Author's Note: Apologies for the delay, and for the lack of things happening in the previous chapter. I do hope you have read it carefully, though, since it contains some important information that should be relevant later on. Anyway, there's no need to worry, because I promise you that things happen in this chapter. So many things. All of the things.

#10: It's better than dying alone, right?

Picture a door. It's a tall door, leading into a taller room full of baths, but it's still very ordinary, made of solid creamy brown wood and adorned with simple carvings. Placid, sedentary, like most architectural structures. Now picture it bursting open.

Kanji tumbled through first, overbalanced, and ended up sprawled out on the carpet. The next person through was Kajiko, with the Laughing Table hanging off her back like a knapsack. The girl had the door slammed behind her in seconds. She pressed her palms against it, bracing it shut against an unseen force from outside that was pushing to get in.

"Dammit…" groaned Kanji. "That Shadow had a kick like a mule…Why'd you have to open that freaking chest, anyway?"

"But we'd been getting so much luck with the other ones! How the hell was I supposed to know that last one was hiding a ten-foot hunk in a codpiece?" growled Kajiko, as sweat poured off her face. "How did it fit?" She could even feel the perspiration burning in her lungs as she heaved for breath. "Hey! Little help over here?"

Kanji tried to stand, but then his face went deathly white and he sank down to one knee, clutching his chest. "I think… I think I mighta busted a rib…"

Kajiko was slowly starting to relieve pressure on the door. She still held out her hands, but she took a few steps back. "It ain't tryin' to get through anymore," she finally decided. "They kinda do that, don't they? Guess we're okay for now. Wait…" She turned around, eyes widening with concern. At the same time, the Table clambered off her back and trailed her as she approached Kanji, feebly spinning its items. "You really think you broke a rib?"

It was strange to see the tough and brawny Kanji so stricken by injury. For a fleeting moment, the boy actually looked his age, like a scared fifteen year old. "Maybe more'n one, I don't know… I ain't so much of an expert as you'd think, Kaji-kun. Usually I bust theirs before they bust mine, you know what I'm sayin'?" He forced out a snort of laughter, which made him wince in pain.

For all that he was putting on a brave face, Kanji seemed almost vulnerable. "Well, you shouldn't go… busting anybody's ribs in," Kajiko said uneasily. "It ain't… it just ain't polite."

"When I want to be polite to people, I shake their goddamn hand," said Kanji, scowling fiercely. "When I bust ribs, I ain't aimin' for polite."

"And you shouldn't go tryin'a bash in the kneecaps of big hunks wearing codpieces, neither," Kajiko persisted. She knelt down and put a hand on her male self's shoulder. "'S foolhardy, that's all I'm saying."

Kanji rolled his eyes. "Yeah, big talk comin' from you. How many times have I had to bail your ass out by now? I've seen you out there, bashin' stuff up, and nearly getting bashed in yourself."

"Well next time I do, you can tell me off and we'll call it even," Kajiko said, draping one of Kanji's arms over her shoulder. "C'mon, dude… let's get you up. We shouldn't stay in one place for more'n a few minutes."

He was rather a heavy burden to support, she reflected, as she stood him up, but between her own strength and his stubborn pride, which kept him bearing most of his own weight, it wasn't an impossible task.

"'M okay…" he kept muttering. "'S fine."

"I'd heal you up, but we ran outta medicine things a while ago…" The girl surveyed the room. "Damn! There's only one exit… Should we risk it?"

"I dunno… I'm kinda hopin' to pay that guy back for this," Kanji growled. "Teach him to go puntin' me in the gut like I was a freakin' soccer ball." He ground his teeth and then angrily spat on the floor. "But we don't even have a clue how to hurt that that thing! None of what that Table was doin' did much good on him, neither!"

"We'll have to try sneaking past," said Kajiko. "They ain't all so bright. Sometimes you can get the slip on 'em."

Kanji cast his eyes down and sighed heavily. "Look, I figure if he's still out there you could sneak past that guy, but I can't do shit like this, and neither can you with me hangin' off your shoulder." His eyes tightened. "Just… get the hell out of here, okay? I'll catch up if I can."

