Day 65: 3rd Shift: Courtyard

[redcladidealist]

[From here.]

It was chilly out in the courtyard, making Lloyd glad for the odd but relatively warm clothing he'd found himself in when he woke up. He could have stay inside the building, he knows. His nurse had told him he had a choice of several rooms he could eat his lunch in, if he wanted. The cold felt good, though, and the tree he was sitting against felt solid and comfortable. He still felt lost, but trying to get straight answers from the nurse was frustrating. The man had retreated to let him eat in peace, promising to come back when Lloyd was finished and he'd had a chance to "clear his head." The teen was just fine with that.

Lunch itself was actually pretty good. He'd gotten a chicken sandwich, and his spirits lifted a little when he saw that there was a brownie with it. It had taken him a minute to figure out the box with juice inside, having never encountered anything like that before, but after that it was easy to just settle down and enjoy his food.

Well, for the most part. Worry for his Dad still ate at him, and he had no idea where any of his friends were. He still felt a little off, too, like some intangible part of him was missing or weakened, but he chalked that up to leftover side effects of whatever it was Yuan had done to him. He was confident that would disappear soon enough, once he finished recovering. He already felt well enough that as soon as he was done eating, he was determined to leave. If his doctor had his things, he'd ask for them first, and maybe he could talk to some of the other people here, see if they knew anything that could help, but one way or another, he needed to find his friends and make sure his Dad was all right.


[To here.]

Comments

[firewhichrefines]

For a moment, Sasuke had indeed forgotten where Lee stood in the chain of information. Clearly Konohagakure had not changed its ways to any noticeable extent when it came to sharing the truth with those who fought its battles: that, more than anything else, reminded Sasuke that when he returned to the shinobi world he was more likely to end up at the other end of Lee's taijutsu than next to it. The knowledge was shelved with the same determined neutrality as every other thought of his former comrades over the past few years in Sound, next to every illusion of his erstwhile teammates Orochimaru had seen fit to conjure.

"He collects bodies in his spare time," Sasuke corrected in passing, before focusing on the latter of what Lee had to say. He'd known time had passed, indeed had suspected a significant amount of it had gone by between his arrival here and that of other shinobi. But to know that a solid year had passed, at the very least ...

"In that time, have you spent time with other Konoha-nin? Have you noticed any of them disappearing unexpectedly?" Or was there simply no evidence at all of Landel's kidnappings?

[awokentospring]

Lee's face screwed up in disgust. "That is a revolting hobby."

To desecrate dead bodies was completely unpardonable! To think that such despicable person could remain hidden in plain sight within Konoha as long as Kabuto had was sickening. Lee sighed, wondering how his village could be so successful in some areas and yet so negligent and wanting in others. He was rather patriotic; Gai-sensei had battered all his students with long-winded sermons on Keeping Alive the Spirit of Fire endowed in any proper shinobi of Konoha. But this kind of oversight hit Lee's pride in his village rather hard if he allowed himself to dwell on it.

Returning his mind back to the conversation, Lee took a bite of his sandwich and waved a hand in dismissal, again not caring that Sasuke couldn't even see the gesture. "I have seen them as often as ever. The only one who ever disappears is Naruto-kun, but it is generally on village business."

It seemed an odd question. It was time for Lee to get some answers. "Why do you ask?"

[firewhichrefines]

... well, yes, he chose to join Orochimaru of his own free will, what sort of person do you expect him to be? -- that was the response that flashed through Sasuke's head most immediately, with the accompanying desire to raise a sardonic eyebrow to express what he thought of Lee's apparent naivete regarding his opponent. The necessity of repressing it lay in the fact that, irrespective of the quality of his information on his enemies, Lee was still a quantity worth knowing and a shinobi worth an alliance in a place like this. That, and Sasuke didn't know the other ninja well enough to be quite certain of what Lee might have expected in a man like Kabuto, and there was little time to discover it. The stir amongst the staff gathering at the door was enough proof: shift was ending soon.

It was too soon for Sasuke's tastes, especially given the answer he'd just received. If only Naruto had been at Landel, that might have made sense: from the intelligence Sasuke had of Jiraiya's movements, a lapse in their presence would have been common enough. In fact, if there were someone Sasuke might have chosen to take in order to avoid notice, Naruto might well have been one such choice, especially with the nine-tails in tow.

But Naruto had said he couldn't feel the kyuubi's chakra at all, here; more blatantly obvious, others whose absence would have been missed had been here. It made no sense whatsoever -- could Landel control time in other worlds?

"Other shinobi have been here," Sasuke replied, searching for a concise way to explain things. "Mostly Konoha-nin. All of my former team, my replacement on it, and a handful of others. Some have been here multiple times."

A pause, and then deciding that there was no other conclusion to draw: "As have you. But you bear no memory of it, do you?"

[awokentospring]

Lee was so intent on the conversation he hardly recognized the signs of a shift change coming up.

Lee blinked, unable to believe that. After all, everyone had been busy preparing for the war up until now. Other than Naruto and Gai-sensei, there should not have been even one shinobi absent from the village.

"I do not see how that can be possible." Simple and honest. But there were always explanations as to why Sasuke could be mistaken. after all, even if the voices seemed the same it's not like Sasuke could seen them to make certain. "Perhaps you were misled as to their identities."

And for himself, Lee could only shake his head, though he realized a moment later that Sasuke couldn't see that, either. "Now, that is truly impossible! I know of all the places I have been in the past and this place is not it. There is no memory to speak of, because I was never here before to make it!" This he believed with one hundred percent sincerity.

[firewhichrefines]

Sasuke had to remind himself that Lee was new to the Institute and, like all the others before him, simply wouldn't be able to see that the impossible was more than possible but daily here. There a moment's darkness that passed over Sasuke's face at the notion of fakes -- he had met a fake here too real, had believed in it himself too fully to know anything other than that what he knew was what he knew. It had been more than two years since he had last seen Sakura, Naruto, or Kakashi, but there were ways to know them that were impossible to quantify to someone else.

He was Sharingan-born: there were always ways to know.

"You were here," he said, voice cold enough to cut across Lee's excessive confidence. Even as he spoke, he could hear the spread of the faintly hollow cheer of the nurses spreading across the field, ushering patients back inside. "You were only here for a day and a night. Others have been here more than once, for longer periods of time, and with each return nobody remembers the last time they were here.

"But I know them."