InsaneJournal

Who: Renju, Keiichi
What: A visit.
Where: Renju's dorm.
When: Several days after Tom's dungeon, shortly before the journal deletion notice.
Why: Because Keiichi is a concerned friend.

It had been several days since Sonozaki Renju's disappearance from, well, pretty much everything. Under most circumstances, Ito Keiichi wouldn't worry about this, but, well, he had a god in his head.

He knew what it might mean. Of course, there were lots of far less sinister reasons for her to disappear for a while. Embarrassment might have been among them.

Regardless of the reasons, Keiichi figured a visit was in order. After all, she had been a Cooking Club member in good standing before she quit.

And so it was that Ito Keiichi knocked on the dorm door of Sonozaki Renju, bearing a tray of delicious chocolate chip cookies. "Sonozaki-san? It's me, Keiichi. I've got a present for you~"

Although Renju's light was on, there was nothing but silence from inside the room.

"Sonozaki-san?" Maybe she was in the shower or something. People took showers, after all. Still, he knocked on the door. Knock knock knock.

Silence. Then a faint rustling noise from inside. Then silence.

There was someone in there. That was for certain. Maybe she was asleep? Well, time to remedy that.

"SONOZAKI-SAN!" he screamed, banging on the door even louder.

Further silence for a few seconds. Finally, the door jerked open, but only a crack. Renju was peering through it, the bit of her face that could normally be seen--including her eyes--mostly obscured by her long, ragged bangs. "What do you want." The voice was a low, flat monotone just on the verge of sounding irritated.

Cue sharp intake of breath. What little of her he could see looked like she hadn't left the room in days. "Well," he began, trying to regain his composure. "Everyone's been wondering about you. Since you've been gone so long, I thought you could use some cheering up." He held up the tray of cookies and grinned. "I made these for you."

Renju's mouth was one of the few bits that was visible, and it drew into a thin, pale line--a familiar look on Renju these days. "Your concern is neither needed nor wanted, Ito." With that, she shoved the door shut again.

Sighing audibly, Keiichi banged on the door again. "But they're yummy!"

It seemed that Renju didn't consider this to merit a response. There was another faint rustling noise behind the door, but that was all.

If she thought it was going to be over just like that, clearly, she underestimated Keiichi's ability to be a persistant person. "Just let me give you the cookies and I'll leave you alone," he asked, hopefully.

Finally, there was another noise besides rustling: the click of a lock.

Keiichi mouthed the words "sons of bitches." In Japanese, of course. This was a rather serious problem. And for most people, it would have been an extreme problem. Unfortunately for Renju, Keiichi was resourceful.

Where was Tom when he needed him? He was sure Tom'd have a lockpick or something. But since he didn't, Keiichi began a quick walk towards the RA's door.

Arriving at the RA's door, Keiichi knocked politely. He was met with a "whaddya want" from the RA, who seemed very eager to get rid of him due to a desire to get back to her boyfriend. As such, she was willing to break school rules, and tossed Keiichi the key to Renju's room without really asking what he wanted it for.

By the time Keiichi returned, the peephole in Renju's door was dark, and no light came from the crack under her door.

Would such things stop the intrepid Keiichi? Your answer begins with "Hell" and ends with "no." Of course he put the key in the lock, turned it, and threw the door open wide with one hand, all the while holding the cookie tray with the other. With the door open, he stepped across the threshhold, in search of the lightswitch.

The light switch, being right next to the door, was easy enough to find. With a click, the light revealed Renju's room--spotlessly clean and unnervingly spartan. Few things showed any sign that someone even lived there: a stack of cup ramen next to the microwave; a small, almost unnaturally neat study area with a few textbooks; a set of slightly rumpled sheets on the bed; two neatly packed boxes next to the trash and clearly destined for the same place.

And there was, of course, Renju herself, standing next to the chair that had clattered noisily to the floor when Keiichi intruded upon her sanctum. She was breathing slowly, with calmness that was clearly forced. "How did you get in?"

