damned_institute | Day 27: Library

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Day 27: Library

Libraries, he'd found, were rarely as dull as people made them out to be. Though he felt no magic in these tomes, they were still full of useful information. Maybe some of them could tell him a little bit more about this world he'd landed himself in.

For that matter, why hadn't he run into any of the others yet? They'd all been fairly close together when they'd left Rekord, but he hadn't seen a trace of any of them. He was able to communicate easily with the people here though, which led him to believe Mokona was within a mile or so. Unless the ones running this little game had some other way to let all these other-worldly people communicate amongst themselves. In which case, the others could be very far away indeed.

The library had that wonderful smell of old books, and Fai traced his fingers along the shelves, skimming titles and pulling books that struck his fancy. Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz, The War of the Worlds, and with a smile, he found Bram Stoker's Dracula as well. Raven had been telling the truth then, in spite of his own lies. Ought to be a good start. He sat leisurely at one of the tables and began flipping through his selections.

[waiting for Tamaki~]

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That sounded vaguely insulting somehow, but it shouldn't be, since he was equally unable to promise where he'd be tonight.

"Well... someone brought me two lawnmower blades. I'm going to use those and the frying pans to try to fashion swords." Usopp spoke quietly too. "Well, swordy things, anyhow. I want to make a slingshot for myself. I need to make more flour smoke bombs. And Sanji said that the juice wouldn't turn into anything drinkable, but I'm still not sure it's not burnable, so I'm going to be trying to make..." He hesitated, glancing around, then leaned in close to whisper. "... a flamethrower." He didn't think of the fruit--that was for eating, mostly. For flinging at an enemy, in desperate times. Then again, everything was for flinging at an enemy if things got desperate.

Sai wasn't sure how one would go about making proper weaponry out of lawnmower blades and cooking pans, but perhaps he pirate knew something he didn't. Then a slingshot and "smoke" bombs... Usopp had unique tastes in weaponry.

"A flamethrower?" he frowned, matching the sniper's whisper. "For a weapon?" he couldn't imagine what else he would want it for.

Usopp raised an eyebrow. "Well, it's not to clean my teeth."

He leaned back a little. "I was thinking of other things too. Maybe making nets, or those things where you have two weights on the end of a strip of cloth so it kind of binds someone's legs... I don't remember what those are called.

"I think we need two kinds of weapons... weapons for the human-like monsters around here" which included a few of the patients, "and weapons for the animal-ish monsters. Still, it's easy to say that..." He trailed off, frowning a bit, as though at a private thought. But despite the apparent sudden funk he added, "And body armor. Just wearing extra layers alone might help some, but we need something better."

"I would think the type of weapon needed would depend more on the person using it than the type of enemy being fought, but I can see where you're coming from." Sai tilted his head, thinking for a moment. "Perhaps we're used to different styles of combat."

He remembered Usopp's makeshift armor from the night before. Something like that would weight someone down more than anything. "A lightweight mesh," he said, recalling the usual light armor of the ninja (if they wore any at all), "worn under the clothing. That provides some extra protection, but I don't know how you would come by it."

"Yeah, I guess that's a factor too." Usopp agreed, sighing. "People want a weapon that they know how to use. I'm used to... just kind of doing whatever I can with whatever I have. But I've never been trained to fight. My crewmate Sanji needs shoes, since he was trained to fight with his feet, and Zoro needs swords... That's why there's such a demand on swords too, Roy said. Because most of the people here who were trained to fight know how to use them."

I wonder if he remembers what we talked about... probably not, he was pretty out of it. I think he was unconcious by then. Even though his own memory of the latter part of that night was blurry, Usopp couldn't forget having made a promise, yet another item he had to get or make somehow.

"Still, we've all got to make do right now, don't we? For weapons or armor. I know that some people would rather just not be weighed down, but the clothes here are pretty lightweight as it is, and I'm really frail. Not like you, or my crewmates. I think I need protection. I thought of it my first night, but then I quit, and it wasn't long after that that we were wading in leeches... You never know what'll be useful. It's better to be safe than sorry."

