damned_institute | Day 58: Cafeteria

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Day 58: Cafeteria

Anise woke up feeling lucky to be alive. She still felt a bit waterlogged, even though her skin, hair, and clothes were completely dry. During last night's adventures, she'd swallowed a lot of water, and it still felt heavy and disgusting in her stomach. Her arms and legs were tired from treading water. Lying still in her bed, she still kind of felt like she was floating and bobbing in the water.

But she was alive.

Knowing how close she came to death last night, and remembering the lengths her friends had gone to in order to save her, there was no way Anise could let a little discomfort get her down. She had to be at her best today so she wouldn't seem ungrateful to Guy and Claude. On that note, she had to remember to thank them properly, now that she was better able to express herself.

While getting ready, Anise was surprised to actually run into Claude that morning. He came to her room asking for the notebook he stored there (or maybe it was an excuse to see her cute face again), so Anise happily located it and handed it over. She was pretty tired, but the big smile she gave him was genuine. Who wouldn't be happy to see her savior so soon after a dramatic rescue?

After he left, Anise finished re-tying her pigtails into a low position so the military beret would fit on her head, and then she was ready! Even though her stomach wasn't feeling that great, she figured sitting down to a decent meal would help normalize it. And luckily for her, she was among the few who had the privilege of eating such a meal. Anise filled a plate with french toast topped with syrup and fruit, accompanied by small portions of each of the available side dishes.

It looked like she was early, which meant there weren't a lot of people around. That was okay, though. Anise could get a good head start on her meal before any company came around. She sat down at a table by herself and started on her sausage first.

[for Tolten!]

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"If they single me out, it gives us an in," Riku explained, deciding to stick with that first off. That was why he wanted to go there in the first place. It didn't have anything to do with exploring, which was a decidedly good thing. The fact that Sora also hit the wing last night took some wind out of his feathers, but not entirely. "That's why I went. If they think I'm obedient, then I can use that to my advantage." And if they just thought he was opportunistic, it provided him with the same chances. He couldn't let go of that.

"But come on, you know I can take care of myself." He delivered it with his typical cocky phrasing, and he even finished off purposefully by shoving another spoonful of slop into his mouth. This time, he didn't even wince. "Albedo was a wimp. He's all talk and nothing else. But he was smart. Not a bad partner to have for the night." That was the extent of the compliments he could pay him. Beyond that, Riku just flat-out didn't like the guy. He didn't even absorb that he was supposed to be dangerous—and in his opinion, he could definitely tell when someone was all talk.

A part of him recognized that he was laying this all on thick, but his confidence was still at hand, and it made it far easier to be cocky about this. He relaxed into place and eyed Sora. There were a lot of questions to ask about the changes, but he realized they shouldn't waste time on them. He could tell from the announcements and his surroundings what had happened. And it was probably a good thing that he wasn't bragging about knowing that was coming, even if the temptation was there.

So he left it alone for now and waited to see what else Sora had to say. Riku figured his friend would give up soon enough on worrying and tell him what he actually needed to know.

Sora could see the point that Riku was making, but that didn't mean he had to like it. It was just like his friend to take a risk like that if it might get him closer to their captors, but Sora didn't want him to shove himself out there all on his own. They were supposed to do this together, after all, and yet Riku always wanted to run ahead and take care of things on his own. He'd avoided him for way longer than he should have during their fight against the Organization, for instance.

"I know you can, but that doesn't mean that you can't ask for help sometimes," he chided his friend, his expression pinched with a frown. He forced himself to take a bite of his food despite the fact that the excitement of seeing his friend again and the concern he had for Riku's well-being had kind of killed his appetite.

Either way, Riku didn't seem too worried about Albedo, and at this point, neither was Sora. He wasn't planning to buddy up with the other boy because he trusted Nigredo and Junior more in the end, but he also wasn't going to actively worry about any of that. Riku clearly hadn't had any problem with him, after all.

"But man, you've missed a lot!" Even though Riku hadn't technically been gone all that long, it certainly felt like it with all that had happened. "I guess you've figured out that Landel's been kicked out. Actually, he found the radio guy and is bothering him now, so we're not completely rid of him." It was a shame, it really was. "Oh, and we went to Doyleton! It was snowing and everything." He grinned at the memory of making that snowman with Tsubaki.

At the mention of not going it alone, Riku couldn't help but smile. It was exactly as he predicted the night before. His friends would have been really upset if they found out he had handled getting the drugs without any assistance. As much as he wanted to go it alone, he realized having someone there really did help. If he was in full-form, without anything weighing him down, he could have handled it, but he knew this place hindered him. But logic wasn't really the reason why he asked for Albedo. When it came down to it, Riku acknowledged it was just for this reason—because of that stupid look on Sora's face when he told him to ask for help.

