damned_institute | Day 60: Music Room (Fourth Shift)

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Day 60: Music Room (Fourth Shift)

It wasn't often that Renji felt less like punching people in general as his day wore on. This was a new experience for him. A not unwelcome one, if he was being honest. And the fact that he felt less like punching Fai? Kind of mind-blowing. The sort of thing Zen masters would probably use as a kouan to reach an all-new level of non-punching enlightenment.

So he was back from the dead, almost everyone he'd known was gone, and yet bizarrely his day felt like it was looking up. Kind of. Renji wasn't sure what to make of this. Maybe his grumpy meter was just nearing empty. That was as good an explanation as the next, considering how this place made him feel.

Whatever the reason, he ended up in the music room. And he remembered oh yeah. He'd always kind of hated this damn shift. He grabbed a little book of music and a drum and retreated quickly to the far end of the room. He put the drum down in front of him just so he looked like he was doing something and opened the book. But he had no idea how to read music, and really, he was more interested in the ongoing puzzle of what the hell had happened in the last four weeks.

And brooding. Of course. There was always brooding to be done.

[Okay Tolten, let me lay it out for you. When there's a mommy and a daddy... or sometimes a daddy and a dadddy. Or, hell, sometimes a mommy and a mommy if you buy the right kind of wood cuts (and a third mommy if you go to just the right shop)... but anyway when they love each other very much, or at least a suitably large amount of money changes hands, there are some things that happen...]

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"I am alive. That in itself makes the state of the actual wound irrelevant." The ninja placed a hand over the location of the injury. "But it is better." He knew he shouldn't be impolite about the issue, and he wasn't really trying to be. "I can walk unassisted, but it is admittedly painful." Not painful enough to keep him from doing it, of course, but uncomfortable all the same. That was why he took every opportunity to slouch as he was then.

There wasn't actually much he wanted to say to Guy. He'd just been a momentary escape from a rehashing of the same greetings. It couldn't hurt to let him know how he fared either, seeing as he'd been with him at the morgue. That whole incident seemed particularly surreal, but he was getting used to surreal nowadays.

He sat up only slightly. "The other night... You were coming for Okita-san?"

It was true that being alive was the important part, but Guy realized how vital one's health was in this place. More than that, he'd only been expressing concern. Still, Sai went on to give more details, which he nodded to in reply. "Give it a few days. And take it easy, if you can." He knew that was easier said than done, but he'd definitely had to slow down after his own revival.

Before he could ask about all of that, though, Sai went ahead and asked a question of his own. It was only natural that he would want to know why Guy had been there in the first place. Actually, thinking back on it, Guy had gotten the feeling that there was some sort of history between Sai and Okita. He'd have to tread carefully, then.

"I was. He's my roommate, so the moment that he didn't show up for dinner I knew something was wrong." There was another question to be answered, though, which was how he'd even known where to go. "I... woke up in that room once myself, so I acted on a hunch." That was bound to grab Sai's attention; Guy thought it was a pretty good lead-in to what he really wanted to talk about.

Sai would go into detail about his relationship with Okita should it be brought up. He had nothing to hide in that regard, and in fact almost felt it necessary that others be aware of his failure when it came to the woman he'd killed. But he would mention it only if the subject was directly broached. There were other things to be discussing just then.

"I have a feeling the circumstances for everyone aren't the same." Okita hadn't been in the area, after all. It was possible there was more than one, but could the man in charge really have been in two places at once. "I chose the path that had me waking there. I hadn't expected waking up again to be an option at all, honestly, but I'm not surprised that it was."

He turned to give the other man his full attention. "I was under the impression that patients could die permanently, though." Ayumu certainly hadn't come back. "What decides whether or not one does?"

It was kind of strange how Sai was talking about all of this so calmly. He'd been similarly composed during their conversation in Doyleton, but Guy hadn't thought much of it then, since it wasn't as if they'd been in a stressful situation. Now Sai was talking about his own death with an odd detachment, like he didn't really care whether he lived or died.

Guy hoped that wasn't the case. He'd encountered people like that before, and it usually led to some pretty destructive behavior. He wasn't going to assume too much about the other man, though. This was only the third time they had ever spoken, after all.

He considered Sai's question, but it was one that he could only answer if he confirmed how Sai had died. He'd already made implications, but Guy wanted to be sure. He wasn't certain that he would even be able to talk openly about the coliseum, but both of them had been there (if not at the same time) and so...

"You said that you took a certain path. Are you talking about the coliseum in the basement?" There was no easy way to ask about something like that, and so Guy decided to just be straightforward. Sai seemed like the sort of person who would prefer that, anyway. At this point, he was just glad that he'd been able to get the words out.

