By the time cherry blossoms bloomed again in Inaba, the population had put much of the fear of winter behind them, thanks to the messages of cheer from their local goddess. As well as the newfound feeling of safety from Inaba's newly guardian. Even if said guardian didn't really have much say in the whole mess, anyways.

Clicking the suitcase shut, Yu mused how differently this departure felt from the last few times. Before, each time he'd vaguely wondered if it was safe to leave Inaba behind, if there wasn't some danger that would appear again with his absence. Now…

His Uncle's grumblings traveled down the hall. As Yu paused to listen, he could make out the words 'shirt', 'shrunk' 'buttons' and several curses that teenager was pretty sure he wasn't supposed to hear. Ah. No doubt another dress shirt had given up the valiant fight of trying to fit his uncles larger frame. If only his uncle wasn't such a creature of habit, and not wait until he ended up with another ruined shirt before replacing his wardrobe.

As best as Marie had tried to explain it, Dojima's personas had a natural regenerative property to them, and since they were able to remain active and unbound in the 'real' world, his uncle's body would have to adapt to the massive energy they produced, like a callous on your hand. That meant as he burned off any excess, his body would continue to feed on and adapt to the energy overload. It's not like his uncle would just sit still, anyways. She'd assured them he'd level off in another few months at most, but in the meantime, his uncle was dealing with a shrinking wardrobe. At least the department was more than willing to pay for a new dress uniform for their new star detective.

A dress uniform commissioned special from Tatsumi Texiles, to show off the local town talents, of course. One that the Tatsumis had carefully modified for him, with a fair amount of extra material to let out, if need be. Kanji even had done some careful stitching and had given the traditional navy outfit extra panels and blended fabrics, to allow extra range of movement for the detective, should the need arise. They'd done the same for his grey suits as well. If the detective was going to continue to jump into danger, the least they could do was make sure his clothes could take the abuse.

After all, that's what had spelled the end of the first dress uniform. Funny, really, that someone thought that a police press conference on national television was a good place to start picking pockets. To be fair, the thief probably didn't think the detective leading the press conference would leap off the podium and have him pinned before anyone knew what was happening. Thankfully the length of Dojima's jacket was enough to hide the tear in the seat of his pants, but nothing had spared the lenses of a tv station's camera from the violent trajectory of one of the several buttons that had gone flying. One rookie was still living down the fact that he'd assumed the noise had been a gunshot, resulting in the young man drawing his service pistol in front of the entire audience.

After that display, coupled with the praise from his work on dealing with Adachi and Seitou, Dojima was heralded as Inaba's own local hero. No amount of glaring on the detective's part dampened the use of his new unwanted nickname, 'Super Cop,' at least when he was out of hearing range to protest. It was probably a large part of the reason the precinct started using him in most of their promotional material. Or tried to, at least. Several photos had the distinct 'paparazzi' look to them; no surprise as the detective could stand for a lot of things, but smiling for a camera, when he would much rather be doing his actual job, was not one of them.

Some of the notoriety helped, though. On the rare occasions that his uncle had crossed the line of 'normal' human limits, the ensuing eye witness accounts were quickly chalked up to embellishment… even by the witnesses themselves. Broken doors and bent metal blamed on old material; Marie called it 'reality blindness'. People saw what they wanted to see, and made excuses for everything else. Privately, she mentioned that this level of 'blindness' was reserved for the more powerful supernatural, like gods or guardian spirits, but perhaps it just meant that Inaba had really appointed Ryotaro Dojima as its personal guardian.

Yosuke had quipped a (mangled) line from an American movie as Marie had explained allthis, during her latest visit a few weeks later. "He's not the hero we want, but the hero we need…." (which had resulted in Chie promptly kicking him, saying that of course he would get the quote wrong, and anyways, it was only a matter of time before someone tried to turn the whole story into a kick ass action flick). Several groans later, the subject was dropped with gusto as they worked on their plans on what to do before Yu left for university, and Rise and Naoto went back to the city for their work. They made sure the last three months would be full of happy memories, more than enough to drown out the terror and fear they'd had to deal with, again.

Before all that, though, they had needed to explain everything to Nanako; Yu had been rather firm about that idea as soon as they confirmed, through the Kirijo scientists, Marie and Margaret, that everything had stabilized. Dojima had hesitated, silent during the drive home after the whirlwind of Seitou's defeat and capture, but hadn't really argued as Yu made an impassioned argument that Nanako deserved to know.

"Uncle, she's too smart not to notice something has been going on. She's been upset, thinking you and I are keeping secrets about your health from her. How long before she sees something and tells someone, not realizing what trouble it will cause?"

There was a soft grumble from the older man, but otherwise no indication Dojima was arguing, or even listening to him. They were almost home, and Yu worried that without the confines of the car, he'd not get Dojima to listen to his pleas on the matter.