"I did," he said. "Why do you think I ended up with that guy in the first place?" He didn't want to push it, but it was a show of improvement for him. The fact that Sora hadn't noticed that he hadn't gone it alone did confuse him, but he realized his friend probably figured they were thrown together for some other reason. That sort of thing seemed to happen here a lot.

At the mention of Doyleton—and more specifically the snow—he realized he was actually envious. Last time he was there, it was raining, which wasn't something that the Islands were unfamiliar with. But snow was a whole different ordeal. His only experience with it was fleeting and purposeful; running through and trying to get Sora's attention and to get things done didn't leave a whole lot of time for snowball fights.

"Good thing I wasn't there. You would've ended up covered in the stuff." He considered his next statement, because he wanted to push Sora past this normal stuff, even if he admitted that he liked hearing about it. But he worried the staff would come and split them up. They had a way of doing that at unfortunate times.

So he started with what made sense. "Kairi's fine, right?" He needed to completely confirm that she was all right. His mind clicked on that before he hit on his next points. "And are there any other things? Is the club looking into them?"

While Sora realized that Riku had been with Albedo when he'd taken the drugs, that didn't necessarily make him feel better about it. Sora would have wanted to be there himself. He realized that Riku hadn't really had the option of taking him with him, but it bugged him anyway. Going with a stranger was definitely better than trying to handle it alone, but...

In the end, it was probably better to drop it. The damage was already done, so Sora was just going to have to keep an extra close eye on his friend in the next day or so to make sure that he wasn't targeted somehow. Riku might have thought he had everything under control, but you could never be too careful with this place.

"Hey, I wouldn't have minded!" he responded in regards to the snow, offering a small laugh. "You would have been just as covered." Well, if the staff had let them. Sora hadn't started a snowball fight for that very reason, even though he'd been tempted. As fun as it would have been, it wasn't worth getting punished over. And making the snowman had been just as exciting. He wondered if it had melted already...

He wasn't too shocked that Riku wanted to be absolutely sure that Kairi was okay and quickly nodded in response to the question. "Yeah, I've been taking care of her! She's really curious about looking into the medical wing more since she knows that's where she was kept for that whole time that she was gone. So I guess that's what we're focusing on for now, on top of exploring and listening to the radio."

The Head Doctor had also given that tip about the basement, but Sora wasn't that interested in listening to him. If they ran out of other options, maybe, but for now he thought they were managing fine on their own.

In his opinion, the sole important mystery of the medical wing was already sought after by him. If they were going to go there, it had to do with the drugs and nothing else. He hadn't checked out every room, but from what he garnered from his inspection of the area, it was nothing special. Riku hoped for something else, but Albedo had been right: if someone was really having something done to them, it wouldn't be because they were kept there. They'd be taken somewhere else. Or, if there was something, it was altered for that night, but he doubted it. He checked out the recovery rooms and hadn't come up with anything conspicuous, and of course, the infirmary itself hadn't been that unique.

"That shouldn't be our focus." He didn't like being so blunt about the matter, but it had to be said. "I got the only mystery, and if there's follow-up, we'll see what happens. But before I ran into that fight, I looked around. It wasn't that unusual." Unless running into a monster was said to be, but given the various places those things seemed to roam, he didn't think it was that strange. "So keep that in mind for tonight."

As for Kairi, he figured he'd explain it to her himself. He didn't want to disappoint her, but the point needed to be made. The last thing he wanted was for her to not uncover any necessary mysteries, but he didn't see the point. And besides, leading her into a place that had no answers but would probably just result in a fight didn't seem like a good idea. Riku wanted to circumvent that.

"We're supposed to be focusing on things that can give leads. So, what else is there?"

While Sora could have been offended by Riku calling his plans a waste of time, he wasn't. It was something that he'd done for Kairi's benefit from the start, and while he was curious about the new area, it sounded like his friend had scoped a lot of it out already. Sora didn't always have to listen to Riku, either. If he wanted to check it out some more, then he would. But it was mainly Kairi who he was worried about.

"Kairi's the one you have to tell," he said after a pause. "I mean, you can't really blame her for being curious. I think she's hoping that some of those rooms might jog her memory." Though Sora got the feeling that Kairi wouldn't really want to remember those days she'd missed in the end. Still, it had to be disconcerting, knowing all that time had passed and having no memory of it.

In fact, Sora knew all about that sort of thing, seeing how he'd lost all of his memories of Castle Oblivion. It was something he'd come to accept since then, especially since a few of the blanks had been filled during his time here, but the point was that he could empathize with Kairi.