The key dangled on its chain as Keiichi regarded his classmate. There was still something absolutely odd about all of this -- most of all how goddamned clean the room was. Renju was a neat person, but this was beyond the pale.

"That doesn't matter," Ito said, with forced calmness of his own. He closed the door behind him carefully, walking over to his friend with tray of cookies outstretched. "I'm just glad to see you're okay. Cookie?"

Something deep inside Keiichi's gut had him on edge. Something...wasn't right about this place. It was giving him flashbacks to being in Ishinomori Toru's room.

"Again, your concern and your presence are unwanted, Ito." Carefully, Renju bent to pick up the chair and push it back into its place at the desk. Her movements were slow and controlled, her face behind the bangs a carefully composed mask of neutrality. "Most people can figure that out from a locked door."

"Most people can, yes," he agreed, remaining where he was, between Renju and the door. Taking one of the cookies, he raised it to his mouth, taking an aggressive chomp out of it.

"If you're sure you don't want a cookie, then," he began, chewing the crunchy cookie contentedly, "I'll leave you alone."

That feeling in the pit of his stomach was getting more and more clawing by the second. If there was any perceptible triumph on Renju's face, it vanished at his conclusion.

"If you explain to me why it looks like you're getting ready to move out of this room, that is."

"Move out?" The conclusion seemed to briefly surprise her, a change of expression that faded rapidly into the composed mask that seemed almost to be her default now. "If you must know, those are unnecessary personal effects." She gestured in the general direction of the boxes.

"And now that your curiosity has been satisfied," she finished coldly, "you can take your cookies and leave."

At her final pronouncement, his hand went to his pocket. And then, his other hand went to his other pocket, and came up practically empty. What he found will be explained later.

For now, what is important is what Keiichi Ito doesn't have: a cell phone.

He almost cursed out loud, but forced himself not to. Before approaching the Sonozaki girl, he took a half step back and locked the door. With that task done, he approached one of the boxes, and began to rummage through its contents. "Hmmm, Phantasm of the Orchestra," he mused, taking the DVD out and setting it on the floor, as he continued to rummage, rummage, rummage. "Never knew you liked musicals, Sonozaki-san."

"No. They're just taking up space." Keiichi didn't need to approach Renju--she did it for him, advancing a few steps, which in the small dorm room would soon be too close for comfort. Tiny though she was, calm though she seemed, she seemed to radiate tension that was ready to boil over at any moment.

"You were asked to leave." Her patience seemed to be wearing to its breaking point.

"The question," he hissed, somewhere between bravado and terror, "is who's asking me to leave."

His eyes were wide now, hand in his pocket and clasping around the only thing he had in the world right now.

That object so happened to be a fork, which he brandished with a flourish, pointing the tines at Renju and jabbing threateningly. "Don't come any closer..." he growled, staring her in the eyes, but holding his ground. "You're..."

The look Renju gave the fork was somewhere between skeptical and contemptuous. Her kama were also in the box--both sets--but she didn't need them. Her ragged, unkempt hair stirred a little as she took another step, just enough to reveal a hint of gold beneath. "This is your last warning, Ito."

Really, he'd been afraid of this. Of all the times to be without his phone...

The bottom line was that he was alone in a locked room with Sonozaki's shadow. The positive was that meant she wouldn't escape. The negative, naturally, was that this decreased his own chances of getting out of the room in the future.

Should he have left and told the team? Probably. But Hell! Here, he could nip it in the bud. Learn something new about the process.

"This is your last warning," he replied. He quickly darted for one of the pairs of kama, holding onto them awkwardly. He really had no idea how to use the weapons, but he gripped them carefully, holding them such that the longer end was along his forearms. He knew how to throw forearms from wrestling practice, so...

This is absolutely insane, you idiot! his mind screamed at him. She's a Shadow, and you have no idea what the Hell they can do outside of Paradise!

But Keiichi Ito was nothing if not brave. Foolhardy too, but brave was the main bit.

