Clearing the last stretch of hallway, Link arrived at the door to the medical wing. Taking a steadying breath for whatever might be waiting for him, the Hylian gave the lock a good bashing with his light before pushing it open.
But that was neither here nor there. Nothing to do with this outcome but everything, for he and Nigredo... And Rubedo... None of them would have existed but for those abominable experiments, and it was so ironic, really. That it could be said he was still serving his purpose. Even now.
He breathed out a sigh, a corruption of a laugh, and just continued on.
Byrne continued on as well, remaining blissfully ignorant of the two children that were currently stalking him like vultures. His focus was reserved instead for the gnawing pain in his abdomen and the sounds of footsteps all around him. Calm footsteps, thankfully.
Once again, there were many patients out in the hallway but no monsters that could be seen or heard, so the prosecutor reassured himself that he was in no immediate danger. As long as the living alarms around him were safe, he was safe, too. (But for how long? Who knew what the hell was going on in the X-Ray room itself? Wasn't hard to imagine a huge struggle going on in there, whether it be between the patients themselves or an unwelcome Institute-bred 'guest'...)
No time to worry. He'd deal with any danger when he got to it. For now, keep going; the medical wing door was practically within sight now. At least, Byrne was mostly sure that was the med wing door. He remembered it being on that side of this particular hallway when he'd looked at his maps, and, not to mention, everyone else around him was going towards it. So it had to be it. Right?
(Yes, this would be his first time going into the medical wing ever, and he had little idea of what to expect. Just follow the traffic - that was his plan for now. They probably knew where they were headed...hopefully.)
There was plenty about Albedo's world she didn't know about, and what she did know didn't necessarily provide a great deal of illumination. There was only so much someone like her could understand about a world so different from her own; things like child soldiers and retro viruses were things she knew of, but the intimate details eluded her.
She didn't bother to ask. There were unspoken rules for this sort of thing, weren't there? Don't ask, don't tell.
"I'll follow your lead," Yomi said instead. She'd been the leader in name as well as in nature for a long time, but since this wasn't her game, she wouldn't play it for him. "Unless you want me to sit back on this one."
[ and get this going since I had to hiatus for so long. >_< ]
Follow his lead. Now there was something he hadn't heard before.
This was as good as anything. A dark hall, a good amount of meters away from the dreary sheep near the sun room door. "You can act how you want," he replied good-naturedly to Yomi, before speeding up a step and raising a hand to grab the attention as he called out to the man before them. "Um. Hello? Do you have a moment?"
A polite, unsure child. A perfect ruse if not for the weaponry strapped at his back.
A polite, unsure child that Byrne was definitely not going to ignore.
...Even if he did have an arsenal of weapons on his person. But it was too dark for the prosecutor to notice that right away. He just heard a voice calling out to him, which stopped him even though he wasn't completely sure that it was calling out to him specifically. Then he looked, and sure enough, a boy he'd only seen in passing during the day was approaching him, looking like he might be bothered by something. Someone else was not far behind him - an older girl, teenager looked like - but the boy seemed to be the one in need, so Byrne's attention was on him for now. (He wished he could say he was surprised to see someone so young in this place, but Landel was making it hard to be surprised by anything anymore...)
"Yes?" Byrne's hand pulled away from his stomach almost immediately as he turned around to face the boy. If the kid needed something, it wouldn't be right to look very obviously like a sick patient - or at the very least, someone who probably needed more help than him.
Wow, did that sentiment barely last a few seconds before he finally noticed something very obviously wrong with the boy. Specifically, the fact that he had knives at his sides and on his back--wh--were those SHOTGUNS? Where did he--?! The older man's face had perhaps never been paler in his whole life. What--how--why?!
...Okay. Okay. That threw him off a bit. Let's pretend we're not bothered by this. Yes. "Is, uh..." Trailing off, still staring. Okay, so maybe it threw him off a lot. Understandably so! Who--what kind of kid walked around with all those weapons strapped to them!? That's dangerous! That's--no, no, try again. Calmly. Or at least try to be. "Is something wrong?"
Dangerous words, those. Allowing her to act whoever she wanted was just asking for trouble.
Yomi smiled, nonetheless. When all things were said and done, the boy had less to fear from her than most.
(The rest of the world, but not him.)
She waited to see what he was going to do to lure in the shambling figure. When he flagged the man down, as innocent and right-minded as any normal child, she took a few steps forward, keeping her grip on her katana loose, hand choked up too high on the handle to be proper.