"I'm sure you're stronger than you think," Sai responded with a smile. The young man had managed to stay conscious for a good period of time after the struggle against the leeches. "We'll find something better to protect you, though. I'm sure."

He turned to the bookshelves, glancing over the contents without any real interest. "And you're right. We all have to make do. A good ninja should be able to work with limited supplies if necessary."

"That's right!" Apparently inspired by Sai's words, Usopp raised his free hand in a fist, still holding onto his copy of Gulliver's Travels. "A good ninja or a good pirate has to be ready to handle any situation! No matter what the odds, or how ill-equipped, he struggles through to victory over his enemy! Even if facing an army of knife-wielding crazed nurses made half out of fire and half out of acid, the pirate... or ninja... will find a way to defeat his opponent and obtain his goal!"

Usopp lowered his fist to smile at Sai. "Right?"

Sai smiled back, though Usopp's enthusiasm went over his head. "Right," he nodded. He wondered for a moment if the pirate had ever faced such nurses, but put it aside as another one of his stories. Usopp had quite an imagination - something Sai lacked.

"I will keep my eyes open for anything that will be useful to you," he added.

"Thanks!" Usopp hesitated, though he was still grinning. "Listen... would a knife work for you? Or something out of wood or plastic, that's carved?"

That he'd spoken without any context didn't even occur to him, because the question had been lingering for so long. He didn't want to go to Roy, and even if he had to, it would wind up being as part of a group. Their little crew appealing for three swords, because everyone in the universe needs swords.

But if he couldn't make it himself, and there was no one he knew that he'd be willing to steal it from... maybe he could trade Roy something. He'd agreed to work with Cooking sometime, right?

"Mm?" Sai wasn't sure when Usopp had suddenly decided to offer him weaponry also. "Well, yes. I suppose. Or something that can be thrown - like kunai. I'm already somewhat armed, though," he pointed out. True, the gardening tools he had weren't exactly proper fighting tools, but they were better than nothing. "And I can work without weapons. I think it would be better to equip those who rely more heavily on such things first."

Right. He didn't remember. That wasn't a big surprise--Usopp found it a lot easier to remember the parts up to when he'd started moving around again himself, and Sai hadn't stopped moving until he'd practically collapsed. "So, what's a kunai like? I need to work on a lot of things, but I want to make sure my friends and crewmates are equipped before I think about giving things to strangers."

But Yuber was his 'ally,' not really 'friend' or 'crewmate,' and Usopp was fairly sure at least one of those sword-like objects he would be putting together was going to some person named "Cloud" that Usopp had never met. Strangers.

But still not quite mass-production like Roy. It wasn't a total lie.

"Ah.. a kunai. It's like a double edged throwing knife - the most basic of a ninja's arsenal. They have a ring on the handle for attaching things such as explosive tags." Sai attempted to draw out the basic shape with one finger on the cover of a book.

"Any sharpened throwing tool might do, though. There may not be anything like kunai here. What about shuriken?" If Usopp hadn't heard of kunai, he probably hadn't heard of shuriken either, but it was worth asking about.

"I see. Yeah, it should be possible to make something like that out of just about anything, not just metal, so long as you have something sturdy enough to carve with." Usopp rubbed his chin, considering the shape that Sai had demonstrated and which remained in his mind after the motions ended. "Shuriken'd be even easier, I bet! As long as they were balanced. Just sharp and round and pointy, right?"

Usopp's brief sojourns from the joys of pirate adventure novels into the occasional ninja-related novel hadn't included learning any massive details on what actual ninjas did, but throwing stars were so basic to every description of the ninja that he remembered them.

Surikens were indeed sharp, round, and pointy. Though this wasn't enough of a description to make Sai positive that Usopp knew what he was talking about, it was close enough. The pirate was at least fairly competent.

