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It's a peaceful day at Leblanc. Sojiro has a couple customers in his shop, both sipping coffee, one eating a curry. Mellow music is playing, the lighting is cozy, and the coffee is as good as ever.
He nods a greeting as Akira enters the shop on her way home from school.
"I suspect, mon cœur, that we need to discuss the difference between hurt and harm."
"Hurt is any form of pain or discomfort. Harm is something that costs you something you don't wish to pay. Millions of people around the world engage in sexualized pain play. Does it hurt? Yes. Does it perhaps leave an injury that must heal? Sometimes, yes. Is that a cost they mind paying? Not at all. Alternatively, consider sex and date rape. Sex is pleasurable, in the right context. In the moment, even, an intoxicated person may enjoy the sex they have while their judgment is compromised. But pleasurable experience could be considered harm, if their compromised judgment cost them something they weren't willing to pay.
"For an example closer to home, consider your clinical trial with Takemi this afternoon. You experienced significant discomfort, undertook a risk, even passed out. Did that experience harm you, however? Did it cost you anything you weren't willing to pay?"
Akira looks down at her hands in her lap.
"... You're sure that you'll be able to retrieve anyone you kill?"
"Positive," Joker says. "And they're all parts of yourself, anyway. You'll be okay."
"The fusion suite is built from your own nature. You are not the type to easily let someone go. Your heart holds tightly to those you cherish, demands to be reunited with them. Try a fusion between two of the other Personas first, if you don't believe me."
... Akira nods.
"Alright," she says. "We can try it. I don't promise to enjoy it, I'll be on edge the whole damn time, but it's worth trying."
Joker grins. "That's our girl. Alright. Take my hand?"
She offers her hand.
The twin obsidian altars and the surgical implements are still there. Joker lays out her dagger next to the blood draw needles, the hemostats, and the hammer and chisel on the metal surgical tray by the "bedside", and brushes her hand along the inscribed runes in the black stone.
She gestures to Akira. "Take a seat." Indeed, there's now a black vinyl couch along one wall, clearly intended for close-up observation.
"Well, first we need to summon the personas you wish to use in the fusion. Julie's here already, but we're going to need to summon another persona for fusion."
Joker snaps her fingers, and a dragonfly-winged woman in a blue leotard appears on the altar next to her.
"Like Pixie, here."
"Hello, darling." Joker takes Pixie's hand and kisses the back of it. "So kind of you to volunteer for this, really. I just have a consent form I'd like you to sign?"
She hands over the clipboard with the form and a pen.
Pixie looks at the clipboard and then squeaks in confusion. "Wait, what's all this? I'm volunteering for what now?"
"So sorry, dear, I forgot I hadn't explained. There's a ritual we've developed that should let us manifest more interesting and powerful selves by fusing together existing ones. So, you accept, somewhat painful transition process, we make a new persona with your help, then we bring you back afterward and you get to meet the person we made out of you!"
She waggles her eyebrows. "You do technically die a little in the middle there, but you get to come back afterward. And you'll get to help Akira meet new people and help people she loves, and even meet them yourself if you want to! How's that for a deal?"
Pixie hems and haws for a moment, before looking Joker in the eye and nodding firmly, a smirk on her face. "Fine, but I want front time, and I want you to take a turn on this altar too eventually, Joker."
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