"Hey, don't just run up to people," Yomi said to the boy. Albedo of all people would have been able to pick up on the change in the way she spoke. Gone was the drawling confidence and caustic amusement; she layered her tone like an onion, projecting uncertainty, exasperation, and wariness in varying degrees. The very picture of a young woman with worries and feelings, as if the old Yomi or Yoshiko were standing in her place, not the inhuman thing she truly was. "He might be--"
A pause, an intake of breath.
"Well, I... guess you don't look like one of the brainwashed people, mister."
...Oh, Yomi was effortlessly perfect. He remembered, somewhere inside of him, how much he had loved her that night in the hardware store in Doyleton. How she had looked, covered in blood and beautiful. This was nothing like that, but it was a similar sort all the same. How the inhuman interact with monsters and men. It was a show and a sensation, all the same.
Albedo bit his lip slightly, and looked back at Yomi--only she, close as they were, would be able to see the amusement in his eyes. Otherwise, he was the perfect child trying to be brave--trying to understand and make sense of the mess they were in, by any means necessary.
At least the latter half of that sentence was truthful. Perhaps the man should have paid more attention to the weapons and less to their visage. Monsters worn the skin of men for ages past, after all. Still. It only proved helpful. It wasn't as if Albedo was depending on a long conversation.
Yomi provided a starter, and Albedo accepted her ruse. He glanced back to the man, trained eyes running over his form and figure. "There're... some patients... Some who are sick. They start attacking people." Albedo's eyes widened to show how extreme that was. What an irony. "Are you sick, too, mister... um?" The boy continued, a hesitant prompt for a name.
Hopefully, in response to that, Albedo would have the two items needed. And this ruse would end as quickly as it started.
"Byrne," the prosecutor answered at the boy's prompt, concerned and confused eyes darting back and forth between him and the older girl with him. For kids that were armed better than anyone Byrne had ever seen in this place (the girl even had a sword that he just now noticed - and never mind those shotguns), they sure seemed to be frightened regardless of their current state. Not that Byrne could really blame them. Just the idea of normal people becoming bloodthirsty, otherworldly monsters was downright unsettling even to an adult, never mind a child. It was worse not knowing who exactly was going to change. They had every right to be wary.
But even so, he certainly didn't want them to get the wrong idea about him. "I'm...well. I'm not one of the people Landel said would change tonight." I hope, he kept to himself. He smiled, attempting to look as reassuring as he was hopefully sounding, but the weariness on his face and the rash on his arm were as clear as day. Saying he was ill would only be stating the obvious. Yet, he was avoiding verbally confirming what the kids were fearing. Better to not upset them more than they already seemed to be.
"Anyway, are you going to look for the second clue, too?" It took a bit of willpower to ask that question and not 'where the hell did you find two shotguns?', but it was better to see what they were doing and if they needed any help first.
All they needed now was a games show buzzer and an announcer to say, "We have a winner!"
Yomi tilted her head. Strangely enough, the man probably would have been safer had he been one of the five scheduled to transform. One didn't need to be a rotting carcass of a monster to start attacking people in the halls; Landel had seen to that with his offer to Albedo.
And despite the reddened skin on his arm, and the obvious tell of illness, the man claimed to not be one who would yet change. Well. That made everything quite simple.
Of course, Albedo could go after patients who were already shifted, but the fine doctor had said infected patients, and it was simpler to bring down a human man than it was for an unknown beast. "I'm afraid not," the boy said, with a complete change in tone. The unsurity was lost, given way for an eloquent type of speech, mocking around the edges, that sat strange on a twelve-year-old. A hand went up to the grip of one shotgun, the other hand untying what was keeping it in place.
Nigredo had given him that nice little pistol, something more familiar to be sure, but Albedo knew his weaponry like any good soldier. At this range, a shotgun blast, a scatter spray of pellets pummeling the form, would be easily fatal with no regeneration. And the simple solution, in this case, was the one the entity chose.
The gun was pointed at the man almost languidly, a familiarity with the weapon easy to see in his stance, despite the size. "I have other things in mind, though-- Take heart," he said, smiling brightly, an inhuman display of teeth. "You'll be cured of your illness after all."
This was partly her fault, wasn't it? All of it. The complete and total lack of empathy, the detachment, the hush right before a life was snuffed out. She had had a hand in this, even if her role had merely been to say nothing when she should have spoken up.
However, should have was different than could. In a way, it made sense that she would balance out doing something good with doing something terrible. The sesshouseki had to keep the scales balanced.
And she couldn't... she couldn't do anything to stop it.
The shotgun fired, rattling her eardrums, but Yomi didn't so much as blink as the man's body jerked under the impact.
