Night 63: Main Hallway 2-West

[monkeyboy]

[From here]

Bursting through the stairwell, the young boy ran into the hallway with the intention to beat on something, but the sound of the intercom froze Goku in place. That voice! He knew that voice better than anyone now. A stubby hand unsheathed his red staff, wide black eyes narrowing. It seemed to come from all around him and Goku had a hard time catching up as he spun around in a dizzying circle, threatening the empty darkness.

"Show yourself, you demon! Give me back my friend!" He sniffed the air, trying to find where he was, but Landel was nowhere to be smelled. He was like some kind of evil voice wizard.

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[skeletonenigma]

"Yomi," Skulduggery repeated as he tried to pick apart the air currents buffeting against his hand. She'd hesitated before answering, which could mean it wasn't a name she was used to using, or that she simply wasn't used to introducing herself. Either way, at least he had a name to go with the face now, which was usually helpful. Unless said face was actively trying to kill him, in which case Skulduggery was usually past caring. "Japanese, isn't it?" A Japanese name and some Japanese object making her immortal was a little too much of a coincidence, he hoped. And if not, at least he would know Japan didn't exist here.

Scanning the air turned out to be far less useful than it should have been. He couldn't tell if anyone had been through the area recently, and he couldn't feel anything further than a few metres into the impenetrable darkness down any given hallway. It was enough of a distance so that surprise attacks wouldn't catch him completely by surprise, but it wasn't enough for him to prepare in any significant way.

Again, Skulduggery had to wonder who the voice over the intercom belonged to. He was probably an interesting man, turning a hospital building into some kind of nightmare prison. 'Interesting,' of course, in no way implying that Skulduggery was going to like him, give him the benefit of the doubt, or refrain from killing him, if it came to that.

[she_is_ruin]

“Yes…” His question made her think he must’ve been from Earth, or some recognizable form of it.

It was possible the Japan he knew was a Japan without shards of sesshouseki. The thought made her stomach lurch.

After a beat of watching Skulduggery stare into the darkness, Yomi veered to the right, toward the Sun Room balcony. She had never felt the need to seek sanctuary herself, but she knew from her intel gathering that the chapel was more than it appeared at night. Possibly a means to return herself to full strength. She’d meant what she’d said to the man before--if she couldn’t have a proper death, then she wanted a proper healing. Yomi’s human side had a vested interest in the former, but it was the sesshouseki who wanted the latter. Two extremes at war, and only room for one winner.

“I’m going this way. Good luck with your search.”

[skeletonenigma]

So then Japan did exist here, or at least wherever Yomi came from. One mystery solved, out of the pile very rapidly building up. One might call it progress, if one was in the habit of calling anything progress, which Skulduggery certainly wasn't. Not at this point in time.

If Skulduggery knew more about where he was, when he was, and what he might encounter on the way, he would have thanked Yomi and moved on himself. It would have gone against his better judgment, since she was clearly hurt. But she also seemed perfectly capable of taking care of herself, and that would have been all the excuse he needed. Now, though... as much as it pained Skulduggery to admit it, he didn't have any idea what was going on. He was standing in what appeared to be a prison hospital where bringing people back to life was as natural as dying. And he was standing there with working lungs and a beating heart, with the vague idea that he might be in an alternate reality without the Faceless Ones in it, with his powers reduced to practically nothing, wearing pajamas with smiley faces on them, and no one to complain to about that last fact.

Yomi, reluctant though she was and as physically drained as she seemed, was the only thing making any kind of sense so far. Besides, the former skeleton was hesitant about actually finding a reflection and seeing what he looked like. His face might not measure up to what he remembered, or it might not reach his incredibly high standards. Worse, he might not even be handsome. That was a blow his ego just couldn't take until he'd worked a few other things out.

Skulduggery paused for a moment, then followed her down the main hall. "Not such an excellent guide, perhaps," he amended his earlier statement. "Excellent guides don't abandon people halfway through the tour. I'd be insulted, if I thought you would treat anyone else any differently. And you still haven't told me where you're going."

[To here.]