damned_institute | Nightshift 24: Hallway outside entry room

Nel knew far too well how important duty was.

She didn't profess to know anything about this Subaru person, or organization, or country, or whatever it was. The brother Hokuto had spoken of, perhaps. But she knew the gravity of duty, and she knew how it was to be needed desperately. She'd left Aquaria to embark on a much more important mission, to save her entire plane of existence, but she knew the Queen needed her. She knew Clair needed her.

Still, she couldn't shake the feeling that somehow she wasn't needed after all. After all, Albel had mentioned that he remembered Nel returning to Elicoor with her group. Was she.. possibly.. another Nel, a different Nel who had arrived here at the same time that the Nel that Albel had known had returned to Elicoor?

She reached out gently, weakly, to brush her hand against Hokuto's leg, a gesture meant to calm her. "..I don't mean to presume, but I've a theory that you might still be in your home world. After all, my comrade had memories of me that had to have occurred after the last point I remember. It might be different with you, though - you say.. you're a ghost?"

"I don't know," Hokuto admitted. "Amaterasu-sama said I'm alive here, but that doesn't change that I died. If I were a ghost--Subaru can speak to the dead, so that... would solve a few problems." It still meant not growing up, not having a spouse or children of her own--not even getting to have that first lover, probably--but as long as he needed her, she didn't care. "But unless there's something nobody told us, it looks like we're alive here." She looked at her hands; there was a bit of Nel's blood on them. The dead, literally speaking, didn't bleed.

"Where in Japan are we?" she asked finally. It didn't really matter if they couldn't get out to go anywhere, but she wanted to know. It sounded like the staff here would make excuses for why she couldn't call home, but... she hoped they were still in Tokyo. At least then she'd still be close to home.

Nel dropped her hand to her side again, looking up at the girl in the darkness. The blush had left her face far behind by now, still without a thought from the soldier. "No, we're alive here.. I have faith that we are. Although if you're dead, that could pose a problem in getting you back. No, I'll have to consider everyone's circumstances both separately and in a group - I'm sure we can get everyone back to their original places if we research it."

She thought for a moment at the word 'Japan,' then the look in her eyes grew a little stark. "I've never heard of Japan, but that doesn't mean it isn't where we are. Where is that?"

Hokuto nearly fell over at the last part. Yes, she was starting to realize just how strange this place was, but... "It's a country on Earth, the third planet from the sun... Sol system, I think it is?" The only time she paid much attention to planets was when she was reading her horoscope.

Landels was a mental hospital, Nel had said? Well... Hokuto certainly couldn't deny that the place was insane! "Uh. So, what country and planet are you from?" she asked dryly.

Nel had heard of the Sol system, certainly. Her friend and comrade Fayt came from Earth - a mere student, swept up in a war on another planet that ultimately led to his saving the universe they knew.

How much had changed since she'd been ordered to track them down.

She paused for a moment before answering definitively. "I'm a soldier of Aquaria, on the planet Elicoor II." That was only part of it - she didn't feel like offering her full title, though. "Our home planets share a galaxy and similar traditional food, but not much else. I've never been there, but I've been to Moonbase, which is quite close."

She didn't expect Hokuto to have heard of Elicoor - as it turned out, most of the people she'd met didn't. It was, after all, supposed to have been an underdeveloped planet. How much confusion that had caused between the outsiders and herself! How many lies had to be so quickly fabricated.

"Though there's a chance you've never even heard of Moonbase - I don't know how old of a structure it is, and this place seems to pull people from vastly different times."

Hokuto tried to think if she'd ever heard of a star, at least, called Elicoor; after a few moments, she shook her head. "We made it to the moon a few years I was born, but there's no permanent base." Either Nel was from the farfuture--maybe something had happened in 1999 after all?--or they weren't even from the same timeline.

It should have sounded a little far-fetched, even for the sister of an onmyouji, but right now she figured she should keep an open mind!

"So, you know magic?" she asked thoughtfully. She'd seen those ice needles. "I know a few spells, but my power levels feel lower than they should--right now I don't feel all that confident in anything higher-level than Barrier." She looked at the door to the Sun Room as she spoke; she was really getting worried, the others should have come out by now. She was curious about Nel's magic, but more than that, she was hoping they could somehow combine what they had to end things quickly. It had been, briefly, five against one... and the one had still been winning. Not good.

Nel nodded. "The short time we were there, I only was able to learn of its satellite status. Forgive me if I'm not very knowledgeable on the subject, as I'm quite new to modern technology, given my origin - but what I saw was quite permanent." She hesitated momentarily, reviewing the information she'd retained of Moonbase in her mind. It was a beautiful, if slightly constitution-shaking sight, seeing a planet she never knew from something that spun around on it. Perhaps someday there would be bases on Irisa, Erinia, and Palmira, the three moons that circled Elicoor.

Somehow she doubted that.

