damned_institute | Day 29: Cafeteria, Brunch

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Day 29: Cafeteria, Brunch

Hitsugaya left the chapel no less frustrated than before. The head doctor once again had chosen not to hide his face, yet promised he would be making an appearance at some time in the near future. He didn't like being patient, but there wasn't much choice. Either the head doctor would show his face, or he wouldn't. Renji had already seen him, and knew how to find him. That was enough.

The thought of eating made him slightly nauseous as usual, but he knew he needed to get his strength up. He could either be weak and try to force his way through brunch without eating anything, or he could be smart and actually give himself something to eat. And there was rice. Rice and fruit. He took a heaping pile of rice, and grabbed as much watermelon as he could fit on his plate, then proceeded to an empty table. He scanned the room, watching for Momo. He wasn't exactly looking forward to their conversation, knowing how she'd acted yesterday; however, he knew he had to speak to her, and there was a good chance that she would show more restraint now that the drugs were out of her system.

Thoughtfully he consumed his rice and waited.

[free at the moment, pester if you wish]

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Momo decided she needed to think more on her conversation with Saber before she mentioned any specifics to Hitsugaya. She needed to have things set firmly in her head first, which was a bit of a hard prospect to do right now with the giant headache she had. Again, the shinigami had needed help getting down the stairs to the first floor where the cafeteria was, but she'd come to realize she was more injured than she'd first believed at this point, so she put a lid on her pride for the moment.

She sighed heavily once the nurse helped her into a seat at an unoccupied table at the back of the cafeteria. She coughed, tasting iron as she did, and tried to ignore the small cup the nurse set next to her on the table with a glass of water. Curling the hand of her injured arm into a fist, hidden by the coat, Momo took a tiny sip and swallowed the watery blood down. She should eat, yes, and they had rice, but she didn't have the energy to get up and get it herself. She scowled at the nurse when the woman said something about food and taking her medications (the little cup with two white pills in it).

"No thank you," the shinigami said in a raspy voice. That was the wrong thing to say. The woman berated Momo long enough that the shinigami popped the pills in her mouth and took a drink of water, slipping the white things under her tongue and not swallowing them. She didn't know what the hell these pills were going to do to her.

Somewhat satisfied, the nurse then took a little penlight out and shined it into Momo's bloody left eye. The light hurt and the shinigami flinched, but apparently there'd been enough of a response that the nurse made some kind of acceptable sound and wandered off.

Once the woman was gone, Momo watched her for a moment, wishing her vision would focus anytime now, she spit the white pills back into the cup and set them back on the table. Let the woman yell at her later if she saw the medication sitting there. The shinigami put her good arm up on the table and laid facedown upon it, her hair obscuring her face and the unsightly snake-work of damaged blood vessels that ran down its side thanks to her hair.

The chapel had been a disappointment. Nonappearances on the parts of both Landel and Hinamori had made it basically a waste of her time. But the only thing you could control about such things was your own reaction, so Signum took it in stride. There was no point in feeling wronged by such a small thing.

Besides, she had seen that Momo had written on the bulletin board on her way to the chapel and could expect to meet her now, at the morning meal. She made this her first priority, and by a thorough survey spotted her small (and prone) target between the more distinctive bodies crowding the large cafeteria.

Not the most dignified pose, but she refrained from commenting and instead sat down next to her injured friend. "Good morning, captain," she offered once she was already well seated. There'd be no getting rid of her.

Momo didn't look up when she felt the presence of someone near her. It was a familiar presence so that eliminated any worries on her part of someone trying to take advantage of her physical condition. She turned her head slightly to the right and glimpsed her brunch companion's torso and a bit of pink hair, Signum's presence confirmed just moment's later by the woman's voice.

The shinigami was filled with conflicting emotions seeing the knight there. She was very happy to see her friend, glad she's made it through the night. But at the same time, she was disappointed that she was there and not on the outside of the walls. Well, she supposed she couldn't have it both ways.

Momo slowly managed to get herself into a more upright position, though she only turned partway toward the knight, keeping as much of the left side of her face from the woman's view. It wasn't that she was hiding the injury, per se, but it was more a wish to not make her friend worry. A futile gesture, yes, as Signum would eventually see the latticework across her face and her eye - the knight was too shapr not to notice.

"Report," was all she said, in a raspy voice.

"I left the bus with another patient who'd been fighting when the bus was clear. Hokuto met us immediately afterwards and we reconnoitered part of the wall and the gate as per your instructions." Sadly, this was not an abbreviated version of the previous night's events. Signum was starting to believe those occasional mentions of time dilation during the night.

