Persona - Mask of Origins

"That's the only place I have equipment. Let's go."

 

Nicholi bid farewell to Zain, Yuki and his family. He tiredly leafed through Toji's notes. "Shame we don't have a degree in neurology." Nicholi considered his sources to find a test subject.

 

"I don't have a degree in it yet, but it's my major."

 

Nicholi gave him a curious look, "We'll never actually get anywhere like this if we don't have a live test subject. I believe that would aid our research."

 

"I can grab one from the university."

 

Nicholi nodded and headed for the door, "I'll be right back with someone of my own."

 

Toji went to the university and got a test subject.

 

Nicholi dragged his own lacky from the graveyard, back to Toji's house. He handcuffed him to a chair.

 

Toji's test subject was restrained in another chair, but was heavily sedated.

"Even if this one wakes up, he won't remember a thing after the experiments."

 

"If we fail, they won't survive." Nicholi snapped his fingers in front of the shadow's face, "Speak!" The shadow snarled and spit at him, "Kanachi, doesn't need to tell Nicholi anything. Kanachi doesn't have anything of importance to Nicholi. Nicholi waved a hand at him, "See, all he does is speak of himself in the third person. Like Ari does. The ability to use 'you' or 'I' is limited due to their lack of sense of emotion and personal being." He didn't mention that his own case was much less explainable.

 

"Something we can remedy by taking finding out what synapses trigger emotions and activate them." Toji said as he hooked up a synapse analyzer to his test subject and began to trigger various emotions.

 

Nicholi gave a hard look to his subject and spoke to his mind. "It'll be painful, but you won't live through it.

 

Toji's subject sat still while Toji studied the machine, making notes whenever he found a key synapse.

 

Kanachi started to laugh until Nicholi slapped him, knocking him onto the floor. "Toji, call me when you find something, what I must do requires less human presence." He dragged Kanachi out of the room.

 

Toji just nodded and continued with his work.

 

Nicholi sat with Kanachi in the dark of a spare room and glared at each other. "Open your mind to me, Kanachi and this will go a lot faster." "And if Kanachi doesn't want to?" Nicholi's rust colored eyes flickered a series of colors and binary code scrolled down before he smiled and shoved a long claw into Kanachi's skull.

 

"I'm all done in here, how's your work going?"

 

Nicholi jerked away, his eyes returning to normal as he looked at Toji, "Hmm, there isn't much more I can do but wait and see what develops. Any results, Toji?"

 

"I've got everything figured out on my end. My subject is dead, but I restored emotions and his identity before he died. He just couldn't take the experiementation, but a shadow can."

 

Nicholi made a noncommittinal grunt and licked the blood off his finger. "Shame to hear that. Would you like me to find you another shadow? This one is...fried." He didn't look back at the shadow. Kanachi's eyes were dull and his head hung to his chest.