damned_institute | Day 59: Sun Room (4th Shift)

After an intercom broadcast like that, Kurogane felt somewhat better about the little information he'd gotten from Harrington the previous night. The man only sounded competent when he needed to but was an idiot otherwise. Unfortunately that was furthered proof of the General not employing the brightest of staff members, making another option for information closed to them.

Kurogane was again some steps ahead of his escort when he reached the Sun Room and ignored the soldier further as the ninja headed to look over the bulletin. Last time he'd missed something, and he wasn't about to have that happen a second time. With some searching he located Tsubaki's messages to others he didn't know but found nothing either written by the magician or addressed to him. That being the case, he left the board without any of his own writing and sought out a chair over a couch. If he didn't leave open a space by him, he had a better chance of being left alone. Or so he believed.

[free ~~bird!~~ bear]

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Lunch had been peaceful, and the food no different, whatever Dent might have said about it. They'd stepped up the variety of experiments they were running; she'd have to check with Ema, but it didn't seem like the right way to run a facility at all, ethical issues aside. (Alright, she knew it wasn't, but it wouldn't hurt to ask Ema, once her sister had had a chance to calm down.)

The sun room had been turned into a gigantic jungle gym; there were barely any regular seats left, although it looked like a few had been liberated from the activity rooms as well to make up the numbers. Lana grabbed a folding chair, which seemed safe, and parked it close enough to the building that she could watch what seemed to be a bit of a competition.

[free!]

That the Sun Room had been turned into a gigantic jungle gym didn't faze Utena much. Anything was better than sitting with that gigantic jerk or keeping her nose over that rancid bowl for a second longer than she had to. Besides, it wasn't like she ever really needed a place to sit down, anyway. She was, more often than not, just fine parked on her feet doing stretches or leaning against a wall. At the moment, the former seemed to ping her really strongly, too. Nothing seemed to counteract sickness better than exercise, in Utena's humble opinion. Heck, lots of things were counteracted pretty well with exercise. It was practically a cure-all for her at this point.

Utena sought out a bit of free space in which to start doing lunges, and ended up near-ish to a brown-haired woman in a folding chair. It wasn't until after she'd started in on a few of the stretches that she realized the woman looked familiar, and it took a few seconds longer to realize why.

"...Hey, I know you, don't I?" asked Utena, eyes on the woman as she lunged forward over one knee. A smile crossed her face as she studied the woman a bit more. "Yeah, I'm sure I do! Oh man, sorry, you just look kinda different in the daytime!"

She pulled herself back to her feet for a moment, putting a hand to her chest. "Tenjou Utena. I think I helped you and another girl out a bit last week, right?"

It was odd watching someone talk and knowing that they were speaking another language. Utena was the only person she knew for certain that that was the case; she could make some guesses -- Ilia wasn't from Earth at all, after all.

"Lana Skye, and that was my sister, Ema." She looked around -- Ema wasn't in the room, which didn't surprise her, since Lana had avoided the games room in part because Ema would want to go there.

"It's nice to meet you properly." She would have offered a hand, but she wasn't sure that was polite in Japan, and, besides, she didn't want to interrupt. "Please, don't stop on my account." The stretches had the air of long-familiarity, and for someone so young she'd been frighteningly adept with a sword. "Are you a professional athlete?"

That was better than child soldier, though if Lana had only one shot at guessing she'd pick that.

Utena wasn't really thinking about the language difference, although it did register in the back of her mind. Mostly she was just glad to see the woman, Lana, still doing well. Way too often it seemed that people got themselves horribly injured at night, or worse, they just disappeared without warning. That Lana was neither injured nor absent was a good sign. At least, as far as good signs went in Landel's Institute.

"Nice to meet you too!" said Utena, smiling at the invitation to return to her stretches. She didn't bend over again yet, but she did pull an arm behind her head, holding it there with her right hand as she continued: "Ahaha, I wish! I wouldn't mind that, but I'm just a middle school student right now. As for the future? I've got other plans." Not the least of which involved getting the hell out of this place, but becoming a prince and finally meeting the prince from her childhood ranked pretty high on her scale after that.

"What about you? What do you and Ema do?" she asked, working the arm and feeling the light burn of the stretch.

Lana smiled -- Utena sounded like Ema when she said that. Everyone should have big plans at that age. "I'm a public prosecutor." Chief sounded like bragging, and disgraced former wasn't actually the case. Yet. "For the city of Los Angeles, if you know where that is.

"Ema's still in high school, though she keeps threatening to follow me into the legal profession. Forensic science, to be precise." Lana wasn't sure what to make of Ema's goals; she'd been as adamant in her own at that age, but she'd never really talked to Ema about it. There were so many things they needed to talk about; maybe she should have let her come along, but there was Forensics 101 and then there was going on a dangerous expedition to view the body of someone she'd known.

"Have you considered teaching? Here, I mean. You know more self-defense than either of us do."

Utena's eyes lit up with interest when Lana spoke about what she did. Wasn't that what that other woman a few weeks back had done too? What had been her name again? F... something? It had been a while. She knew the woman had been related to the man they'd rescued with Taura before, and he had also been some kind of law man. Maybe they all knew each other?

She let Lana continue talking first, though, and listened with continued interest as Ema's interests were explained. Trying to follow in the footsteps of an older sibling? That must be nice, Utena thought with a warm smile. She always did like hearing stories from people with younger or older siblings, not having any herself. Even if one of the sibling pairs she knew had proved to have a darker background than she had known... Utena's eyes closed for a moment as she pushed that thought down. She wasn't going to let herself think about that right now. It was rare to get a good afternoon in Landel's, and she wasn't going to ruin it for herself or for Lana if she could help it.

When the topic came back to her, and with a suggestion no less, it took Utena a little off-guard. "Eh? Me, teach?" She tilted her head, the opposite arm now held behind it. "Hmm, I guess I might know more than some, but it's still not much. Most of what I know just comes from instinct and experience. There are plenty of other people who learned stuff the real way who could probably teach a lot better than me," she answered with a bit of a laugh. "Though, a friend did tell me once I might make a good coach someday! So who knows? Maybe you guys are onto something!"

It was about then that the name she had been searching for earlier finally popped to mind, and her arms finally came back out from behind her head. "Oh! Hey, do you know someone named Franziska, by the way? von Karma, I think?"

Day 59: Sun Room (4th Shift)

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