"What!? You gotta be kidding me!" Kajiko exclaimed. "There's no way in hell I'm just leaving you here! Every time we hang around one room for too long, another damn Shadow comes crawling out of the wall! You'll be killed!" She started to drag a limping Kanji towards the door. "No, this is how it's gonna go down, listen. If I go out first, then it'll see me first and chase me. That'll give you time to get past it. I'll take the loop around the floor and meet you at the stairs, and then we'll run up them and reset the whole floor so the big hunk disappears when we come down again. Got that?" She was very proud of this clever display of lateral thinking.

But apparently Kanji wasn't. "You're crazy!" he yelled. "You take the long way around, who knows how many Shadows'll be waiting? Oh, that's right, we do, 'cause we already went that way! And there's a whole shit-ton of 'em!"

"So what?" Kajiko said. "I'll just run past 'em!"

"All that way? You're outta breath!" snarled Kanji. "You've got a stitch in your side! Just leave me here, dammit!"

"Then I ain't budging," said the girl flatly. "We're in this together. Anyway, neither of us got a snowball's chance in Hell out there on our own. Now just… sit down or something. And try not to move so much!" Carefully, she leaned the reluctant Kanji against the side of one of the baths. "I'll just… have a look around…"

"What's there to see?" Kanji mumbled. "Every damn room looks the same in… here… uh… what're you doing…?"

The Laughing Table had sidled up next to him and slowly skewed its legs forward, its emotionless face swaying with the cloth, which drew closer and closer to Kanji's shoulder. The boy nervously leaned away from the Table, which only tilted further in response, until it finally overbalanced on its one shaky front leg and toppled into Kanji's lap. "Whoa!" he yelped. "What the—?"

After a moment of disorientation, the Table folded its legs up comfortably and settled its floating items into a low, lazy orbit. Kanji's expression softened. "Hey… 's up with you, little guy—uh, I mean girl?" He jolted himself out of his trance. "I mean… what the heck's this dumb thing still doing here, huh? What did you even do to it back when you first met it?"

Kajiko crossed her arms and turned her head, hiding her face in the collar of her jacket. "I swear I didn't make her like this," she muttered. "All I did was trick her into knifin' the lock on the door that led me outta that place and into here."

"And what sort of place was it, anyway? I don't remember if you said anything before about that."

It looked like Kajiko hoped she hadn't. "It wasn't anything!" The girl slumped against the wall and zipped her jacket up to her neck. Her whole being seemed to contract with that simple change of attire. "It was just cold and scummy… and empty…"

"Well… did you talk to it or something?" Kanji persisted. His brow furrowed, and he poked the tablecloth that was now draped over his knee. "Dammit… there's a tear in the…"

"Okay, so maybe I talked to her a little!" the girl grumbled. "All I did was call her a three-legged dipshit and… and tell her not to laugh at me!"

"And it's such a nice pattern…" Kanji turned to the girl without thinking and blurted, "D'you have a needle I could borrow?"

Kajiko blinked. "Uh… what?"

Kanji didn't even bother trying to pass off his slip of the tongue for anything unrelated. If he really believed that the words had only been spoken in the privacy his own mind, maybe it would really have been that way. "I-I mean… what d'you mean, it… she was laughing at you? The thing's only got one face."

"Yeah but that's why it still felt like she was laughing… She coulda jumped me, but instead she just waited and messed around, like she knew I couldn't do nothin' about it. But not smug about it or anything, just lookin' at me with that face like it was serious business." Kajiko rolled her eyes. "So, laughing. Havin' a good time of it."

"That's a lot of complex stuff to think up about a monster trying to stab the everlovin' shit outta you," Kanji told the girl, sounding rather impressed. "What gives?"

"Dunno," said Kajiko sullenly. "Figure I just wanted it to be some kind of person I turned around to, even if it was trying to kill me. Least I'd have some company then. Better'n dying alone, right?"