At first, there was confusion. (Yes, more than Byrne was already feeling.) The boy's expression and tone changed from insecure to oddly unsettling in an instant. And then, a moment later, there was a shotgun being pointed directly at him by a boy who clearly knew how to use it properly. A boy who was once scared but was now smiling, his levels of unsettling rising to alarming levels.
Byrne should have questioned that arsenal out loud before anything else. He should have been more suspicious. He shouldn't have believed that no patient would ever single him out for slaughter like this, especially not a child. But he'd made a serious mistake - one he would never be making again, as the deafening sound of the shotgun confirmed.
The situation turned on him too quickly to allow for any sort of proper reaction. No time for any meaningful last thoughts beyond Is he really about to--. Just an explosion, and then darkness. Any pain the prosecutor might have felt from the blast didn't last long, either. The powerful spray of pellets that tore through his body - blood - his final startled gasp of breath -
He barely recognized any of it, if at all.
And then, the force of the shot having knocked Byrne off his feet, he fell backwards to the floor, eyes remaining wide open with shock and fear. And just like that...that was it.
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no subject
But that was neither here nor there. Nothing to do with this outcome but everything, for he and Nigredo... And Rubedo... None of them would have existed but for those abominable experiments, and it was so ironic, really. That it could be said he was still serving his purpose. Even now.
He breathed out a sigh, a corruption of a laugh, and just continued on.
no subject
Once again, there were many patients out in the hallway but no monsters that could be seen or heard, so the prosecutor reassured himself that he was in no immediate danger. As long as the living alarms around him were safe, he was safe, too. (But for how long? Who knew what the hell was going on in the X-Ray room itself? Wasn't hard to imagine a huge struggle going on in there, whether it be between the patients themselves or an unwelcome Institute-bred 'guest'...)
No time to worry. He'd deal with any danger when he got to it. For now, keep going; the medical wing door was practically within sight now. At least, Byrne was mostly sure that was the med wing door. He remembered it being on that side of this particular hallway when he'd looked at his maps, and, not to mention, everyone else around him was going towards it. So it had to be it. Right?
(Yes, this would be his first time going into the medical wing ever, and he had little idea of what to expect. Just follow the traffic - that was his plan for now. They probably knew where they were headed...hopefully.)
no subject
She didn't bother to ask. There were unspoken rules for this sort of thing, weren't there? Don't ask, don't tell.
"I'll follow your lead," Yomi said instead. She'd been the leader in name as well as in nature for a long time, but since this wasn't her game, she wouldn't play it for him. "Unless you want me to sit back on this one."
just gonna time slip
Follow his lead. Now there was something he hadn't heard before.
This was as good as anything. A dark hall, a good amount of meters away from the dreary sheep near the sun room door. "You can act how you want," he replied good-naturedly to Yomi, before speeding up a step and raising a hand to grab the attention as he called out to the man before them. "Um. Hello? Do you have a moment?"
A polite, unsure child. A perfect ruse if not for the weaponry strapped at his back.
no subject
...Even if he did have an arsenal of weapons on his person. But it was too dark for the prosecutor to notice that right away. He just heard a voice calling out to him, which stopped him even though he wasn't completely sure that it was calling out to him specifically. Then he looked, and sure enough, a boy he'd only seen in passing during the day was approaching him, looking like he might be bothered by something. Someone else was not far behind him - an older girl, teenager looked like - but the boy seemed to be the one in need, so Byrne's attention was on him for now. (He wished he could say he was surprised to see someone so young in this place, but Landel was making it hard to be surprised by anything anymore...)
"Yes?" Byrne's hand pulled away from his stomach almost immediately as he turned around to face the boy. If the kid needed something, it wouldn't be right to look very obviously like a sick patient - or at the very least, someone who probably needed more help than him.
Wow, did that sentiment barely last a few seconds before he finally noticed something very obviously wrong with the boy. Specifically, the fact that he had knives at his sides and on his back--wh--were those SHOTGUNS? Where did he--?! The older man's face had perhaps never been paler in his whole life. What--how--why?!
...Okay. Okay. That threw him off a bit. Let's pretend we're not bothered by this. Yes. "Is, uh..." Trailing off, still staring. Okay, so maybe it threw him off a lot. Understandably so! Who--what kind of kid walked around with all those weapons strapped to them!? That's dangerous! That's--no, no, try again. Calmly. Or at least try to be. "Is something wrong?"
no subject
Yomi smiled, nonetheless. When all things were said and done, the boy had less to fear from her than most.
(The rest of the world, but not him.)
