damned_institute | Day 25: Sun Room (Fourth Shift)

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Day 25: Sun Room (Fourth Shift)

The concept of gardening in the greenhouse was not one that Hitsugaya was particularly fond of. It was likely exceptionally warm inside, whereas the young captain had a preference for cold climates. He also needed to make himself available for anyone who happened to want to speak with him. The sun room overall seemed the best choice.

As a warm and cheerful nurse led him into the sunroom, he glanced around. At the moment he was the first one there, which was good, as it meant he could keep an eye out for one of the many individuals who had expressed curiosity about the 'arts and crafts' division. It also meant he could watch out for Omi or this Hellsing woman. He excused himself from the nurse and proceeded to a seat that gave him a good view of the entrance. If not for the fact that he was being held here against his will, he might have felt happy. Real rice. He hadn't had time to eat as much as he had hoped, what with his meeting with Mustang, but he still ate a lot more than he'd had the opportunity previously. Even Momo seemed to be acting more like normal.

As unpleasant as the day had begun, it was turning out to be a good day.

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... Of all the possible ways his very important agenda of sitting and doing absolutely nothing could have been interrupted, having Sephiroth appear and start talking to him was one of the worst. Kadaj was just glad that his big brother was the only potentially annoying newcomer to the room, but if the president ended up coming to the Sun Room as well, he was going to kill someone.

After giving his brother a thoroughly disinterested look, he responded, "Hello. And how does this lovely afternoon find you, dear brother mine? Did you enjoy lunch? Or..." He trailed off, his expression shifting slightly to one of mild confusion. "Were you even there? I don't remember seeing you." He hadn't seen Yazoo around either, but if past experiences were any indication, his other brother would be reappearing soon enough.

Sephiroth took a seat on the couch, lounging there comfortably. The usual distance was in his mannerism and way, nothing about to change that. He did favour Kadaj with a speculative look before his shoulders lifted in a careless shrug.

"I had no desire to eat. There are other ways to spend one's time. I would not suggest the same for you though. You are too thin."

For once it wasn't meant as an insult, Sephiroth's gaze moving over Kadaj again. Nodding to himself and deciding whatever it was in his mind, his attentions moved to the window.

"I had wanted to make sure that yourself and Yazoo were not harmed last night. Mother and I had great faith that you would not be, but I prefer to make sure my little brothers are not in need of being patched up. What happened?"

... Too what?

Kadaj merely gaped for a moment as he tried to process what Sephiroth had just said. Too thin? Was he being nagged? He stared hard at his older brother for a moment, as if he was searching for any signs of mockery or deceit in him. There was none, not that he had really expected to be able to find any when Sephiroth was so annoyingly poised all the time. Would it kill him to let one emotion slip?

He couldn't think of anything to say to that, so after remembering that his mouth was still open, he shut it with a loud and sulkily directed his gaze elsewhere. Hardly the proper response to someone showing something even vaguely resembling concern, but he didn't know how else to react to it. If it had been Yazoo or Loz, he would have had a retort lined up and ready to hurl that would have reduced at least one of them to tears, but with Sephiroth... well, he wasn't prepared for it.

That and even though he still couldn't make head nor tails of whatever strange connection his big brother and Mother had, he was starting to wonder if maybe she had prompted Sephiroth to make that remark. Could she have? No, he was being ridiculous. But--

He blinked suddenly and looked back towards his big brother, as if only just realizing he was being talked to. "Hmm? Ah, yes, that..." Last night... he'd nearly forgotten. "We weren't harmed in the conventional sense of the word, if that's what you were wondering," he began, a small smile forming on his face. "No more bandages or broken bones than before. Something else happened, but I'm not entirely sure what."

But how to describe it? The cold was definitely a part of what the creature had done, but it wasn't the main thing. He didn't want to start off with that, not when he was sure he'd get lectured for being so weak that he couldn't handle a small chill. "This-- thing-- attacked us," he said haltingly instead, then added in a rush, "but it was more of a mental attack than a physical one, you know? Or an emotional one. It made me feel...." He trailed off and looked away again, clearly having difficulty admitting this to Sephiroth of all people. "... miserable. Like I'd never be happy again. Like everything in the world had been reduced to that one tiny hallway and everything that had gone wrong before in my life was the only thing that had existed beforehand. I couldn't think of anything else, like something that would make me happy again, or even something to just make it stop! There was nothing."

He fell silent, his mood starting to sink again at the mere memory of it. At least Sephiroth knew now, but what help that would do remained to be seen. How were they supposed to fight an enemy like this?

Sephiroth either dutifully ignored Kadaj's reaction to his statement or didn't notice it. Hard to tell with him. Maybe he ignored it to give Kadaj time to compose himself.

His eyes narrowed down some at the mention of the attack, gaze swinging back to Kadaj's face to study the emotional weather there. He nodded a few times as Kadaj spoke, wanting the remnant to get the whole story out before saying anything. Kadaj's change in speech pattern bothered Sephiroth, used to hearing that sort of stop-speedupgo manner from cadets frightened in their first battle, not part of himself. Whatever it had been, it must have been terrifying on a huge scale to touch Kadaj deeply.

His ego wouldn't let him think otherwise.

Pressing his palms together, Sephiroth's chin rested on the bridge of his thumbs, lips touching the pressed together fingers. Finally, his fingers curled down, head lifting some to speak.