It occurred to Kanji that his other self probably would have sympathized with this idea a lot more than Kanji thought he did. Maybe there was a reason why having Kajiko around was a good luck charm when it came to dealing with Shadow Kanji. For some reason, she didn't seem all that freaked out by the guy. She'd been irritated with him, sure, but who wouldn't be pissed if someone you knew – or kind of knew, anyway – was dicking around and causing trouble for you, right? She treated him like he was normal…

Well, whatever that Shadow guy really was – because he sure as hell wasn't a piece of Kanji – he wasn't anything to laugh at. He'd seemed pretty capable of killing them both out of sheer petulance, and the fact that he'd backed off was a miracle. "Damn… I really owe you one," he told Kajiko wonderingly.

"Y-you… you do? Wh-what for?" The girl gulped and went red, shying back with an expression resembling angry surprise. Do I really do that? Kanji thought. Huh. It's… kinda cute. But that's probably 'cause she's a girl. Men shouldn't get all flustered like that, right? He could trust himself not to blush for thinking this, for studying a girl's features so carefully, since it wasn't like there was any physical attraction prompting such thoughts. She was practically family, like a twin sister or something even closer than that.

Kanji shrugged. "I dunno… for sticking around, I guess."

Come to think of it, it was pretty damn nice, he decided, to be able to talk to a girl – hell, to anyone – without having to worry about being attracted them, or not being attracted to them, for all the implications that brought up, and furiously wondering which of the two applied.

The girl idly trailed a hand along the surface of the water in one of the baths, making ripples. "Man, that is cold… Ice cold. How'd it get like that?"

"Don't ask me," said Kanji, realizing all of a sudden that he was stroking the surface of the table like one would a cat. "You're the one with the cold world. Ain't it 'cause of that?"

Kajiko huffed. She didn't like being blamed for things. "I know that's what your Shadow said, but d'you really believe the guy? He said a lot of things about this place that I don't buy into." She stared at her reflection in the water and then poked a ripple through its forehead. "Like about people… watching us?"

Her tone became increasingly frustrated. "If they could see that we were trapped here, wouldn't they try to do something? Like maybe, I don't know, get us out?" She ended her sentence with an incoherent, strangled cry and kicked the side of the bath. "I've been all alone in here for days! Aren't the police out looking? Don't they care!?"

It was dawning on Kanji that something was very, very wrong. All of a sudden, his girl self had almost seemed unhinged. "Hey… c-calm down, Kaji-kun," he said, swallowing hard. "You know it ain't like that…"

"Not. Like. What?" said the girl, through gritted teeth, staring fixedly at the water.

Her fury surprised Kanji. "Not like… not like all that stuff you just said, about them not caring! What else would I be—? What the hell's gotten into you?"

"N-nothing!" she said guilily, tearing her eyes away from her reflection. She was shivering. "God, I hate this place! I just want to go home! Is that too much to ask?"

"No! O'course not!" Kanji levered himself up on the side of the bath behind him, ignoring the pain in his side. "Ngh… I mean… how long've you been awake in here? I don't remember it bein' so long for me. It only felt like six hours, maybe less."

"I don't know either, just that it was… like forever…" she said, and knelt down, staring sullenly into the water with her chin resting on the lip of the bath. "Someone's bound to come find us, right?"

Kanji bit his lip. "You scared, huh?"

The girl tensed, and then shrugged her shoulders. "Y-yeah. Kinda scared. That's all."

Liar.

"Wh-what?" said Kajiko, jerking upright. She glanced over at Kanji. "Did you just say somethin'?" Then the girl sighed and rubbed her eyes. "Damn, I'm jumpy. It's nothin'."

Liar! Liar, liar, liar…

"S-stop that!" the girl said, flushing red. "I said stop!"

"What are you—? Hey, Kajiko, are you… you sure you're all right?" demanded Kanji. "You really don't look too great right now! A-and who the heck are you talking to?"

Kajiko clenched her fists. "I'm fine, dammit!"

"'Fine'? Ha! Is that what you really believe? I don't think so! Kajiko Tatsumi is a big fat LIAR!"

"I'm not!" she shouted into her reflection. "Shut up and leave me alone!"

Her reflection rippled, and its eyes glowed yellow. "'Shut up and leave me alone', huh? Man, do people get a lot of that from you!" It sniggered. "Who you tryin'a fool? All you ever do is hide behind your pathetic little attempts to seem worthy of society's respect…"

"I don't know what you're talkin' about," the girl said automatically, but she seemed entranced by the image in the water. "You're not makin' any sense!"