That caused Sai to blink, a bit of surprise working its way into his otherwise stoic expression. Guy knew about the coliseum? If he knew, then it was possible others knew. And even if this wasn't the case, how had it not been mentioned on the bulletin before now? There had been comments on the basement, certainly, but nothing about the coliseum directly that he could remember.

And if Guy had mentioned waking up in the morgue before, was he implying that this was the reason? He'd been through the exact same experience? The ninja was sincerely beginning to worry about his ability to collect intel, if he'd been in the Institute this long and was still unaware of this. He could only assume there was more to it.

"...Yes. My companions and I completed some of the basement trials, only to be brought to that place. I can only assume it all seems like one big joke to those in charge, though Aguilar was serious enough when he observed our fight." If there had been other battles there before their own, who had observed them, if anyone? The Head Doctor?

So that was it.

More than that, it seemed that the two of them were allowed to talk about all of this freely. That was certainly a relief. While Guy didn't like the idea of anyone having experienced what he had, it was nice to have some other people to discuss it with. He tried to bring it up with Anise and Claude as little as possible, and more than that, neither of them had died.

Sai had, though, and that meant that the two of them had been through something no one else here had, at least as far as Guy was aware. It was possible that there were more patients out there who had fallen into the same trap, but they wouldn't be able to find out easily, seeing how they couldn't ask on the bulletin board. It was a fluke that he'd decided to go to the morgue the night that Sai had woken up there.

"Oh, well... When I was there, it was Landel. He took a lot of enjoyment out of it, believe me." Guy rolled his eyes and then did what he could to shove down the anger that came up at that memory. "But man. It's nice to actually be able to talk about this. I've only ever been able to discuss it with the people who were there with me."

Landel did seem like the sort of person who would enjoy that spectacle. The whole arrangement had probably been done with him in mind. Aguilar might have mocked them, but he had a feeling Landel would have taken even more pleasure in it. Given what Guy had said, the outcome would have no doubt been the same, but was their experience any better? Did it matter?

The last part had him frowning, though. "What do you mean?" Given that he'd yet to actually try and discuss this with others who hadn't been involved, Sai had yet to run into any of the associated problems. If there was an explanation for why he hadn't heard anything about this before, he'd like to hear it. It would honestly make sense for the Institute to have some hand in keeping word from spreading around, now that he thought of it. That wouldn't be much different from things they'd managed to do in the past.

The seal upon his tongue came to mind then. Funny how he'd started to actually forget about it.

The question confused Guy for a moment, mainly because he wasn't sure what about the things he'd said had been unclear. Was it possible that Sai hadn't realized his limits in what he could say yet? He'd woken up in the morgue two nights ago, so he definitely should have had some time to talk it over. But maybe he was just the sort of person who kept things to himself. It's not like it was normal to mention dying to a random person, but even so, if he'd tried to warn anyone away from the coliseum it should have come up.

Well, whatever the reason, Sai hadn't figured it out yet, so at least Guy would be able to warn him. "If you try to talk to anyone about what happened there -- anyone who hasn't been there themselves already, that is -- you won't be able to. Physically, that is. It's like having an intense mental block, and it'll even stop you from writing things down."

Guy had tried to force the words out enough times and press pen to paper with all his effort that he knew. Which was endlessly frustrating, because Sai himself was proof that this whole mess was just going to keep on happening.

Was there truly a sort of jutsu in place? Sai knew by now not to compare the happenings here to the techniques used in his world, but he couldn't help but make the comparison to the silencing technique. Rather than just stopping someone from communicating as was happening here, the seal placed on his tongue would put him in a complete state of paralysis should he try saying anything about the leader of Root that shouldn't be said. Still, they were close enough in similarity that he had a hard time keeping himself from just asking Guy to open his mouth so he could check for a seal. He was pretty certain there wouldn't be one.

"That's troubling." He frowned. "I've spent far too much time sleeping these past couple days." And he could never tell if that was truly his fault or the work of the Institute. His wounds did make movement fairly tiring. "I haven't spoken to many who weren't already aware of the situation either. Doing so will have to be my next priority."

He had no doubt he would be just as restrained in that regard, but there was no point in not testing it out just in case.

The fact that Sai had been sleeping more than usual wasn't a good sign. Guy hadn't had that problem himself, after his own fight. He didn't want to say anything that was going to worry the man too much, though, since it was all speculation and Sai probably knew the implications himself.