Either way, his friend wanted more information, and so Sora started sorting through the past few days for something of interest. "Oh! I made it out to the forest a couple nights ago. Someone told me that the guy who makes the radio announcements hangs out there sometimes, but I don't know how true it is." Not that he thought Venom had been lying, but it seemed like the chances of actually finding Marc were pretty slim. The outside area was a place that still needed to be explored, though, so he'd have to see what Riku thought of the news.

Just as he expected, Kairi was the one who needed to be filled in. But if his memory hadn't been jogged, why would hers be? Reason stated that they were both apparently kept there, though he hadn't confirmed for himself yet. He didn't think it mattered that much, if, in the end, his memories were gone. What chains were taken away probably wouldn't be replaced until they took care of the institute altogether. That made the most sense to him, anyway.

"I'm planning on it."

He left it there and pressed on to consider what else Sora had to say. A lead to the radio guy himself? That seemed to be the best way to circumvent following clues. If anything, they might be able to get some real information, rather than the snippets that were sent out at night. Anything they could actually follow could work—and if the Head Doctor was there, they could ask about their memories, too. Riku liked that idea already.

"That's where we've gotta go," he told Sora. "If Kairi insists on the medical wing, we can compromise, but the forest is our best bet for everything we need to know. How to get out. What's going on. And if our memories can be recovered, we might be able to get Landel to tell us." His voice darkened at that last bit, and he figured Sora would pick it up. He doubted his friend would mind a little fight, especially since that guy was the reason they were here in the first place. Replaced or not, it wasn't like Riku had any sympathy for him.

It seemed that he'd hit on the right thing to tell his friend, if Riku's reaction was anything to judge by. Sora was glad that he'd come across a piece of information that counted as useful in Riku's head. It meant that he'd accomplished a thing or two while Riku had been gone. He didn't want Riku to get his hopes up about all this, since Sora still thought that running into one guy in a whole big forest was pretty unlikely, but...

Hey, he was the one who was supposed to be optimistic, right? They would just have to go back there and do their best to track Marc down.

"That all sounds good to me," he agreed. Even the last part, since Landel deserved a taste of his own medicine by now. Sora couldn't assume that the man was completely weakened even after he'd been kicked out, seeing how he was forcing Marc to work with him. Still, those force fields might have come down by now, which meant they had a chance.

"Anyway, we can always split up too. One of us could go with Kairi to the med wing, or she can head there on her own with some of the other club members." Sora still wasn't that comfortable with the idea of Kairi heading off on her own, but it wasn't like she hadn't done so in the past. Plus, she had that sword! Which they still needed to take some time to show her how to use. "I know how to get to the forest, though, so I should probably head that way." Not that it would be that hard to give directions, but it was always easier to be shown rather than told, right? He had to wonder if he should invite Venom along for this, too. Even if he wasn't a part of the club, he'd probably be interested.

The idea of sending Kairi off alone didn't appeal to him, either. Weapon or no weapon, Darkness or no Darkness, the idea that she would be off somewhere else without them being able to keep an eye on her made him uneasy. It wasn't like he explored every section of the medical wing. Worse, if there was more than one spider hanging out there, who knew what else there could be? He wrote off the idea as soon as his friend suggested it. They agreed from the beginning that Kairi would be with them every night. There wasn't a reason to change that.

"We'll send someone else to the med wing," he said. "If they find something worth looking at, we can head there the next night." That sounded like a compromise that Kairi would agree to, as well, if she were here. He preferred knowing where she was when the night fell, and though he got through the previous night okay, her presence was still a mystery. It wasn't any longer.

"So the three of us can work together," he continued. This plan was largely because Riku wanted to explore those woods for himself. Sora played the big hero enough times that Riku wanted to encounter Landel for himself and see what he could do. It was time to take another shot at that himself. The med wing last night was one thing, but Landel was definitely on the scale of Xemnas. They had to chance it.

"But first, let me find Kairi and make sure she's okay with it." Riku realized that just telling her what they were doing might upset her. "I'll drop you a note about it."

At first, Sora felt a little apprehensive about the whole thing, mainly because Riku was making all these decisions without even asking Kairi. He knew that both of them had a tendency to fuss over the third member of their group, but he'd been making an effort to be better about it.

Luckily, Riku then cleared it up by mentioning that he was going to find her and ask her, and suddenly Sora's expression flipped into a smile. "Sounds good! Hopefully she won't mind. And she shouldn't be too hard to find, either." Though... Sora didn't see her in the room right now. Maybe she was sleeping in? Chances are she would have found them and dropped by otherwise.