"You did well against it then. I take it Yazoo did as well? We will need to be on guard for it again, observe it before we destroy it."

Something that harmed part of himself would not be allowed to live, of course. That went without saying in Sephiroth's book.

"I have never heard of such a monster, but nor have I been exposed to a mix of humans such as this. That thing could have killed you two. Have both of you recovered from feeling that way?"

Some might have snorted at the idea of an emotional attack, but puppetmaster that he was, Sephiroth knew quite well the benefits of twisting a person to his will with their emotions, playing them like toys. To have someone do such to parts of himself left him feeling a bit uneasy himself. Oh yes, this thing would have to be destroyed.

If that had been doing well against it, Kadaj didn't want to know what doing poorly would have been like. Maybe blacking out or going insane-- but that wasn't something he wanted to think about right now. He would have preferred the discussion to end entirely so that he could go back to simply waiting for time to pass, but as long as there were still questions left to be answered, it didn't seem like that would happen. Damn big brother.

"You'd have to ask Yazoo himself about how he did or how he recovered, but I think we've both recovered by now," he said slowly, at least appearing to be much calmer now. He was, almost, but he definitely wasn't looking forward to the other things Sephiroth had mentioned they should do. He was all for destroying it, of course, but actively seeking it out when they still didn't know what would kill it hardly appealed to him.

"... You know, it didn't actually seem like it wanted to kill us," he continued after awhile, frowning as he tried to remember exactly what the thing had been doing while both he and Yazoo were under its spell. "It was just... floating there." He made a face, disgusted at how worthless that made him seem for being unable to hit a stationary target. What would Mother say? "The hallway was freezing, too, but I don't think that would have been very effective if it had been aiming for anything more dangerous than frostbite."

"Where is Yazoo? Have you seen him?"

Sephiroth hadn't, but then again, he hadn't been really looking either. It was entirely possible that he had missed the other remnant. He was more interested in the creature the two had taken on and if it were possible to drive it against others. If such a thing disturbed Kadaj so, Sephiroth could only imagine how it would pull at the others from their world.

"It levitated? Or flew?"

He couldn't grasp something not wanting to kill when it had an enemy down and weakened. That simply wasn't in his way of thinking. A nod came at the mention of freezing. That made sense to him along with the psychological elements.

"I wonder if the beasts here can be turned on each other? Drive one enemy into another and defeat both that way?"

At least he was asking for Kadaj's input if Kadaj chose to give it.

Kadaj shook his head. "It might be that he reacted much worse to that thing than I did, but I don't think that's it. Yazoo's too strong for that." He sounded almost proud, but he still couldn't help but worry. "He's probably in the greenhouse right now, wondering where we are," he added with a smile that was only half-forced.

Even that pathetic attempt at cheerfulness faded at the next question, though, and Kadaj couldn't help but shoot his big brother an irritated look for continuing it. "I didn't get a very good look at it, but it... didn't seem like it really touched the floor. It was more like it glided..." He made yet another face, then shrugged his shoulders. "Maybe Yazoo will have a better description for you." Failing that, there was always the bulletin board, but he doubted Sephiroth would approve of asking all the vermin at the institute what they knew about it.

As for the rest of his questions... "Turning them against one another... why not? I don't think monsters of different types would want to work together the way a pack of similar ones would. It depends on how competitive they are for prey, or how angry they are." That had possibilities, but it would be tricky for them to pull off if they wanted to get away unscathed, especially if whatever beast they chose to try it on was smart enough to catch on to what they were doing. Kadaj hadn't met anything that matched that description just yet, but then there was still much he didn't know about the institute.

"Then I will speak to Yazoo later. You have both done quite well."

In what arena Sephiroth didn't say just yet. Against his will, he was impressed with how well Kadaj and Yazoo had done here. They were both alive and relatively well with the mass of enemies that surrounded them. Such hadn't been expected for him. He moved on to the idea of setting up enemy to enemy next, letting the subject of the creature go.

"If we could manage to draw one of those monsters into a pack of our enemies such as those Turks, it would serve us quite well to let it kill or harm them and then we destroy the survivor. The difficulty would be finding one of the powerful ones and drawing it in to where the others are. Making anything angry is not too difficult, especially if they have a low intelligence level. How smart are these creatures that others panic about like the metal helmeted one?"

It was unfortunate that Sephiroth didn't specify just how they'd been doing so well because now Kadaj was going to be wondering about it all day. Mother had to agree with his big brother too, right? If that was the case, he had to know exactly what it was, otherwise he might accidentally stop doing it and somehow upset her. What was it? What?

He was getting annoyed again and it was beginning to make him feel restless. Sitting down wasn't helping much in that department, so he rose to his feet in one fluid movement and began to pace. There, much better.

"I don't know how intelligent they are. I've only come across the one from last night, the salamanders from the night before, and those nurses from when Alex was still around. Those were probably the smartest, I think. Traveling in packs and calling for reinforcements-- did I tell you about them?" He paused in front of his big brother abruptly, then continued pacing again just as quickly. "And then we have the patients that are randomly chosen and brainwashed. I doubt there are many other things lurking the hallways that have a higher level of intelligence and power than that, otherwise there wouldn't be a point in weakening us so much, would there? Mindless slaughter's not nearly as much fun as giving the prey a 'fighting chance'-- before you rip it to shreds, that is."

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Day 25: Sun Room (Fourth Shift)

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