#((also whoops this went from kinda silly to Kinda Serious lmfao))

[shapeshifting-wildcard]

On Sunday, Jou strode into his therapist's office with a burning question on his mind. He sat down across from Dr. Sonomura, who regarded him with a vaguely amused expression.

"Good afternoon, Inojita-kun," she greeted. "Is there something on your mind this week?"

Out came the phone as he wrote it down and showed her. "Did you fight Hitler?"

Dr. Sonomura blinked at the screen. Two, three times. She covered her face and broke down into barely muffled chuckling while Morgana shot him a disapproving look.

"I told you that was a ridiculous question to ask," Morgana said.

Dr. Sonomura regained some of her composure, smoothing a hand over her hair as she glanced at Jou, her face slightly reddened from her laughing fit. "Well, my answer is almost as ridiculous. I didn't, but there were some rumors going around that he was somehow involved with some weird things going on in town."

"Wait, what?" Morgana exclaimed as Jou sat up in his seat.

"It turned out they were just rumors," Dr. Sonomura said, waving a hand dismissively. "Though maybe I shouldn't say 'just' rumors, considering that part of that incident involved certain rumors coming true."

"What."

Dr. Sonomura let out a self-conscious chuckle. "Talking about that is probably edging a bit too close to personal territory, though. I wasn't directly involved for most of it, admittedly, but I did end up getting involved."

"Were you a fighter?" Morgana said. They looked her over before adding, "or were you a navigator?"

"Navigator?" She tilted her head, looking genuinely puzzled by the term. Jou and Morgana shared a look.

"How many Personas are you able to use?"

She blinked again, pursed her lips for a moment. "Total or at once? Because I lost count of how many I can use in total. If I could get to the Velvet Room I could probably ask Igor."

"You've been to the Velvet Room?"

She blinked again. "Yes, of course. How else would I be able to switch between Personas?"

"You can swi... you have more than one?!"

"Of course, everyone has more than one," she said as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. "It's not like everyone has only one 'mask' they show to the world."

There was a long pause as the three of them stared at each other. It didn't take Sonomura too long to piece things together.

"...Have you two only been using one Persona at a time?"

"W-Well..." Morgana's ears flattened against their head in embarrassment.

"I thought I was the only one who could use more than one at once," Jou said. "Because I'm a Wildcard."

"Wildcard?" Sonomura shook her head. "All these new concepts... I must have fallen further out of practice than I thought."

"It might be a generational thing," Jou said, recalling Arche's terminology.

"Now you're making me feel old," she laughed.

"I think some things might have actually changed?" Jou said.

"Changed?" Sonomura studied him for a moment, looking to be considering her next words carefully. "What was it like for you when you gained your powers?"

The room fell silent. Jou could hear the electric hum of the lights, the soft tick-tick-tick of the clock. The very soft rumbles of concern emanating from Morgana.

After a few moments, Jou started typing. And kept typing. And kept typing. He talked about his experiences with Palaces and Jails and twisted desires. About facing down people's Shadows and convincing (or "convincing") them to change their ways.

About spending so much time leading his team that now that things have calmed down he's not sure what to do with himself. He's not sure how to turn off his "leader" mindset and just be a friend. He's not even sure if he can just be a friend to most of them.

Dr. Sonomura scrolled through the veritable essay he handed her, expression unreadable as she took it all in. Jou's stomach twisted up in knots. He'd always skirted around all of this in previous sessions, but after talking to Miaou recently...

Morgana could tell he was uncomfortable, so they curled up against him and purred reassuringly, just as they'd been taught to. Jou wrapped his arms around them and combed his hands through their soft fur. Good texture, good friend.

"Okay," Dr. Sonomura said, leaning back in her chair. "Okay. There's a lot to unpack there, and I doubt we're going to get to all of it today. So, I'm going to leave it up to you: would you be comfortable tackling some of the worries you just expressed, or would you rather keep talking about Personas for this session and save that for another time?"

He took a deep breath, grabbing his phone and looking over the wall of text he metaphorically vomited onto the screen.

"It's been on my mind a lot lately."

Dr. Sonomura nodded. "Let's talk about it, then."