"You have two choices," he said, crouching down in a fighting stance...as if he was expecting to go one on one with the sort of being that it took four of them minimum to deal with, usually. "You take me to where Sonozaki Renju is now, and no one gets hurt, or I will make you wish you were in Paradise..."

Empty threats were Keiichi's speciality, but glancing into the nearly soulless eyes of his adversary was giving him the distinct impression that Renju's shadow wasn't going to be one to overreact to his bluster.

The Shadow cocked its head slightly, its hair falling off to the side a bit, and a faint trace of what could've been a smirk briefly tugged at the corners of its lips, as though it were amused by some private joke. "You don't seem to understand, Ito. But you will. If you really want to go there, you'll see."

"Looks like you're intent on the second alternative then..."

He lunged forward, deceptively quickly. Without a large shield or sword slowing him down, Keiichi was far more sudden than usual. Ito swung at the Shadow with his left arm, the kama's wooden length bracing his forearm to deliver what he hoped would be a powerful blow to the head of the...creature?

That was really the disturbing part. Even though he knew she was a Shadow, it still looked a Hell of a lot like he was trying to take his friend and ex-Cooking Club comrade's head off.

Even outside of Paradise and unaided by Prometheus, Renju was quick, and her Shadow, while no faster than Renju herself was, was still certainly no slower. It seemed to show no surprise at the sudden attack, ducking under Keiichi's arm--helped by its height, which Renju had so often found to be a hindrance. It danced around him, closer to the locked door, keeping its eyes locked on his.

Swearing under his breath, Keiichi righted himself from the lunge, catching the shadow headed towards the doors. If it got out of the room, Lord knew what would happen, and Keiichi really didn't want to find out.

This time, he threw the kama at her, sidearmed, the wooden weapon spiralling awkwardly towards the Shadow. Keiichi figured that, agile though she was, such an attack would be harder to evade. One eye remained locked on her, the other on the door, his usual bluster and vocalness gone.

Here, there were no Dias or Recarms.

The weapon caught the Shadow's sleeve as it lunged for the doorknob, tearing it and nicking its arm, before slicing shallowly into the door and clattering to the floor. The Shadow seemed to pay no heed to the injury, focused on the door as it was. The lock clicked open, the Shadow still keeping a wary eye on its opponent.

Recovering his kama, and quickly wheeling back away from the Shadow, Ito grimaced. It hadn't made any outward attempt at attack, yet, so what the Hell was it trying to do? "Come on," he whispered, voice low and serious, beckoning the creature forward. "You're just waiting for your spot, aren't you?"

"You're the only one here to whom time matters, Ito," the Shadow remarked matter-of-factly. "Waiting is not a problem."

"And I suppose sitting here and calling you names isn't going to settle this, either. You do seem rather patient."

Carefully he stalked the shadow. Its current position was such that if he got lucky, a charge could corner it, and then...

With one final yell, he dashed towards the shadow, one kama at head height, the other aimed at her chest, as if he was trying to bull-rush her and use his size to pin her back into the corner.

But although Keiichi was defending high, which was sensible against Shadows in Paradise, Shadows outside of Paradise were smart enough to take advantage of certain... vulnerabilities. Which was what, with one swift kick, Renju's Shadow did in response to the charge.

Ito didn't so much fall to the ground as crumple. His hands remained locked on the kama, however, in spite of the pain even as he curled up into something resembling a fetal position. The strike had knocked the wind out of him as well, and he sort-of-pathetically grimaced up at the Shadow, trying to back away, scooting along the ground.

The Shadow seemed uninclined, despite this, to be merciful. It dropped down to its knees, prying Ito's fingers off one of the kama, and, grabbing his hair to keep his head still, brought the handle down hard on the back of his head.

Considering that he was in no position to resist this due to the sharp pain shooting throughout his body, Keiichi felt the weapon leave his fingertips.

Moments later, he couldn't feel much of anything.

A counter-clockwise twist of the doorknob and a surprising amount of effort later, Renju had returned to her desk. Of Keiichi there was no sign, save for the tray of cookies that now topped one of the boxes.