InsaneJournal

Tweak says, ""You have your mother's eyes.""

Sonozaki Renju [園崎蓮珠] (lotus_beyond) wrote in disappear_rpg,
@ 2009-08-02 00:05:00

Entry tags:

kozue, renju, tom

WHO: Renju, Tom, Kozue, and any others who choose to drop in.
WHAT: Research.
WHERE: Nanakamado library.
WHEN: Saturday after school.
WHY: Because Renju needs to stay sane somehow.

Work was Renju's usual coping mechanism when things went outside the ordinary. Denied it, she'd go crazy. She knew this from experience--leaving school last term was probably the worst thing she could have done. Lack of work led to boredom led to dwelling on things best not dwelled on.

But today she couldn't concentrate... or rather, she could only concentrate on all the wrong things. The other world--or whatever "Paradise" was--and the strange behavior of the others who apparently knew about it had crowded everything else from her head. And as if that weren't bad enough, even she couldn't help but notice all the gossip surrounding the abrupt end to the school trip. Too many fragments, and nothing she could get from them.

She retreated deeper into her pile of books, trying to shut it out. The book on Western mythology she was flipping through right now wasn't really much help in finding the... whatever it was that had emerged back at the museum, but damned if she wasn't going to try anyway.

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anthesphoria
2009-08-11 05:01 pm UTC (link)

Kozue appropriated a desk for herself as well, sitting down while Tom spoke. "Sempai, you still haven't explained why you interrogated someone. Or what that even means. Did you, like, torture him or something?" After all, Tom was half--

Kozue realized the slightly unfortunate, and really rude, implications of her question and thought train, just a few moments after speaking, and looked down again. Or - oh, wait, she could answer Renju's question. Well, why didn't they tell the police about it?

"That's a... that's a pretty good question, actually, but I think it'd probably go badly. What if they didn't believe us - or if it was only kids who went into Paradise who got a Persona, or... or Nanakamado Students. Maybe they put something in the drinking fountains and it's all some crazy science experiment like a bad movie." She shrugged; now the excuses she was coming up with were too far-fetched to make sense, even when compared with Paradise.

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ofmanydevices
2009-08-11 05:11 pm UTC (link)

Tom looked at Kozue sideways at her suggestions of torture. He said interrogation, not torture, there was a very distinct difference in those words, that at least Tom understood.

"We also have no proof that Paradise did kill Sato. And the police are likely not going to accept the explanation of Paradise unless we drag them to a door and push them in.

There's also the possibility that we would get accused, or taken out of school for study or something of that nature. Each of us has been contaminated by our contact with that world.

And even if they didn't take us in, they would shut down Nanakamado.

And as Kondo said, given the abstract nature of Paradise, it's possible that only certain people can actually perceive it. Like Persona users, assuming that people don't automatically get a persona when they enter Paradise.

As it stands it's far too easy for them to dismiss us, and if they did believe us, and if they did believe us, I have my doubts about the conclusion they would come to. Until we have answers, and more information, it would be best to keep this a secret."

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lotus_beyond
2009-08-13 12:44 am UTC (link)

Most of the offered scenarios weren't exactly wholly satisfying to Renju, but the idea of being taken for study made her stomach turn, and it seemed entirely too plausible. Revealing the existence of something like Paradise did carry some serious risks with it. "I suppose," she murmured, conceding the point. Still, if things got really, life-threateningly bad, she wasn't going to leave that option off the table.

She realized, disconcertingly, that Tom seemed to be avoiding Kozue's question about Kou, and decided to press the issue. "So what, exactly, happened with Oubai-san? I know Ito-san said that Paradise was involved in his disappearance somehow..."

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ofmanydevices
2009-08-13 03:15 am UTC (link)

Tom hadn't actually been avoiding the question, he just didn't explain because it was mostly a dead end.

"Before I knew about Paradise, his disappearence matched the stories of Sato's so I thought there was a connection.

I brought him down here and locked the door, then questioned him about him vanishing.

He lied and said he had run away."

Tom moved to sit down at one of the chairs finally.

"In truth he had been taken to Paradise, where the other Persona users saved him."

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anthesphoria
2009-08-13 04:59 am UTC (link)

Okay, so he hadn't tortured Kou or anything insane like that. That was kind of a relief. (It also worried Kozue that for a brief second she had been completely ready to believe that Tom would do that. And that, believing that, here she was still sitting in a room with him and only one other person.)

Still, he'd locked a kouhai in an empty classroom and questioned him? The casual admission, and the fact that both she and Renju had had to question him about it, left a sort of queasy feeling in Kozue's stomach.

"So that's kind of where we are. Everyone disagrees about whether Sato-sempai died because of Paradise, and how dangerous it is." She frowned, and looked down a little.

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lotus_beyond
2009-08-13 11:09 pm UTC (link)

Renju had to admit she'd half-expected worse, but the whole thing still left a bad taste in her mouth. She was beginning to see where some of the rumors about him might have come from, if this was the sort of thing he could do without a second thought.

She was silent for a long moment, chewing on her bottom lip and debating with herself whether to speak up about it. She'd seen how well that had worked with Shirai-kun, and while she doubted Sagaki-senpai was quite that dangerous...

"But why did you..." She cut herself off with a shake of her head before the sentence, or even the thought, was more than half-formed. "... never mind. So is that all that you know about it?"

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ofmanydevices
2009-08-14 04:29 am UTC (link)

"Actually I know quite a bit more."

Tom shrugged.

"Technically they're theories, but nothing can ever be completely proven. Honestly I don't know why the others didn't begin study immediately. You know start building a base of knowledge.

It seems like it's all based on unconscious mental manipulation. I've done some hefty research, plus looking to see if anyone reported something like this occurring elsewhere. Seeing how far out Paradise goes, and how long it's been around.

I've found 268 cases that have something in common with our experiences in paradise, I've gone through 86 of them so far, and nothing that really lines up yet."

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lotus_beyond
2009-08-15 02:03 am UTC (link)

Renju really wasn't quite sure how to respond to this. Sagaki-senpai had obviously done his homework on the subject (and she wasn't sure whether she was more relieved or scared that there were other similar cases), but he seemed to be taking this all scarily in stride. Even Ito-san still seemed somewhat disturbed by it, and he was one of the steadier people she knew.

Then again, she was more than familiar with work as a coping mechanism--and, really, wasn't that what she'd just been doing? Maybe that was all it was.

She finally settled on a fairly neutral response. "It seems like I have a lot to catch up on."

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