His only concern now was that he never seemed to get that far when he was traveling with Riku and Kairi specifically. He knew it sounded crazy, though. Why should the people involved matter? And it wasn't like they wasted time. It was too weird of a thought for him to voice out loud, even to his closest friend.

"Anything else you were curious about?" he asked instead, glancing around the room. He wasn't sure he'd covered everything, so it was best to make sure that there weren't any aspects that Riku was still confused about.

What else was there? Riku considered Sora's appearance and came up with a few. Last night, the announcement mentioned pins, and he figured he might as well looked into that. But what else? Was the only clue from the radio guy the one about the forest? That seemed to be kind of a let down, so he needed to be sure. Any strange circumstances from the last few days needed to be examined. If he couldn't do it first hand—and Riku still kicked himself a bit for deciding to disappear the moment everything went down—then he might be able to sort it out this way. He was on his way just before.

"Yeah, what are the pins for?" he asked first. "And was that the only clue? What about the past few days? Was there anything like last night?" He meant the weird speech and the invitation to take the drugs. Riku assumed then that it was the only thing, but there had to be build up to that speech. From here on, he wanted to work on a full pack of information, and he didn't want to feel like he let his friends down by letting them take him. The thought hadn't really occurred to him yet, and he wasn't about to let it.

The combined factors of being able to sort things out before and last night changed his tune a lot. He realized that. Some mornings, he ended up here with a plan, and it was a plan to do something different. Now, he thought it was time they stuck with what they were doing right. Or rather: what he was doing right. It wasn't that he faulted Sora, but his friend's priorities would always be different. And in Riku's mind, he needed them to be safe. Somehow, he figured Sora would transmute that into everyone being safe in his own way. That was why they worked well together.

It wasn't too surprising that Riku had a lot of questions. Even if it'd only been a few days, a whole lot had been packed into them. Sora tried to take it one thing at a time, though, taking a few more bites of his breakfast as he thought it over. It was strange -- even though Riku had that gross pink stuff, Sora didn't feel as guilty eating around him. It was probably because Riku just didn't get hung up on things like that. Sora hadn't even noticed him eyeing his food or anything.

"I don't really know that much about the pins," Sora admitted. That might have something to do with the fact that despite his rank, he didn't have any. He didn't know what they stood for or how people got them, except... would Riku end up with a pin for taking those drugs last night? "I know you earn them in different ways and if you have enough it gives you certain privileges, but that's it." It was something he could probably ask one of the staff members about and actually get answers, since they seemed to think of him so highly.

"Oh, and the other thing you need to know is that when the Head Doctor spoke to us -- while he was with Marc -- he mentioned stuff about the basement. He's trying to tell patients that that's where they need to go to get out. I mean, he might be telling the truth since he's trying to get back at Aguilar, but who knows?" It was something you'd just have to go with your gut instinct on, or so Sora guessed. He'd made attempts to get down to the basement before, but none of them had been that successful. For now, he figured focusing on the outside area might benefit them more. Still, he'd see what Riku had to say about it.

The information was something to consider heavily. Riku decided that the pins might be useful if it gave them privileges, but he needed to figure that out later on. He poked further at his slop as he assessed the pieces dropped about the basement. If that was the truth, why hadn't anyone done something about it? Wouldn't that be common knowledge? He figured it was a lead, but heading outside would be more productive in the long run. Plus, he hated being trapped in here.

"I'll stick up a message about it on the board," he said. "We'll find out if anyone's found anything good about the basement that way." If they did, then they could adjust their plans accordingly, but he did like the idea of going outside. Maybe another set of people could go there.

The fact of the matter was that Riku didn't like following a lead that even Sora didn't think was a good idea. Playing along with Landel's scheme didn't seem like the way to go about this. So he liked his plan; that way, someone else could do the work. As much as he preferred first hand experience, he also didn't like walking his friends into a trap.

"All right, you can give that a shot," Sora agreed. As far as he'd been able to tell, though, people kept their mouths shut about the basement. He didn't know the reasoning behind it, but that on its own was enough to make him worry. He realized that sometimes you had to brave serious danger to get anywhere, but he was fine with trying out the forest first and seeing what they found there.

Before he could say anything else, however, the intercom went off and they were treated to a rather cheerful, casual voice. Well, up until the guy was apparently put in his place. Sora frowned, wondering why they couldn't have something a little more laid back to listen to for once.

"Well, I guess that's it," he said with a sigh. "Try to find Kairi! She'll want to see you." He stood up from his seat, glancing down at his half-finished breakfast for a moment before meeting his friend's eyes. "And... it's really great to have you back, Riku." He was sure that Riku already knew how relieved he was, but there was nothing wrong with reinforcing it, was there?

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Day 58: Cafeteria

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