"The wall is like everything else on the ground floor- built for a psychiatric facility. I could get over it on my own, and anyone could with a ladder and wire cutter. The gate is automatic; I didn't have a chance to try to tamper with it."

Signum considered Momo's mostly-averted face, then added, "I've seen wounds before, Hinamori. You needn't hide them," as gently as she could. She didn't want to come off as totally uncaring... but the fact was, someone just looking a mess wasn't going to affect her much. Momo needed to be focusing on recuperating, not trying to put on a front for Signum's sake.

The fight Signum had on the bus must have been long given how much time had passed before she sent Hokuto to the knight. Or maybe there was some credence to the rumor of time moving differently for each patient each night.

"What of the resistance in the outer yard other than the large birds? Is it your recommendation to pursue action concerning the outer wall?"

Momo sighed. "I am not hiding them, Signum. Not really. I just don't like causing my friends to worry about me," she said, finally turning more toward the knight. She wondered with a morbid sense of curiosity if her iris was visible through the bloody mass that was her eye; she almost wanted a mirror.

"Thank you," she said in a softer tone, reaching for her glass of water, "for following my orders."

Hinamori's face did, in fact, look pretty bad. But... Signum fought with blade and brute strength and fire, at close range. She'd seen and done much worse, in old and dark times seldom dwelt on. It was, as she'd predicted, not enough to bother her.

"There were only the birds," she answered, then moved on quickly to her recommendation. It was something she had thought on through the morning, and had an opportunity to discuss with that woman in the chapel. "At next opportunity we should send a group to scale the wall and search for any defenses at or immediately beyond it. We need to be aware of our strategic options."

At the last Signum looked a bit annoyed, though whether it was at the idea that was a big enough deal to be thanked for or because she had in fact considered disobeying wasn't clear. "I didn't have much of a choice with Hokuto and an injured patient with me," was all she said.

"Are you going to eat?" she asked. She could get food for both of them.

"I will pass on your recommendation to Hitsugaya when i speak with him. I agree it's something that needs done, but we need to coordinate with Mustang-san for it." She paused coughing a little, and considered how much of certain things were on a need-to-know basis and how much trouble she'd get into for telling the knight things that she supposedly didn't need to know. When she spoke, her voice dropped so it wouldn't carry.

"Mustang-san has a key that unlocks the front doors. Last time we tried getting through, it was guarded by a large winged lion. Very strong, though we were mostly unarmed at the time." She shook her head a little. "It was my first night."

"I will recommend to Hitsugaya that your team assist Mustang-san in getting through the front door again as well as attempting to breech the perimeter," the shinigami stated.

Her tone softened again. "You always have a choice, and to be honest, a part of me wanted you to disobey my order." She smiled. "I'm glad you didn't. My battle was not a place for Hokuto to be." She was thankful she'd read the knight correctly.

"I suppose I could eat. Would you mind?" The shinigami gestured to her right shoulder in explanation. "Just some rice with chopsticks. And a little fish if it appears edible." She'd be damned if she was going to resort to Western eating utensils for rice just because she had to sue her offhand.

"It doesn't look like it was a great place for anyone to be," she commented. The entire idea that there was value to keeping her from danger annoyed Signum, but here it was true.

"I didn't know anyone had anything like that," she said thoughtfully, referring to the key It was something interesting to know, not least of all because it implied the possible availability of other keys for other locked doors. And the possible existence of more secrets between the patients, but that was a different discussion. "Do you know how he got it?"

"Well, tell me when I get back," she said, standing to head to the food line.

Momo watched Signum's passage to the food line, her thoughts drifting away from the matter of the key and to Hitsugaya. She decided she'd punch Renji in the arm the nxt time she saw him for being wrong. Assuming she didn't blush bright red at the same time. She really should just stop worrying about it and focus on her duty, but damnit all, it was so hard to NOT think about it anymore. It would have been nice to blame someone other than herself for that.

The knight returned and Momo nodded her thanks as she picked the paper-wrapped package of cheap sticks. She fumbled them open, breaking them unevenly using her teeth as an aide and fashioned them into a semblance of an eating utensil. The rice didn't stick enough for this to be easy and she swore if anyone decided to make fun of her for not suing a fork, she was going to stab them with the sticks.

She attempted a few bites, getting more to fall onto the table than in her mouth before she sat the sticks down in frustration for the moment. She sighed and then looked over at the knight.

"I believe he found it on the corpse of one of the nurses," she finally answered. "There are a couple people who have keys and we ahve little knowledge as to where they go."

"Hmm. I suppose when we've finished out mapping of the grounds we'll begin sending teams to try all the locked doors?" It was what she'd do, and the fact that there were rooms the institute took special precautions to keep them from should be reason enough for them to try to gain access.