And then there was the question about the magic. She supposed 'magic' could be a broad term for it, though she'd never really known runology to be anything else.. "I'm a runologist - it's a bit like magic, but not really reducible to parlor tricks. As a weapon, it's quite useful, though it shouldn't be completely relied on, especially in a place like this. It's no crutch, and it's no substitute for physical ability. Am I right in assuming you know mostly defense spells?"

If so, that would tell Nel a lot about her new friend's personality. People usually did, after all, study the sorts of spells that would suit them most. Unless, of course, they were made to learn them whether they liked it or not.

"What I can do isn't much above parlor tricks," Hokuto said wryly. "A weak shield, or putting people to sleep. Magic's not really my area; I tried, I couldn't learn much, I moved on. I used to be able to make paper wards--if someone passed in front of one, it would explode and I'd know--but it wore me out so much it wasn't worth doing. It's been so long since I tried it that I can't even remember the incantation anymore... and since my magic feels even weaker now, there's no way I could do it anymore."

She'd considered learning kendo once, but standing there in the dark hallway of a place she still knew next to nothing about, Hokuto was glad she'd learned to fight in the style she did; it meant being unarmed didn't bother her. Every second that passed made her want to go back into the Sun Room and see what was happening, and if they did, she was going to be prepared.

They weren't alone in the hallway. Other people had made it this far, and the beams of their flashlights illuminated the hallway, letting Nel get a slightly better look at Hokuto. Her eyes had adjusted to the darkness, but a little light never hurt.

Her leg was feeling better by now, though the pain had dulled down to a strange, dark ache. So she strained against the wall for a moment, sliding back up to a standing position.

"Well, at least you know your limits." The words were spoken with a tinge of bitterness - she knew that the icicle she'd created was going to make her bleed, but she didn't know it would make her as weak as it did. Still, she was getting her druthers back.

She clenched and unclenched her fists. "I'm worried about what's going on in there. Do you think that perhaps we should return?"

She didn't even hesitate. "Yeah." Maybe she was being reckless--she'd gone on a suicide mission once already--but honestly, she was worried, and saw no real reason to hold back.

Still, though--there was no reason to charge in blindly when they didn't have to. "Should we just try to distract the guy long enough to get everyone out?" The problem with that plan: the only real distraction she could think of was attacking him, and they'd tried that already. And though Hokuto was a good fighter, she had a feeling she wasn't quite fast enough to just run up and clunk him on the head with a flashlight.

"Distract him if you want - my goal is to bring Amaterasu out." That was all there was to it. "I don't want a fight with him - he's too powerful for us." There was recklessness, and then there was tactical unit recovery.

Nel looked hard at Hokuto, then threw open the door and pushed into the room without a second thought.

[to here (http://community.livejournal.com/damned/122217.html?thread=8545641#t8545641)]

((From there. (http://community.livejournal.com/damned/122217.html?thread=8532841#t8548201) ))

And Nel was more wildly successful with her mission than she could possibly have known.

The goddess was dragged by the arm right back out the door, softly whining as she realized that she had been taken away from her holy duty to dispel evil. Indeed, it would not have been difficult to imagine the drooping ears and limp tail that should have accompanied her doleful face.

...but she was alive, as was everyone else. Was that not the important thing?

Hokuto was quite impressed with Nel's speed; she'd been hoping to just run in, grab Amaterasu, and run out, but actually pulling it off was something else. "Good one!"

To the goddess, "Sorry, Amaterasu-sama--we got worried. Are you okay?" Despite the honorific she still used, she noted with some amusement that her speech style had gotten very casual very quickly...

She looked around the hallway again, wondering if there was a point in the night when they had to rush back to their rooms. She hoped not, since she didn't know where it was... well, this was a psychiatric hospital. She figured she could pretend to be a little out of it if she needed to!

Nel was proud of herself. Tactical unit recovery, indeed! "And that's how you do it," she said to herself as much as anyone else, releasing Amaterasu's wrist. These were the kind of things Nel lived to do.

Although there was the danger of that man following them out of here, so she was a bit antsy to leave. "How are those boys? I didn't see them," she said hurriedly. "Tell me on the way - we should get out of here."

She wasn't sure herself where to go, but hopefully the goddess would pick a direction and stick with it.

Of course the goddess was all right... at least physically.

"I'm fine," the goddess confirmed with a weak smile, "and at least the boys got out alive. All of us did." And so far as Amaterasu was concerned, that was the important thing. If only she had more power! If only she was more god-like! Then that demon would not have been able to hurt so very many...

With a distinctly lupine droop to her features, Amaterasu started leading the way. While normally she was as radiant as the sun, her failure yet weighed heavily on her heart. How could she cleanse the Institute of evil when she couldn't even defeat one youkai? She didn't have enough praise to purify that one soul... she would have to try harder and ever harder to become as powerful as she would need to be.

"Let's go this way," she said, "I won't go without a weapon again, and maybe that will help the next time I fight a demon."

((Off to here. (http://community.livejournal.com/damned/124816.html) ))

Nightshift 24: Hallway outside entry room

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