"Are you still worried about the call you got, requesting you at the Metropolitan Police headquarters tomorrow?"

"Mm." A slight nod confirmed the teenager's suspicions. "I hope your friends in the Kirijo group know what they're doing. I'm going to have a lot of explaining to do tomorrow, particularly for not telling anyone else about the press conference. If this doesn't work, I'm out on my ass...or at the very least, on probation until I retire…."

"That might be a long way off, the way Marie and Margaret were talking. A lot longer than the precinct might be prepared for." It was just as well; no one could see his uncle taking retirement well. But the reminder of his 'other' status made the older man grimace, all the same.

The car lapsed back into silence as they pulled into the car park of the house. His younger cousin's footsteps could be heard, running to the side door, and felt his heart, heavy in his chest, still worried that his uncle would let this secret eat away at little their impromptu family. After all that had happened over the last two years, he'd learned how much secrets, no matter how good their intention, could turn ruinous.

"Dadddddddy!" The little eight year old was swept up by her father, held tight at his hip.

"I missed you, princess. Come on, we should get inside."

All three of them seated around the kotatsu, Dojima scratching the back of his head as he picked his words carefully. "Nanako… I know you've been worried, thinking that I was keeping a secret from you and not telling you what was going on…."

The little girl looked at her cousin, worriedly. "Yeah, I heard Big Bro talking with his friends about how they were worried about something happening to you, like you were sick. I asked about it, but Big Bro said you weren't sick…."

"Ah." Dojima patted his nephew's shoulder, breaking the accusatory stare the kid was getting from his daughter. "Well, he was right. I wasn't sick, but there was… something strange going on with your dad, I did tell him not to let you know about it, because we weren't sure what was going on ourselves."

Worried eyes became curious. "'Something strange,' Daddy? What happened?"

More scratching. If he wasn't careful, he was going to give himself a bald spot. "Nanako, do you remember what happened last November, when you went missing? That place you told me about, that Yu and his friends saved you from?" The pigtails bounced slowly with the nod of her hair. "Well, you were right, and when I was at the prison, visiting Adachi, I ended up there, too. I didn't get sick like you did, but something… something went wrong, and your dad came back… different."

"You were worried a lot, and seemed really angry back then. Was that why?"

"Yeah… yeah, your dad was worried someone find out what had happened." Talking in third person helped, it seemed. "You see, Nanako, when your dad came back, He-I could do things that weren't, well, normal. Ah, here, I'll show you."

Dojima picked up the thick metal bar from the center of the table. This was becoming such a regular occurrence, he wondered if Daidara would start giving him a discount on these iron scraps. This time, he bent the rod into corkscrew shape, keeping the curls tight and small.

The little girl's wide eyes didn't leave her father's hands, entranced. "Dad, you're so strong! You're… you're like a superhero!" She continued to watch, entranced, as coils began to glow, first a dull red, then a bright orange. The awe of the child dissolved into giggles when Yu dropped a small scrap of pork belly, left over from sukiyaki he'd been making for dinner, right on the top of heated coil.

The fatty meat sizzled and popped immediately. "See, Nanako, now we can do yakitori whenever your dad's home." Yu ignored the glare he was getting from his makeshift grill.

Dojima dropped the coil, meat and all, into a waiting potholder. "If that's the case, remember the oil next time." The meat ripped as he pulled it off, proving his point. "Silliness aside, Nanako… this is something very, very dangerous. For a while, I couldn't control it very well, and… well, I was worried I'd hurt you, or someone else by accident."

"Oh! That...that sounds scary."

Her father nodded. "Mmhm. I'm much better about it now, but… You know that show you like, Magical Detective Loveline? Do you know why Loveline keeps her identity a secret?"

Nanako nodded, the excitement of all of this a bit too much for the young girl. "Uh-huh! She does it to make sure that the bad guys don't figure out who she is, so she can keep her friends and family safe!" There was a dawning light in those big brown eyes. "Is that why you couldn't tell me? A-and… why I shouldn't tell anyone else about this? Because someone might try to hurt us if they knew about you?"

"That's right. A few other people know, such as a few of Yu's friends who helped us last year. But there are others out there who would want to do nasty things if they knew about… all of this. The last thing I want to have happen is you to get hurt because of me-"

Anything else Dojima was going to say was cut off as Nanako tackled him in a tight hug. Of course Nanako understood. Children growing up often see their parents as superheroes, and for Nanako, that just happened to be real…kinda.

"What else can you do, dad?"

Enough with letting the upstart show off, my turn. Ryūjin's rumble had him picking up a light bulb from the closet, and letting the persona send a small current through his fingers to make it illuminate the living room. Nanako oohed and clapped, and Dojima found himself at the losing end of a one upping contest between his two personas, egged on by the child's adoring face. He'd told them off after Hikohohodemi had him lifting the whole front end of the car several feet off the ground, balanced on two fingers, and shooting down the idea he lift it over his head.