"I don't think you're going to have any more luck than I have, unfortunately," he responded with a sigh. "If you'd ever wondered why people were so secretive about the basement, this is why." It wasn't that they didn't want to share the information that they had; they just couldn't. Because Landel and Aguilar wanted the patients here to keep going down there, like lambs to the slaughter. It was almost enough to make Guy sick.

"Anyway, there was one more thing I wanted to ask." There were actually a lot of things that Guy was curious about, such as who Sai had fought and how many people had been with him, but that would probably count as overstepping his bounds. "Have you noticed anything missing? About yourself, that is."

"Missing?" Sai frowned again. He wasn't quite sure what Guy meant, but he had a feeling. Worse yet, this might confirm something that had already had him a little worried. Some days ago, he and his fellow ninja had regained some of their ability to access their chakra. It wasn't much, but it was still better than what they'd been able to do before. Now he felt worse off in that regard than he had when he first arrived.

He'd been hoping this could have been blamed on his healing process, but now he realized it might be worse than that. Was this a penalty for losing? They wouldn't kill them, but they'd take something away?

"I think... possibly, yes." It made sense for Landel, given how so many other things worked here. He honestly should have expected this before now.

This was the first indication that Sai was really bothered by something, and that was really no surprise. Guy felt bad for bringing it up, but he'd wanted to be absolutely sure that that was the pattern. After himself and Dias and now Sai, it seemed clear that that was definitely what was going on.

It didn't seem likely that Sai was going to reveal more than that unless Guy opened up, and in this case he was willing to. There was no reason to hide it in the first place; it was just that most of the time, he couldn't talk about it.

"I lost some of my memories." He could have mentioned Dias, who'd had something similar happen, but it was probably better if he didn't make things too complicated. "I guess they aren't willing to let us get away completely unscathed," he finished with a sigh.

"Memories?" Sai's brows knit together. That was particularly troubling, because if he'd had something like that taken from him, he might not even realize it. You can't miss what you've forgotten, after all, and he shared no childhood memories with Naruto and Sakura so they wouldn't be able to fill in the blanks for him. He didn't feel as though there were any blank spots that hadn't already been there before, but there was no way to tell for sure. "Was it any more than that?"

If he had to pick between losing memories and losing access to his chakra... well he would probably pick the latter. A ninja could learn to fight without chakra. This is not unheard of, even if it puts them at a great disadvantage. Memories, on the other hand, were something he cherished. If he ever forgot about Shin...

"I lost access to my chakra - the energy a ninja relies on for most of their techniques. At least, this appears to be the case." It could be something else that was causing this problem, but somehow he doubted it now.

"As far as I can tell, that was all. My abilities are limited, but they've been that way since I got here, and they came back last night, at least for a little while." Other than that, Guy hadn't noticed anything else that was missing, and no one else had pointed anything out either. That meant that he was probably fine, and honestly, he thought that the memories of his time on the Albiore was more than enough to take.

It seemed that Sai actually had lost some of his physical strength, though, which... Well, that was different from what Guy had come across so far, but he wasn't too shocked by it. Hadn't this place weakened them enough already, though? Why take more? Wasn't that counter-intuitive, if they were supposed to be here as soldiers?

Of course, with Landel back here that couldn't be for sure, but this had happened to Sai when Aguilar had been in charge. It just didn't add up.

"I'm sorry," he said, since he realized how much of a disadvantage that had to pose. "On the bright side, powers are probably a bit easier to get back than memories."

"Perhaps." He had adjusted before, and he would do so again. It would put him at a disadvantage, but he could deal with it. He was still a well-trained ninja and a former member of Root.

Rock Lee would have been a good person to confront about this. It was a shame he wasn't here. Not that they had exactly been acquainted back in the village, but he was aware of his file.

"There are certain memories I would rather not lose, yes. I may be able to accept this trade if it meant I got to keep them." As troubling as it still was. "...Thank you for informing me of this."

Guy couldn't argue there. If he'd been given some sort of choice between being able to perform sword artes or keeping his memories, it would have been an easy decision. He hadn't been given that option, though. Instead, Landel had just reached into his head and cut things outHow did someone even do that?

Still, Tear's report had made it clear that he was capable of it, which almost made Guy feel worse about the whole thing.

Sai spoke up to offer his thanks, which Guy nodded to in reply. "It's not easy to hear about, but it probably offers some peace of mind, at least." It wasn't easy to talk about, either, but that didn't mean Guy regretted having the conversation.

At that point the intercom sounded, which meant that they'd run out of time. For once it didn't really come at an awkward or inconvenient time, though, and so Guy stood up without complaint. "Stay safe," he told Sai before moving away to meet with his nurse.

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Day 60: Music Room (Fourth Shift)

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