And... "Do you need any help?" Signum somehow doubted Momo would be willing to let her feed her, but she figured she should at least offer.

The shinigami chose to not answer Signum's inquiry about the locked doors as it seemed like a rhetorical question to her. It was a natural progression of one aspect of the plan anyways. She simply nodded just to make sure the knight understood she'd been heard.

Momo was eyeing her food, deciding her plan of attack upon it, when the knight offered to help her. It was an innocent enough question, meaning to be helpful, but unfortunately the shinigami was holding tightly onto the little pride she had left.

She snatched the sticks up, narrowing her eyes in anger. "I may not be capable of anything else, but I can feed myself," she said in clipped tones. She stabbed the sticks into the rice, fumbled a moment, but then managed to get a decent chunk of it secured. Her hand was shaky as she brought it to her mouth, but make it she did.

It was a small, meaningless victory, but it was still a victory.

"You're capable of a lot, and you'll be back to doing it the sooner if you accept help now." Signum responded coolly. She was a bit annoyed at the response, and a bit annoyed at herself for not correctly gaging the emotional effect of her injuries on the shinigami.

There was nothing good about being injured, but it came with being a warrior. Strong knights lingered in beds. One of the facts of a life of conflict was that you were unlikely to spend all of it in optimal condition. With a worse injury, Momo might have ended up totally incapable of feeding herself- would she have then starved?

But the problem was, while Signum would not have acted the same way, she still knew plenty about pride. She hadn't been injured, but her uselessness in her fight on the bus the previous night had angered her. Scars were a trophy in triumph, but in defeat they could be a reminder of failures of skill. Momo's displacement of shame from the events that had produced the injuries to the injuries themselves, if that was what it was, was something Signum would have quashed out of pragmatism, but she could certainly understand it.

As soon as the words left Signum's mouth, the shinigami dropped her eyes. She was upset that she was letting everything get to her. She was upset that she let on how injured she actually was. And even more, she knew she wouldn't be able to argue with Hitsugaya when he ordered her to sit the night out.

"I'm sorry, Signum-kun. You didn't deserve that," she said with a sigh. "And you're right." She looked up. "But I can eat without assistance. It's just difficult and for peace of mind, it's something I need to do on my own without resorting to using my fingers. She managed a small smile. "Thank you for the offer, though."

"I would be in a better mood if the majority of my injuries were from the enemy and not myself. Gigai were not designed to contain reiatsu of my level. I'm slowly tearing it apart," she said, picking the sticks up again. She then gestured to her immobile shoulder.

"That's the only one from him." Her brow furrowed in displeasure. "Bastard shot me in the back unprovoked." Coward.

Thinking about accepting help, she pointed to the tiny cup containing the two white pills she'd spit out. "Do you know what... Vicodan does?" She then focused on the fish, carefully securing herself some; it was much easier than the rice.

Signum frowned disapprovingly. Shooting people in the back was generally good tactics, but that didn't mean she had to like it. That was how Aria Lotte had cut her down... pretending to be her ally, exploiting her connection to the Book, and attacking from concealment. What Momo had said about damaging her own body was bad, too- she'd realized that the girl was suffering some internal damage from using her magic, but either the damage was accumulating or the girl was pushing further and further beyond her limits. She needed to cut back or she'd destroy her own effectiveness, but how could you tell someone not to give their all in the situation they were in?

Signum did in fact know the drug, courtesy of Hayate's frequent stays in the hospital until the Reinforce's magic had allowed her full recovery from the damage the Book had inflicted. "It's a painkiller. A strong one, I believe."

Momo eyed the pills suspiciously. She trusted Signum knew what she was talking about, but that didn't mean she liked the idea of accepting a drug from their enemies. On the other hand, a painkiller would be a wondrous relief right now.

If they really were what the nurse said they were.

Now she was just being paranoid. Setting her eating utensils aside, she picked up the cup and brought it close to her good eye. Now that the pills were in focus, she could see the tiny words stamped on them that looked an awful lot like Vicodan and some number that had dissolved too much from her saliva to read.

"Huh. Do you know what the side effects are?" She contemplated taking them. She really didn't want to but if they would help...

"No." Signum had picked up the name of the drug, but Hayate hadn't been taking it so she hadn't had occasion to learn its effects.

She folded her arms. "They control everything we eat and drink, anyway. I think anything they give us openly during the day will be appropriate to our conditions." Signum's wasn't the most trusting mind around, and she probably would have thought twice about taking the pills herself, but her reason told her they were probably safe, and in the absence of any sort of strong instinct to the contrary her reason would inform her advice.

