Night 75: M-A Block Hallway

[lighthearted]

[From here.]

Link was always the quiet type, but that seemed to be even more so tonight. He looked focused, like all he could think about was finding Landel and ending this once and for all.

Sora could understand that. He remembered how he'd felt right before taking down Xehanort's Heartless and then Xehanort himself, and this wasn't that different.

Still, he wasn't one to let things stay quiet even on a night like tonight, and so he glanced over at Link as they moved.

"Did you have any friends come here? From home, I mean?"

Comments

[freewill]

[From here.]

There were two other patients in the hall, but close to the block's exit. Castiel so rarely saw others in the corridors these days, seeing how their numbers had dwindled so greatly.

What if Kratos and Lloyd had been culled in the most recent round of brainwashing? It could be that he was on his own, but that wouldn't stop Castiel. He might not have his powers, but he had a weapon and the strength of will to not stop until this was over.

He moved down the hallway at a quick pace, not wanting to waste any time.

[redcladidealist]

[From here.]

These weren't the same halls he was used to. The layout was the same, but it was the little things that were disorienting - different numbers on the doors, different scuffs on the floor, the fact that he'd emerged from the third door from the end of the hall instead of the fourth. This wasn't a part of the building he'd ever been in before. He could guess, had probably poked his head in this block the first or second night of his stay, but the fact was that he was slightly disoriented when he rounded the corner.

Even so, he barely paid attention to where he was going, lantern bobbing at his side. Shadows rose, fell, flickered in indistinct shapes that he ignored as unimportant, just products of the lantern, his pace, his imagination. All that mattered was getting to their rendezvous point, and fast!

A shadow moved, and he didn't dodge.

Instead his crashed, colliding into a very solid Castiel.

[freewill]

Castiel only had a split second of warning in the form of light casting shadows on the wall. That was the only indication that someone was coming before he half-turned in that direction and had someone crash right into him.

Startled, he stumbled away from the other patient, eyes darting up on the off chance that it wasn't something friendly. A monster here wouldn't have felt so person-shaped, but then Castiel got a good look at the culprit.

"Lloyd," he said, half acknowledgment and half greeting as he dusted himself off. "I didn't realize that your room was so near to mine." How had they not encountered each other on the way before now?

[redcladidealist]

"Oof!"

Lloyd stumbled, too, only barely catching his balance and managing not to impale Castiel with either one of his swords. Once he straightened and got a good look at who it was he'd just run into, though, his eyebrows flew up in surprise.

"Castiel?" He hadn't thought he'd see the other man until he reached the rendezvous point in the main hall. Caught off guard, he shook his head. "It's not. I mean, it wasn't. They moved me to a different room tonight." He shook his head again. "Look, that's not important." Urgency gripped him as he leaned forward, holding Kratos's sword up for Castiel to see. "I found this in my closet. Castiel, have you heard anything from Kratos tonight?"

[freewill]

It was common enough for rooms to be moved, though Castiel didn't see much point in it. If it made things simpler for them when it came to meeting up, though, then so be it.

As soon as Lloyd lifted the sword up and Castiel got a good look, he was able to recognize it. He'd traveled with Kratos and fought alongside him enough that he would know his sword.

If it had appeared in Lloyd's room, then that could only mean one thing. The same thing had happened with Dean's belongings after his disappearance.

"No," he said, shaking his head. "And I didn't see him during the course of the day, either." He didn't think he had to explain, but this was Lloyd's father. It wasn't going to be easy to hear. "You know what this means, don't you?"

[redcladidealist]

No. No, he didn't want what having Kratos's sword might mean. He didn't want to think about how he'd never seen Lee again after the other boy's clothes showed up the same way. He didn't want to think about Flora, or the other people who'd disappeared. He shook his head in denial. "No. No, we have to find him! What if they took him to torture him again?!"

They'd done it once. He knew they had. The proof was physically attached to his hand, his father's Exsphere replacing the one his mother had left for him. There wasn't any way Kratos would have taken that off willingly, if he even could. The doctors would have had to cut it off, like they had with Lloyd's. Lloyd's breath quickened at the memory of-

-a knife flashing, precise cuts slicing bit by bit away, a cruel, clinical voice-

He shudders. It's still better, though. Better than the idea that Kratos might be gone, memory wiped away.

"We need to look!"

[freewill]

"People's belongings aren't moved when they're taken for experiments, Lloyd," Castiel said firmly, turning to face him head-on and look him in the eye. He realized what this was, that Lloyd was in denial about what happened to his father. This was exactly what Landel wanted, though -- for them to waste time hunting down people who were already gone.

"Landel himself said he was trying to send us all to that fate," he reminded Lloyd. Kratos was a victim of that now, which meant that it was up to them to find a way to undo whatever had been done to his mind.

"Kratos wouldn't want us wasting time looking for him now. We need to keep moving." Castiel didn't take a very gentle approach with this, had never been taught those sort of social skills. In this case, though, it might work to his advantage, seeing how Kratos wasn't the gentle type either.

[redcladidealist]

"But he- But if-" Lloyd's mouth worked, but it was hard to argue when, deep down, he knew Castiel was right. Landel had said he was picking them off, trying to weaken them. Who better to target than Kratos if he wanted to disrupt their plans? One of the strongest of their group, Lloyd's father, Castiel's friend. It would work, it was working.

But dammit, even knowing this was exactly what Landel wanted, it was hard to just give in and leave Kratos to his face. Lloyd didn't want to abandon anyone, least of all someone who meant so much to him. Anger bubbled up inside, and he gritted his teeth at the injustice.

"I hate this. I hate this place and that man! We have to do something to stop him!" His hands clenched so tightly they started to shake. "If we're not going to look for Kratos, then I want to look for him! Castiel, if he's picking us off, we can't just sit around in the archive again. We need to do something!"

[freewill]

Castiel understood the anger that Lloyd was feeling easily enough. That was one emotion he'd had little trouble learning and identifying, both in himself and in others. He'd felt much the same way when Sam and Dean had disappeared, and then again when they'd come to see him as visitors.

"Ryuuzaki asked me to look up a few worlds," he said, procuring a piece of paper from his coat pocket where he'd taken the notes down this morning. He would remain the rational one in this situation. "It shouldn't take long, there are only two. After that, we can keep moving."

He was just as eager to find Landel and put a stop to all this once and for all, but he wasn't going to go against his word simply because Lloyd was at the end of his rope. He had seen enough of what Kratos had done with the computer that he was confident he could find what he needed in not too much time.

[redcladidealist]

If the door worked the same way it had before, the archive was where they should show up when they made it past the elevator, since that was where they'd been when the night had ended last night. They wouldn't be going out of their way to reach it, and two worlds shouldn't take long to look up. "That's fine," he said. Keeping promises was important to him, too. If anyone had responded to his note on the bulletin, he would have wanted to look for those worlds, too.

No one had, though. Were there really so few of them left that they'd already looked up most of their worlds?

With a sour taste in his mouth, Lloyd shook his head and started forward. They needed to focus. They needed to move. "Come on. Let's get going."

[To here.]