"Alright, alright, we're going to have a long day tomorrow, and it's way past your bedtime, young lady." The same goes for you two. You're giving me a headache.

The next morning, Yu'd been surprised by the sight he'd come down the stairs to. His uncle was dressed in most of his dress uniform, save for the jacket, hat and gloves which hung off the back of one of the kitchen chairs, standing next to Nanako in the kitchen. In Dojima's hands was the old teapot, which had rarely been used in favor of the electric kettle. The small girl seemed to be arranging something in front of her. "Ready?"

Nanako bobbed her head. "Go for it, dad!"

With that, the kettle glowed a dull orange, and the whole kitchen seemed to be going through a mini heat wave. A few moments of this and the whistle of steam announced the water inside was boiled. Nanako clapped in approval, and directed her father to pour the contents into the waiting bowls of what her cousin suspected was miso and bento stock. With a final flourish, his young cousin declared breakfast prepared and ushered everyone to their seats.

His uncle winced as he sat down. "D-dang it, guess it's been too long since I wore this." Sighing at the questioning look from his nephew, Dojima stammered, his ears turning a brilliant red. "T-the suit's a bit tighter than I remember."

"Well, that makes sense. I mean, Marie did mention that because your personas are able to manifest in the physical world, they'd would have some physical effect on you as well…."

His uncle grunted, reached for the eggs, and winced again. "Ugh, don't remind me, Yu. The gossips at the precincts are merciless about those sort of things. A few days ago one of them asked if needed recommendations for gym, since the folding chairs kept complaining when I sat down…."

Yu almost dropped his miso, a violent twitch settling in his eye. "But...they saw...you...are they blind?!"

His uncle chuckled. "Nah, just very petty and insecure about themselves. They're useless busibodies who can't do anything useful, so they make quick work picking on any flaw they can. They were awful to Shirogane when she came onboard. She did get them to shut up quick when she proved right about the serial murders. Figure they'll find a new target sooner than later."

At that point, the detective's phone rang. "Hello? Right, thanks. Yeah, I know I'm skirting the line here, sir, but we won't hit them where it hurts if this leaked ahead of time. I appreciate it, sir. I'll be there in an hour."

"Alright, let's finish up, and I'll drop you both off at school."

According to Naoto, the precinct gossips had gotten worse after the button incident at the press conference, leaving his poor uncle coupons for 'big and tall' shops and diet snacks on his desk when he wasn't looking. Dojima had ignored the comments for the most part, but it had made it harder for his family to coax him to actually look into, ah, updating his wardrobe, even as Kanji confided to Yu that his mother had commented that they'd need to make the detective's new dress uniform a good 6 sizes larger than the old one.

Eventually, the vultures shut up, particularly after someone had gotten pictures of the detective shirtless that showed body fat was the last thing he needed to be worried about. (Yu had eventually gotten hold of the pictures, and recognised it from when several of the girls had made a disaster area of the kitchen, and his poor uncle had borne the brunt of a ultra spicy mysterious curry that had gone flying. How the gossips had gotten ahold of that picture was a mystery, if one was blind, deaf and dumb, and didn't know Naoto had her own interests in revenge against the police station harpies.)

Which is why, on Yu's last morning in Inaba (until his next break), his uncle was cursing under his breath.

"Uncle, did you miscount how many new shirts you had when we did laundry yesterday? You really should throw out those old ones, they just take up space and look like your new ones, after all…."

The grumbling outside continued. "They're still good...stupid personas playing around like they own the damned pl-hngh!" No doubt said personas were having their say in the matter. "Fine, we'll go to Junes on the way to the train station, and pick a spare."

"Several 'spares', uncle. This isn't the first time."

More grumbling, but then a chuckle. "What am I going to without you?"

Everyone was gathered at the station, sad but excited for the next time they'd see each other. His uncle grasped his shoulder, pulling the teen into an awkward side hug. "Tell your mother hello from me. Make sure to call regularly, too. Heck, you know there's always a home waiting for you here…."

"Thank you. You know, you have a phone, too, if you want to reciprocate…"

His uncle laughed. "This town is never the same without you. What will we do?"

Yu smiled, taking a moment to hug Nanako before answering his uncle's rhetorical question. "Somehow, I think you'll be just fine. Better than that, even."

It was true. For the first time, as his train pulled away from the Yasoinaba station, he had no worries that the town was in good hands.

After all, how many places had their own, genuine, goddess appointed protector?

And with that... I leave the further adventures of this Dojima for your imaginations. Or your fics. Or my inbox!

I live for comments, good, bad or funny. Tell me what you think! Tell me what you think happened! Tell me what you wish would have happened!

I'll take it all.

Thank you for reading.