OOC NOTES: TRIGGER WARNINGS; PLEASE BE ADVISED - GORE, CANNIBALISM, OTHERWISE DISTURBING IMAGERY BENEATH THE CUT. MORE GORE AND VIOLENCE LIKELY IN THE COMMENTS (will be updated as needed). Dream is written prose-style but action tags are more than welcome. This dream is OPEN to all, so please feel free to encounter Chie. n__n
Classes have ended for the day. On top of Yasogami High’s roof, stretched out in her usual spot, Chie is waiting.
The warmth of the sun on her face is a welcome change from the stuffy inside of the classroom, and Chie grins, eyes closed as she leans back and soaks up the rays of light. Maybe Souji will want to hang out today. Chie thinks she would like that. They don’t have anybody to rescue at the moment, no exams to study for in particular, but there’s always time to squeeze in a little more training, right? Chie doesn’t believe such as thing as too much training actually exists.
She takes a deep breath and slowly exhales. A short distance away, the door creaks open and slams closed again, and the sound of footsteps approaches. Chie opens her eyes again and smiles up at Souji standing in front of her.
“Oh! Hey, Souji-kun. What’re you up to?”
“Hey, Chie.” His expression is subtle, cool, but friendly nonetheless. “No plans yet for today.”
Chie hoped he’d say that. “Then ... you wanna train?” Souji silently nods his head, and Chie’s smile grows wider as she sits up and enthusiastically pumps her fists. “All right!”
Souji and Chie drop their bookbags on a nearby bench at the bank of the Samegawa River. It’s their usual training spot - quiet, mostly out of the way of what little movement passes as traffic in a sleepy rural town like Inaba. Chie jogs a few steps toward the water and begins her routine of stretching to warm up.
“What should we start with today, Leader?” Chie asks. “Sprints? Or do you wanna work more on kicks?”
“I think you should wear this,” Souji replies, arm outstretched toward her with a shimmering bit of fabric in his hand. Chie stands up out of her lunging pose and approaches Souji, squinting quizzically and the proffered item. It’s a full-head mask, metallic green with yellow and black accents, the expression resting somewhere between blank and unsettling.
“Wh- ?” Chie starts to ask what it is, but she remembers something, half-obscured: Don’t some wrestlers wear these masks? She looks to Souji for an explanation. He’s already slipped on another mask, this one black with red and silver markings. Chie’s breath catches in her throat; it looks downright menacing on her friend, obscuring his familiar features. He shrugs in response to her confusion.
“I thought it would be fun,” he says, voice muffled under the fabric. “Superheroes always wear masks, right?”
“I guess so,” Chie says, and slowly slips the cloth over her own head. It feels clammy, almost suffocating - wrong. She shivers, despite the warmth of the sunlight.
“Race you to the bank and back?” Souji glances back over his shoulder at her, and the red of his mask looks almost like liquid, like blood. Chie shivers again, but the sun’s gone now, slipped behind sinister clouds.
“Loser treats the winner at Aiya!” she shouts, but a loud clap of thunder stops both of them dead in their tracks. Rain begins to pelt down on them from above, cold and piercing. Chie shrieks and bolts to get under the nearest tree; Souji follows closely, albeit silently, at her heels.
“Oh, sheesh,” she says, tugging the stifling bit of fabric off her head, “where did that come from? I didn’t think it was supposed to rain today!”
Souji shrugs, peeling his own mask off and smoothing down his grey hair again. “It’s all right, Chie. We can always train another day.”
“Yeah, I guess so ... ” She shivers again - when did it get so cold? - and begins to jog in place to get her blood going again. “You wanna go get something to eat?” Souji nods in assent.
“We’ll have to make a dash for it,” he says, staring out into the rain in the distance. For only half a moment, there’s a flash of something red in his eyes. Chie shakes her head, as if shaking loose a bad thought. It’s just the weird low light, or the angle, or something. Get a grip, Satonaka.
“Got it. Race you there!” Chie starts into a sprint, grabbing her bookbag and holding it over her head as she runs up the hill, against the force of the jets of rain. She hopes Souji won’t notice she’s left that horrible mask behind, under the tree.
Chie’s soaked by the time she and Souji reach the Chinese diner.
“Sheesh!” she says, stamping her feet on the pavement, arms wrapped around her torso in an attempt to keep warm. Thankfully, the diner isn’t crowded. Chie and Souji make their way to the counter and take their usual seats.
“I’ll have the Rainy Day Special,” Souji says to the owner.
