Application for Balance

[petsthedog]

	Shinjiro Aragaki: What difference does it make if I come to terms with it? It won't change anything.
	APP HMD FIGHTER BATTY

Player Name: Batty
Age: 27
Contact: goodluckmodes
Timezone: EST, except in summer
Other character currently in game: n/a

Character name: Shinjiro Aragaki
Age: 18
Canon: Persona 3 FES; male protag route
Canon point: Oct 4th 2009, moment of death
History: Wiki link

Three key adjectives: Compassionate, self-loathing, avoidant

Influential Events:

Befriending Akihiko at the orphanage & Miki’s death

When Shinjiro was a child, he lived in an orphanage where he met Akihiko Sanada, his best friend. It’s unknown how long they lived here together, but they formed a close bond that would last for the rest of Shinjiro’s life. One night, however, the orphanage caught fire, and although Shinjiro and Akihiko evacuated, it turned out Akihiko’s younger sister Miki had not, and Akihiko was unable to return to the building and rescue her, held back by their caretakers. In the aftermath, the two of them made a promise to become strong enough to do what they felt was right, but this incident came to form the basis of a fixation on power in Akihiko that would eventually become a frequent point of conflict between Shinjiro and his best friend, when Shinjiro would want nothing to do with his abilities, while Akihiko would insist he was wasting them.

The Dark Hour, Persona, and joining SEES

In the Persona 3 universe, a mysterious phenomenon occurs every night at midnight, in which for an hour, the night sky turns a sickly green, bodies of water turn to blood, and the bodies of people are turned into coffins. Monsters called Shadows attempt to lure people out of these coffins to feed on their psyches, leaving them in a vegetative coma-like state known as Apathy Syndrome. However, those with the Potential to summon a Persona are able to remain active within the Dark Hour and fight against the shadows.

At some unspecified point while Shinjiro and Akihiko are in middle school, Shinjiro and Akihiko awaken to their Potential, and Akihiko is recruited to SEES by fellow student Mitsuru Kirijo. Shortly thereafter, Shinjiro shows up at the dorm that SEES members live in and refuses to leave. At that time, there were concerns that Shinjiro might have difficulties with summoning his Persona and Akihiko warned him against it, but Shinjiro insisted. After his death, Akihiko reflects that Shinjiro likely did so for his sake, so he could have his back when Akihiko threw himself into danger. Things seem to have gone well for a time; in the manga adaptation, Akihiko refers to Shinjiro as having been a “battle genius”. Nonetheless, these early misgivings about his ability to use his Persona likely contributes to his intense guilt over the events of October 4th, and his use of Persona suppressants to eliminate any possibility of losing control again.

October 4th, 2007
cw: death, depression, suicidal ideation & behavior
Two years before the start of the main storyline, a tragic incident occurs during the Dark Hour, when Shinjiro’s Persona suddenly goes completely out of control while in pursuit of a Shadow. In the ensuing rampage, it crushes a house where a young boy (Ken Amada) and his mother live; although the boy is unharmed, his mother is killed in the incident. This tragedy profoundly changes Shinjiro, who is all but crushed by the guilt of what he has done, especially since deaths that occur during the Dark Hour (which is unknown to most of society) are explained away as freak accidents by the Kirijo Group, essentially protecting Shinjiro from any potential legal consequences.

He is implied to have become severely depressed afterward, leaving the dorm and cutting ties with SEES, skipping school and living on the streets. He also begins making deals with a shady group called Strega in order to obtain Persona suppressants, which keep an individual’s Persona forcibly under control at the cost of slowly destroying their body. It’s stated in the game that Shinjiro is dying from taking these drugs, and at the time of the main storyline two years later, “doesn’t have much time left”. Shinjiro isn’t afraid of dying, however; he seems to see it as the right thing to do, as it removes himself as a potentially dangerous element during the Dark Hour, and withdrawing from all social contact seems to be his way of protecting them from the pain of his eventual death. It’s somewhat distorted thinking, especially given how deep his history with Akihiko runs, but he can’t really see past the guilt and the responsibility he feels he must take for it when there’s nobody to punish him.

Although Mitsuru and Akihiko considered what happened to be merely a tragic accident, Shinjiro is unable and unwilling to let himself off the hook for it. Unintentionally or otherwise, he ruined a young child’s life, and he can’t ever take that back.

Rejoining SEES

For two years after the fateful night in which Ken’s mother was killed, Shinjiro rebuffs numerous attempts by Akihiko to get him to return to SEES and start fighting Shadows with them again. We see a few of these attempts in the course of the game, and Shinjiro appears to grow increasingly impatient with them. He gets frustrated with Akihiko for not being able to understand his feelings or point of view, and what he sees as the hypocrisy of projecting his own childhood trauma of losing his sister onto him while at the same time telling him not to be trapped in the past.

However, eventually, Akihiko approaches him again with the news that Ken Amada has joined their ranks at SEES. Shinjiro appears stunned by this, but it’s what finally gets him to relent. This ultimately is another demonstration of his sense of responsibility toward Ken for what happened on October 4th; he’s not willing to rejoin for his own sake, or even for humanity’s sake--seeing the risk of using his Persona again to be too much for what benefit he might do, but he feels watching Ken’s back as he fights to be the least he owes the kid.