She had a point.

Momo stared at the pills a bit longer. "Alright," she said and then took them, making a bit of a face as she swallowed them with some water.

"Keep an eye on me over the next couple hours, please? In case there are mental side effects. I'd prefer to be stopped if I try to do something... stupid again," she said with a glance over at Hitsugaya. It was pathetic; she needed to talk to him about her command decisions, but she really just wanted to avoid him.

She sighed and went back to her food.

"Aa." Signum nodded her agreement.

She followed Momo's gaze. "What," she began to ask with a slight smirk, "is 'stupid' where the young captain is concerned?"

Momo eeped a little at Signum catching her glance at Hitsugaya and her cheeks colored. She hadn't meant for the knight to see that. She busied herself with her food as she considered whether to answer that question or not.

"Anything that resembles an interest in him beyond that of a superior officer. Such is highly inappropriate in the situation we are all in," she mumbled, her face still flushed.

"Not that he's capable of seeing... anything but duty anyways," she added on, sounding a little bitter.

"He does seem a bit dense." Not that she was one to talk. Her personal life would, in most eyes, leave a lot to be desired.

As to whether it was appropriate, she didn't have much of an opinion. Certainly there were bigger things to worry about, but the days were long and she could see the merits to an argument that there was no point in making their captivity more joyless than their captors did.

"A bit?" She laughed then, a short painful laugh that turned into a cough. "I asked him to hold me and he asked me WHY."

She stabbed viciously at her fish, glaring at it as the thing disintegrated into mush. "That's the last time I listen to Renji," she muttered. She then did a decent job mimicking Renji's gruff tones, "Guys generally know what to do. We have something of a talent for it."

She dropped the impersonation, her use of vulgarities indicating how much it was bothering her. "Know what to do, my ass. He'd actually have to have feelings first."

She pushed her food away and rest her chin upon her arm on the table. "Why am I telling you this anyways?"

"The right feelings." Signum hadn't touched her food so far, and instead stared at Momo, trying to decided how involved she wanted to be in this. She'd always thought it best to leave other people's personal affairs to them, but now that she'd been drawn into the conversation her tendency to play old-and-wise and give advice was pushing for an expansion into hitherto unexplored realms where her grounding was a bit less solid. She knew people pretty well in general, to be sure, but relationships were not her specialty.

What finally kept her talking, though, wasn't so much the impulse to give her advice or view in general as the fact that giving them to Momo in particular had become something between her job and hobby after the last few days. "He's known you for a long time, correct?" It sounded like it...

And yet here she was, still talking to Signum about her Hitsugaya problems. Maybe it was that the knight had no vested interest in the situation nor did she know about her ~~obsession~~ love for Aizen. Regardless, she continued to talk, only minorly conscious of Signum's focus upon her.

"Yeah. He came to Rukongai about a decade after I did. He lived with his grandma next door to me and my uncle," Momo answered. She shrugged. "All the other kids were terrified of him. He was a bratty little kid, yeah, but that was really only around me. Around others he was pretty quiet."

She paused and tilted her head a little. "I didn't understand back then why they were scared of him."

"I don't," Signum reminded Momo. Who would be scared of Hitsugaya? Surely he was a capable warrior, but he didn't look intimidating... but there was a lot about this society of spirits she didn't understand.

Momo had the grace to look a bit sheepish as Signum reminded her that she didn't understand the world of the shinigami. "Sorry about that," she said. "I'll try to explain it without using the shinigami terms for things."

She took a sip of water before settling herself in to explain. "A soul is a lot like the human body, some are simply stronger than others due to variables not directly controlled by the soul itself. Just like you have a human athlete that is a natural that doesn't require a lot of training to be good, in Soul Society there are souls that naturally have a high level of spiritual energy - what we call reiatsu."

The shinigami put a hand to her chest. "This is what I am. And just like that kind of human athlete, I become even elevate my level through hard work."

"But that is only part of it," she said, pausing to take another sip of water. "In many ways, the soul is like the human mind. Some people are just born with amazing intelligence. Every once in a while a child genius is born. Such a child has a vast intellect that is already elevated well above the average person, and as they grow and learn, they learn at a phenomenal rate, quickly surpassing everyone around them, including adults."

"The same is true in Soul Society. Hitsugaya was a child prodigy, a spiritual genius per se. His reiatsu levels were extremely high and as he grew, they grew faster than his control did. He was a veritable powder-keg and when he got emotional, he lost the little control he did have. The results weren't... pretty. So everyone was scared of him, afraid to be around him in case he lost control."

She sighed. "Everyone... except me."

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