“Ha, even I can’t finish one of those,” Chie says. “Just a steak bowl for me, please.” Chie’s bowl arrives, and she readies her chopsticks to start digging in.
“Hey, Souji-kun -” she begins, but the words die in her throat as she glances over and sees the bowl placed in front of her friend. Instead of the customary piles of meat and rice, the dish holds Adachi’s severed head - bruised, bloody, exactly as she remembers seeing it the last time. Chie’s chopsticks fall out of her hand, clattering onto the floor.
Suddenly, Chie finds she isn’t very hungry any more. A heavy ball of cold dread settles into the bottom of her stomach instead.
“Wh-” She tries to squeak out a basic query (what is that, what are you doing), but the words remain, like an improperly-chewed morsel, stuck in her throat, suffocating. All she can do is stare at her friend, wide-eyed, mouth agape.
Souji, on the other hand, doesn’t appear the slightest bit unsettled about the dish before him. He meets Chie’s terrified shock with only a mild expression of confusion. “Chie? Is something wrong?”
Is something wrong?! How can he - ? She continues to stare at him, dumbfounded. He raises his eyebrows at little, prompting her to speak.
“What,” she finally says, trembling arm raised to point at the head, “is that?” Souji glances down at his bowl and shrugs.
“The Rainy Day Special,” he says, unruffled, and reaches into the left eye socket with his chopsticks to grab Adachi’s eyeball. The glistening orb comes loose with a small tug, nerves and veins trailing behind as Souji pops the eye into his mouth to chew. Chie can hear the tissues squishing against his molars. She wants to scream, but her voice is gone. Souji slurps the optic nerve like a noodle, and a small trail of blood dribbles out the corner of his mouth.
“You - you can’t, what are you - ?” Wrong, this is wrong, this is - “Why are you doing this?!” She wants to get away, as far away as far can be, but she’s frozen to the spot. Souji glances back to her and rubs the blood from his lips with the back of his hand.
“It’s not that strange, Chie. I read about this in a book - The Cannibal’s Way.” Souji turns his attention back to Adachi’s rotting skull and deftly plucks the other eyeball from the socket, holding it above the bowl as he speaks, as if considering it. “You know that guy who’s always hanging around in front of the book shop? He traded it to me for some of the junk we picked up in the TV World last week. Said he was a bit too squeamish to finish it.” He pops the eyeball into his mouth, quickly chews, and swallows. “I didn’t mind it. I actually thought it was interesting. Did you know it’s a long-standing tradition in some cultures to eat the dead? They believe it allows you to absorb the dead person’s qualities.” He pries Adachi’s jaw open with the chopsticks and tugs at the tongue; it doesn’t pull off as easily as the eyes, and he frowns.
“But - that’s - !” Adachi’s head, you’re eating Adachi’s head, what is wrong with you?! Chie’s close to tears. How could one of her best friends do something so horrible? “Souji-kun ... why?”
Souji shrugs, laying down his chopsticks. “I have to,” he says, reaching to the bookbag at his side and producing a blood-covered sword. “I have to finish what I started.” He stands, jabbing the pointed end of the sword straight downward, through Adachi’s skull, spraying himself and Chie alike with sticky red fluid. Chie gasps as the blood splatters over the front of her jacket, and she rushes to stand, knocking the stool over backwards in her haste.
Souji continues, unperturbed at the gore, or Chie’s reaction: “If I’m going to be like him, I want to do a good job at it.”
“No!” Chie’s hands curl into fists at her side, the shock and fear of Souji’s actions giving over to hot anger. “I won’t let you!” Souji laughs, menacing; Chie shivers. It sounds just like how she remembers Adachi.
“It’s interesting,” Souji says, “how often you say that, and still fail to follow through with it.” He turns toward her, dripping sword in hand. “What was that thing your Shadow said?” His eyes flash yellow, and his voice distorts, a perfect mockery of Chie’s, the voice her Shadow had taunted her with, the same words: “I can’t do anything on my own, much less as a girl!” He laughs again, sending a cold bolt of fear coursing down Chie’s spine.
Souji turns back to the mangled body parts on top of the counter, and he sets the sword down next to his chopsticks. “You should’ve listened to your Shadow, Chie. She knew you better than you even know yourself.”
He reaches his hands into the bowl and pulls back an exposed hunk of bloody brain, then brings the mass to his mouth with a sickening crunch. Chie stumbles a few steps backwards, then bolts for the door, rushing out into the wind and the rain with a racing sense of panic.