I can’t hear you! I can’t hear you!”
“You’re a child,” Naoto says, a bit softer. Nothing like me at all. You aren’t me.
3.
The shadow brings back a red feather. Just one feather, a glossy red with black on its tip.
“Look, look,” it says. “Isn’t it wonderful? It’s so pretty. I found it in a castle, and now it’s mine.”
“So you say.”
“You’ll see,” the shadow says. “When I have this, I won’t need you.”
“I will be glad to be rid of you.”
“No, don’t, don’t. Why does everyone leave me?”
The shadow clings onto its feather. Naoto crosses her arms, and closes her eyes.
4.
The next thing to come out of the machine is a woman in an overflowing pink dress, black hair, and bright yellow eyes. Naoto realizes, in a vague sort of way, that this is Amagi’s shadow, and that Amagi-shadow’s clothes don’t go well with the local decor, but she carries herself in a way that makes the room feel a bit bigger, a bit grander. Like it’s her room, her laboratory, her dungeon, and Naoto and the shadow its captives.
“Oh? My, my,” Amagi’s shadow says, and she brings a white-gloved hand to her lips. Her eyes curve into a smile. “What have we here? Two young princes.”
“I’m the prince,” says the shadow. Her shadow, Naoto thinks with a jerk of her stomach. “That one’s not.”
“But it isn’t a princess either,” says Amagi’s shadow, her smile cruel and devillishly calculating.
“Then what is it?” the shadow asks, leaning into Amagi’s shadow’s voice, her thrall.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Naoto says. “This isn’t some fairy tale.”
“If it isn’t a princess or a prince, then it’s a villain.”
“Yes, yes, that’s right,” says the shadow. “And what am I?”
“The prince, of course.”
“This is ridiculous,” Naoto says, a bit louder. Her cheeks are getting hot. The princess strides up to her, her pretty dress trailing in the ground (it doesn’t really get dirty, and Naoto finds herself inexplicably annoyed) and strokes her face.
“You disagree with me.”
“That thing over there is nothing but an overgrown child,” Naoto says. “There is nothing appealing about it.”
“Ah,” says the princess, and she smiles. “But that child there can take me from Inaba. It can take me anywhere. That is the true mark of a prince. Won’t someone, anyone, take me away?”
“I can,” says the shadow, like an over-eager puppy. “I can.”
Amagi’s shadow stares at Naoto, as though to prompt an answer.
“You have two legs,” Naoto says. “What is there to prevent you from leaving on your own?”
“What prevents you from being a true man?” asks her shadow, and Amagi’s shadow laughs at that, high and with a bite.
“Come along, my prince,” she says, holding out her hand. Her shadow rolls up its sleeves and takes the princess’ hand and holds it. “Will you take me away from here?”
Her shadow holds onto the hand a bit tighter. “Only if you never leave me.”
5.
“Persona,” Yukiko says, snapping her fan in the air. “Persona.”
Nothing answers.
“Huh,” she says.
6.
“Naoto-kun,” says Amagi’s shadow. “Why don’t we escape together?”
“I don’t understand what you’re talking about,” Naoto says. “Didn’t you promise to stay?”
“Oh, please,” says Amagi’s shadow. “We’re all alone in the end. The master always ends up abandoning his servants.”
“What an unscrupulous woman you are,” Naoto says.
“Isn’t it up to the prince to reform the naughty princess?” Amagi’s shadow says, pressing closer to Naoto. Naoto ends up with her back on the table and Amagi’s shadow’s long hair falling on her body, the princess’ pale face and red lips hovering right over her face.
“I thought you said I was the villain.”
“You can be whatever you want to be,” Amagi’s shadow says, and Naoto feels her stomach jerk. “Why don’t you be my prince, little detective?”
Naoto won’t pretend that she’s not tempted. She has researched Amagi, and finds Amagi to be a pleasant, if not somewhat stiffly humorless, person, but this alternate person is—
is kissing her, soft and with a smile.
“Why don’t you consider it for a while?” Amagi’s shadow says, her gloved hand tracing Naoto’s jaw. She bites at Naoto’s ear. “Hmm?”
7.
When her shadow is in the laboratory, it spends most of its time flirting with Amagi’s shadow. The two of them devise silly and wholly foolish escape plans, when they aren’t cooing at each other.
“Marry me,” says Amagi’s shadow. “Make me yours, my prince.” It’s horribly seductive. Naoto, who’s standing halfway across the room, has the urge to do exactly as Amagi’s shadow says.
Naoto half-thinks that her shadow would do something silly, such as find a laser and etch its name into Amagi’s skin, but instead her mouth feels wet. It takes her a moment to understand why: her shadow is kissing Amagi, quick and hard on the lips. Her hands are pressing against something soft, another hand clenching what feels like the memory of silk. Her tongue tastes of a taste that must be someone else’s skin, and Naoto presses her legs together in some attempt to pretend she doesn’t have the urge to unzip the fly of her pants, pull them down and rock against her hand until she worked herself into orgasm.
She fiddled about with the machines in the panel for a while, and tried desperately to ignore the slide of silk-covered fingers against her skin, ghostly pressure at the junction of her groin, and laughter in the background. And in the end she’s on her knees, elbows bracing against the keyboard as she catches her breath.
“Oh, no, you did fine,” Amagi’s shadow reassures Naoto’s. “It was fine. You did wonderfully.”
“Of course I did. If we do this more often, will you leave me?”
“Maybe not,” Amagi’s shadow says. She purrs, and without the dress it's almost easy to pretend that it's Amagi herself there, touching Naoto--the other Naoto's--the thing that's not her's--face.
Naoto doesn’t think she’ll be able to think about Amagi in the same way again.
8.
Amagi’s shadow leaves by stealing the key from the shadow and walking through the front door. Naoto would have followed, but her shadow had her pinned to a table. Mostly, it cries into Naoto’s shoulder while Naoto stared up at the ceiling.
“Why? Why did she leave me?”
“Get off of me,” Naoto says.
The shadow’s tears stop. It pouts. “You miss her, don’t you?”
Naoto likes the shadow a lot better when it's too busy crying to carry a conversation with her.
“I was barely acquainted with Amagi-senpai,” she says. “And considering that Amagi-senpai’s shadow was more concerned with escaping than staying here, I’m not surprised that she left.” If she weren’t waiting for senpai and the others to come into the TV for her, then she would’ve fought harder against the shadow, tried to escape.
“I won’t let you leave me,” says the shadow. “Never.”
You can try, Naoto thinks, but doesn’t say.
9.
Later, Yukiko mentions that she had come down with a fever while in the Secret Laboratory, and couldn’t summon her Persona for a time. Naoto pretends she didn’t hear anything. It doesn't work.
She is a prince, Naoto thinks. Or if not a prince, then a gentleman. She is strong and powerful and carries a gun. If she offers Amagi a chance to run away, will Amagi take it?
Ordinarily, this might be called leverage. Blackmail, from the mouths of the less astute. But Naoto feels guilty for wondering what sides of Amagi she's not privy to; guilty for wondering what sides of the others she hasn't seen, but wants to.