"And the most hilarious part?" The reflection laughed, in her voice."You totally SUCK at it! Even Guy-Kajiko over there makes some kind of effort to fool people, but you? The only person you've ever fooled is yourself!"

Kanji was forcing himself to his feet, using the lip of the bath as a handrail as he dragged himself towards the girl. "Don't listen to it, Kajiko! Just leave it alone—argh!" His side gave out and he collapsed on the floor with a cry of pain.

"I wonder… why hasn't anybody come looking for you?" Kajiko's distorted voice said slyly. A hint of anger snuck its way in. "Maybe it's because nobody wants to rescue you, hm? Ever think about it THAT way!?"

The girl covered her ears. "I don't hafta listen to this shit! It ain't true!"

"Then don't listen!" insisted Kanji, struggling to get to his feet, but failing. "Stop lookin' over there; look at me, dammit!"

Kajiko shuddered and turned her head ever so slightly towards her male self. Her expression was of dazed fear mixed with fury. "It… isn't… true…" she said haltingly, and her eyes did not appear to be focusing quite right.

What a BEAST of a Shadow you must have, darling…

Well shit. It certainly looked like that was the case. When he got down to it, Kanji still didn't have a clue how this 'Shadow self' thing really worked, but he figured it was all designed to throw you off your game, to rattle your head around until you cracked. And with the look in his female double's eyes, that was clearly working. She'd been caught by surprise and now it had a hold on her mind…

And since this was the place where the things inside your head came alive…

The surface of the bath exploded, chains surged out of the water like raging serpents, and Kanji was on his feet and diving at the girl before the message could get from his ribs to his brain. In midair, the message finally hit, but determination and adrenaline were far stronger. He landed hard, pulling Kajiko down as the shackles whistled over their heads.

The girl's dazed expression had vanished. Survival instinct had kicked her reflexes into high gear. Lucky for her, Kanji supposed, as he rolled dazedly over onto his back, a red mist of agony filling his vision. He could hear Kajiko shout something…

"Kanji!" yelled the girl, seemingly from very far away. "Get outta the way—!"

The chains struck. More pain bloomed, sharper, more immediate, more directed. A disorienting sensation of movement, and then a sudden jolt against his back. Kanji groaned aloud. He felt something warm and wet trickle down his temple, which had to be blood.

"Kanji!" Kajiko screamed again. Her tone had changed; before it had been one of distress, and now it was shrill with sudden panic and terror. "Shit, no, g-get off—Kanji, help me!"

As Kanji creaked his eyes open, he saw many things happening at once. The room was… there was really no other word for it… the room was metamorphosing, unfurling like a grotesque butterfly and becoming darker, colder, grimier. The bath in the center remained through the changes, though, and its waters were raging.

But more alarmingly, Kanji saw that the chains had wrapped themselves around Kajiko, who was struggling in the center of the room, disheveled and furious. It didn't seem to matter how much she fought and raged and planted her feet in the ground and scrabbled at the floor. Slowly, inexorably, the chains dragged her towards the central bath, and the waters rose up to meet her. They covered her completely, muffling her last frantic cry of fury and terror, strangling the words in their cradle.

Kanji thought he heard a loud, wooden bang. He thought he heard a pattering of feet against the tiled floor, and he thought he heard himself hoarsely yell, "No! That's enough, dammit! Leave her alone!" but surely he couldn't have, since his mouth hadn't opened and besides, he was too out of breath to muster up any sort of noise other than a grunt. He saw something small and dark rush towards him. Huh? he thought stickily. Table-chan—?

The Table regarded the fallen boy with chilly calculation and then, quick as lightning, struck him hard over the head with the sledgehammer.

Kanji was too stunned to feel more than a whimper of betrayal as the last drop in his dwindling reservoir of hope dried up. Sparks burst across his vision, and he sorrowfully slipped into darkness.

Welp, that's it for today! Hope you enjoyed the massive agonizing cliffhanger I left with you there, so, well, tootaloo~!