He nodded in response to just about everything the other man said. "Yes. Thank you." This was a good partnership - would be highly beneficial to both of them if things worked out. Was that the way most friendships worked?

"It's no problem," Usopp answered, adding a bit awkwardly, "I still owe you for helping me and Luffy get the soldering iron, so it's only fair that you get some of the benefits from us having it."

Even if, thus far, nothing he'd thought of for Sai involved the soldering iron. It was the idea that mattered. "Uh... do you think any of your teammates will need anything? Or are they taking care of things in-house?"

For the first time, Usopp wondered if Sai was jealous. After all, Usopp's friends knew him, and their connection wasn't any different just because of different time streams, but Sai's companions didn't even know who he was. Even if Sai claimed to be without emotions, Usopp thought he could recognize loneliness.

Sai took a moment to think about his teammates. None of them had specific weapons that they used. "They could probably do with some throwing items as well, if you can." Sasuke seemed to have already found some of his own, and he'd had a sword created as well, so he was set better than anyone.

"Someone else from my world arrived today," he then thought to add. "Naruto and Sakura's team leader. A more senior jounin than myself." Someone who recognized him, which made things all the more odd.

"Wow, new people from both our worlds. I wonder if there's a connection," Usopp wondered out loud, but answered himself, "Probably not." He resisted the urge to ask what a jounin was; the 'senior' explained enough, and he figured anything-nin meant a kind of ninja.

"Well, I'll try to find something to make lots of throwing stuff. I think it'll be easier to find wood or plastic to use. Ashton promised a while back on the bulletin to get me some wood, but I don't think he's had the free time--I haven't communicated with him in a while. Anyway, something like that we can make out of almost anything." Usopp paused in his out-loud thought process. "Do you have any ideas?"

"New patients seem to arrive in shifts," Sai pointed out. "Do you suppose there's a set number of worlds that they'll pull from?" In any other place, such a sentence would have been unusual. Here, nothing was usual.

Usopp's next question made him pause again in thought. "Sasuke-kun improvised with some of the eating utensils, I think," he offered.

"I don't know--it seems to be a whole lot, how would we be able to tell if they did have some limit on the worlds? For everyone like you and me, who has buddies around, there seems to be at least one or two people who haven't got anyone else from their home. Luffy was alone for a long time. That's a whole lot of worlds, all together. We probably should call them dimensions, since some people say they come from places where they're used to more than one world, just not this one." In all, the idea really didn't faze Usopp that badly, especially now that he'd had plenty of time to think about it. So long as there was no sign that they might fall off this dimension to a horrible doom at any moment, he was perfectly fine with the alternate dimensions idea. Since they'd gotten here somehow, there had to be a way to get back as well. It was just that doing so required figuring this place out, and figuring this place out required exploring, and exploring required weapons for self-defense.

Maybe somebody would finally arrive here who could build some kind of magic space-and-time-sailing ship out of the stuff in the kitchen, instead of Usopp's trinkets. Now that would be useful.

"The forks and spoons?" Usopp frowned a bit as he thought. "Wouldn't they be oddly balanced for throwing?" He wasn't an expert fighter, but he did know aerodynamics thanks to his specialty. "I wonder if it'd be better if we just flattened some. That shouldn't be too hard." Hey, they could put a fork down, put a book on top of it, and then Usopp could sit on it all night while he worked on other projects.

[Made of fail tonight, sorry. ^^;;]

"I don't know about the spoons," Sai gave it some thought. "But if you could shape metal at all, the cupped part of the spoon can be broken off and the handle sharpened. And yes... a fork could be flattened and the prongs bent into a point." The more he thought about it, the more useful the cutlery seemed. It was no wonder they were supplied with plastic ones a good most of the time.

One had to get inventive when it came to making weapons in a place like this. Usopp had the imagination for that sort of thing while Sai worked with the practical. Perhaps they really could help with equipping the other patients. That would benefit everyone in the whole, wouldn't it?

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Day 27: Library

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