She waited to see what he was going to do to lure in the shambling figure. When he flagged the man down, as innocent and right-minded as any normal child, she took a few steps forward, keeping her grip on her katana loose, hand choked up too high on the handle to be proper.
"Hey, don't just run up to people," Yomi said to the boy. Albedo of all people would have been able to pick up on the change in the way she spoke. Gone was the drawling confidence and caustic amusement; she layered her tone like an onion, projecting uncertainty, exasperation, and wariness in varying degrees. The very picture of a young woman with worries and feelings, as if the old Yomi or Yoshiko were standing in her place, not the inhuman thing she truly was. "He might be--"
A pause, an intake of breath.
"Well, I... guess you don't look like one of the brainwashed people, mister."
no subject
Albedo bit his lip slightly, and looked back at Yomi--only she, close as they were, would be able to see the amusement in his eyes. Otherwise, he was the perfect child trying to be brave--trying to understand and make sense of the mess they were in, by any means necessary.
At least the latter half of that sentence was truthful. Perhaps the man should have paid more attention to the weapons and less to their visage. Monsters worn the skin of men for ages past, after all. Still. It only proved helpful. It wasn't as if Albedo was depending on a long conversation.
Yomi provided a starter, and Albedo accepted her ruse. He glanced back to the man, trained eyes running over his form and figure. "There're... some patients... Some who are sick. They start attacking people." Albedo's eyes widened to show how extreme that was. What an irony. "Are you sick, too, mister... um?" The boy continued, a hesitant prompt for a name.
Hopefully, in response to that, Albedo would have the two items needed. And this ruse would end as quickly as it started.
no subject
But even so, he certainly didn't want them to get the wrong idea about him. "I'm...well. I'm not one of the people Landel said would change tonight." I hope, he kept to himself. He smiled, attempting to look as reassuring as he was hopefully sounding, but the weariness on his face and the rash on his arm were as clear as day. Saying he was ill would only be stating the obvious. Yet, he was avoiding verbally confirming what the kids were fearing. Better to not upset them more than they already seemed to be.
"Anyway, are you going to look for the second clue, too?" It took a bit of willpower to ask that question and not 'where the hell did you find two shotguns?', but it was better to see what they were doing and if they needed any help first.
no subject
Yomi tilted her head. Strangely enough, the man probably would have been safer had he been one of the five scheduled to transform. One didn't need to be a rotting carcass of a monster to start attacking people in the halls; Landel had seen to that with his offer to Albedo.
no subject
And despite the reddened skin on his arm, and the obvious tell of illness, the man claimed to not be one who would yet change. Well. That made everything quite simple.
Of course, Albedo could go after patients who were already shifted, but the fine doctor had said infected patients, and it was simpler to bring down a human man than it was for an unknown beast. "I'm afraid not," the boy said, with a complete change in tone. The unsurity was lost, given way for an eloquent type of speech, mocking around the edges, that sat strange on a twelve-year-old. A hand went up to the grip of one shotgun, the other hand untying what was keeping it in place.
Nigredo had given him that nice little pistol, something more familiar to be sure, but Albedo knew his weaponry like any good soldier. At this range, a shotgun blast, a scatter spray of pellets pummeling the form, would be easily fatal with no regeneration. And the simple solution, in this case, was the one the entity chose.
The gun was pointed at the man almost languidly, a familiarity with the weapon easy to see in his stance, despite the size. "I have other things in mind, though-- Take heart," he said, smiling brightly, an inhuman display of teeth. "You'll be cured of your illness after all."
The blast rang out, loud in the dark.
no subject
However, should have was different than could. In a way, it made sense that she would balance out doing something good with doing something terrible. The sesshouseki had to keep the scales balanced.
And she couldn't... she couldn't do anything to stop it.
The shotgun fired, rattling her eardrums, but Yomi didn't so much as blink as the man's body jerked under the impact.
no subject
Byrne should have questioned that arsenal out loud before anything else. He should have been more suspicious. He shouldn't have believed that no patient would ever single him out for slaughter like this, especially not a child. But he'd made a serious mistake - one he would never be making again, as the deafening sound of the shotgun confirmed.
The situation turned on him too quickly to allow for any sort of proper reaction. No time for any meaningful last thoughts beyond Is he really about to--. Just an explosion, and then darkness. Any pain the prosecutor might have felt from the blast didn't last long, either. The powerful spray of pellets that tore through his body - blood - his final startled gasp of breath -
He barely recognized any of it, if at all.
And then, the force of the shot having knocked Byrne off his feet, he fell backwards to the floor, eyes remaining wide open with shock and fear. And just like that...that was it.
That was the end.