Upon rejoining SEES, Shinjiro makes himself available to the team again, moving back into the dorms and joining them both on missions and day-to-day activities such as walking Koromaru (a dog with Persona abilities) with them and even accompanying the protagonist to a film festival at his request. During this time, the softer and kinder nature hidden under his juvenile delinquent street punk facade becomes more apparent. He expresses concern for the troubles of his old friends Mitsuru and Akihiko, tells the protagonist to be careful with his health, and in the female protagonist route even teaches Fuuka to cook and throws a small dinner party for the team upon the protagonist’s request. In both routes, “hidden recordings” at the dorm reveal that Shinjiro is particularly attached to Koromaru, who he hand-makes dog food for and shows a great deal of affection--something which he appears to be embarrassed by when the others find out, as it detracts from his tough-guy image. In the non-canon spinoff game Persona Q: Shadow of the Labyrinth, which takes place during the same timeline as P3, he’s also seen talking to the others about the importance of good nutrition.

Regardless, he still holds onto some of his distance, even with Akihiko. When the latter discovers he’s been taking Persona suppressants and presses him to explain himself, even escalating to physical confrontation, Shinjiro doesn't rise to the bait, and all he offers by the end is that he intends to stay alive long enough to see through his responsibility.

October 4th Pt. II: Electric Boogaloo

In the year that Persona 3 takes place, every month a larger shadow appears, and the team is told that defeating all twelve is the key to finally destroying the Dark Hour permanently. As it happens, October 4th happens to be a full moon. This leads to the rest of the team being distracted by their mission for the night as Shinjiro and Ken slip out and meet at the place where Ken’s mother died, two years ago. Ken reveals how he’s been living for revenge since that night, and he only joined SEES in order to find and kill him. Shinjiro tells Ken that he won’t resist if he wants to kill him, stating that it’s what he deserves. However, still feeling responsibility for how Ken’s life turned out, he points out that he might struggle with the weight of taking another person’s life someday, even if he felt nothing but hatred and anger now. Ken is agitated by the advice, and starts to yell angrily that he’d never regret it, when the two of them are interrupted by the leader of Strega, Takaya, who wants to keep the Dark Hour going permanently.

In the course of the confrontation, he reveals to Ken that Shinjiro is slowly dying, and correctly infers that Ken intended to kill himself after he got his revenge on Shinjiro, before pulling out a revolver to kill the both of them, taunting that the order of their deaths shouldn’t matter too much. In attempting to stop him, Shinjiro is shot in the stomach, and Takaya takes the opportunity to question him about who on their team is detecting the locations of the Shadows. While Shinjiro claims that none of them can do so, Ken steps ahead of him, claiming it’s him--having decided his revenge to be pointless now that he knows Shinjiro was already dying, even as Shinjiro protests. But at the very last moment, as Takaya pulls the trigger, Shinjiro manages to throw himself in front of Ken, taking the bullet for him just as the other members of SEES arrive. Even at the end, he shows no fear--in the time he has before he bleeds out, he tries to give Ken a last bit of closure, telling him it’s alright if he can’t let go of his hatred right away, as he’s only a kid with a lot of time left, and to try to turn his anger into strength so he can live for his own sake. His last words to Akihiko are surprisingly not personal either, given all their history; he merely asks for his old friend to take care of Ken.

Although in canon, this is the end of Shinjiro’s story, in Faerun, the events surrounding his death will have a significant impact on his state of mind. In his own world, he was ready to die, even stating that “this is how it should be” as he closes his eyes. He was all but relieved that everything was over--that he didn’t have to worry about his Persona hurting anyone or about the Dark Hour or any of its associated problems anymore, and while he would never claim saving Ken’s life could be atonement for having caused his mother’s death, he seemed to finally feel some peace with the idea of at least being able to give Ken some form of closure and the chance to move on. Shinjiro, for his own part, has never been able to move on, trapped in a spiral of self-hatred and guilt that have made it impossible for him to see ahead to good things he could still accomplish, even despite what’s happened in the past. In canon, dying is a release from all of that, but he won’t have the chance for such an uncomplicated end with the arrival of the Hunger. Once he’s no longer on the brink of death, he’ll have to grapple with the memory of the grief of his teammates as he was dying despite all of his efforts to prevent that pain. And he’ll have to come to grips with a renewed obligation to fight, to restore his universe so that everyone can have a future--especially Ken.


Link to Samples: Link to Sample 1; Link to Sample 2;

Chosen path: Fighter
3 Abilities: Persona Summoning (Castor: Blady of Fury—Deals medium Slash damage to all foes, 1-3 hits), Know Your Enemy, Athletics
Why this path?: Fighter is more or less the role Shinjiro takes in canon, with a Persona that has solely physical attacks, and a personality that tends to take on problems either with his fists or not at all. In his early days, he would've classified more as a Paladin, but he doesn't really see himself as a protector or someone on a righteous path, anymore.

blurb code by photosynthesis