[from here]

Kratos swept the Sun Room as soon as he entered, checking for anything that might be lurking in the shadows. The room was open to the hall outside, but it still felt several degrees colder - his body's way of warning him, perhaps, that this place was dangerous. Funny, considering how much of his time was spent here during the day...

There was nothing to be found, but he didn't believe for a second that things would stay that way if they waited. They needed to keep moving, and quickly.

"The library's to the right, if I remember," he said to Castiel, gesturing toward the closed door with his flashlight. "You go through first; I'll hold up the rear." His hand throbbed; the crystal was slowly stirring from its slumber in anticipation of a fight even though the room was still eerily silent.

[From here.]

"My Exsphere's different from Kratos's," he began. "Mine's... newer. A lot newer, and it was made differently. I'm not sure exactly how it was supposed to be better. Nobody ever stopped to explain that to me. But my Exsphere's supposed to be special. They probably took mine to study it."

They were on the second floor now. Lloyd was pretty sure that was the floor he'd been taken to last night. That meant they were closer to the room where he'd been locked up, strapped down, hurt... He swallowed, trying to steady his breath, and swung the flashlight left to right. Did anything look familiar?

"Exspheres... It's kind of hard to explain if you don't know what mana is, but Exspheres can make people stronger and... and other things. It's... complicated." He didn't even know how to bring up the topic of Cruxis Crystals and angels.

An angel. He had Kratos's Exsphere, and Kratos was an angel. Did that mean Lloyd might turn into an angel, too, if he didn't get his Exsphere back? The question sat hollowly inside his stomach. And on top of it...

My father's an angel. What does that make me?

[ from here ]

On starting down this hallway, Uryuu turned back off his flashlight. It was unnecessary now, with the rooms passing in the expected order. 10, 9, 8... still he felt nothing, and he jeered at himself for trying. What sort of fool attempted the same thing again and again, expecting different results? Some defined that as insanity. How appropriate, given the setting.

A brief mental image seized him, once in which he kicked open every door on his way to F2. Would he look better or worse if he shouted Inoue-san! while doing so? As thin as he looked, his kick had become pretty strong (here, again, his head ached, and he swallowed against bile; the memories that were and weren't his). Perhaps not strong enough to kick down a door in a mental hospital, even if open, and subsequently, the image shifted to the disagreeable reality of him stumbling back, clutching his leg, trying not to curse. Then, still bent over, hobbling forward to meekly twist the door knob.

Yeah, maybe not.

There, F2. Uryuu looked at the number on the door, through the dark, and pretended as though tension did not build in his shoulders and back, as though he wasn't bracing himself for the inevitable. He knocked, then opened the door.

[ briefly for flora! ]