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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No family name? He might have his reasons for not telling it--or, less likely, he might not have one. This was interesting... Hokuto sipped her chocolate milk and thought for a second before asking, "What year are you from? I'm from 1992--AD, if it's really been a while." She smiled. "Heisei 4, if you want to put it that way."

Hopefully the question and her own answer wouldn't shock him too much... of course, if he'd experienced a Nightshift already, this was nothing.

When she asked where he was from, Haseo had expected the name of a specific grade level (like she'd asked for a school year) not a time or date. No matter what happened Haseo had never thought time would factor into any of this--that just made it more of a headache. "That was over ten years before I was even born. It's 2019." He'd never even heard of Hisei, or whatever she'd mentioned to go along with it.

"You know," the rogue sighed, "this is giving me one hell of a headache."

At least he didn't have to bother asking the question of if she'd ever heard of "The World" or not; It hadn't even been invented at that time.

"I get that a lot, here," Hokuto said dryly. "I'm only seventeen, but to most people being born in the seventies makes me sound old." If she'd lived, by most peoples' times she would have been in her thirties. What would she have looked like...? She really might never know--it was subtle, but even when she died she and Subaru had been starting to look a little less identical. Now, you could tell they were siblings, but they couldn't pass for each other anymore. It made her sad, too.

When Haseo said he was getting a headache, she leaned over as if about to check for a fever--she would have, but remembered some people didn't like to be touched (and she didn't know him). "Just overwhelmed, or are you hurt?" She watched him closely; while she was hesitant to ask for painkiller on her behalf or anyone else's, considering, if he needed to rest he should go do that.

It occurred to her that he'd been born around 2003 or so... and he said he was from 2019? Seriously, he was younger than she was?

When he went on about having a headache, most would've considered it his usual mannerisms and wouldn't have taken it to such a litteral degree. Haseo most often got a headache when things were explained so fast that he couldn't comprehend them fast enough or when things annoyed him. In this case, though, it was simply that the facts didn't make any sense at all.

To have the headache be taken seriously, and the fact of being a little personal-space concious around females, he leaned back slightly flushed in the face. "I don't need some stranger worrying about me." He spouted, almost sounding angry at her concern. Though he, quickly after clearing his throat, answered the question quite politely. "I'm fine, This is just a lot to process all at once."

Quite honestly, he wasn't sure if he should be taking it to literally. With all these things that didn't make sense--the dates, the monsters and everything else--he had to wonder if this place was like Tartarga. Maybe it was just a jumble of nonsense memories, that gathered here in this place and manifested in some sort of physical form.

Yeah.. That made a lot of sense, come to think about it. If that was the case, maybe there was some way out of this weird place. Haseo thought for a moment before prompting a reasonable question from someone new. "So..why is everyone here?"

Hokuto just smiled and wagged a finger, as if scolding him. "Did I ask if I could be concerned about you? We're all in this together, so we need to watch out for each other."

His question made her pause for a second, uncertain how to answer. The problem was, even those who had been here since the beginning only had theories, and she hadn't been here that long at all. "Nobody knows for sure," she admitted. "Our best guess is that we're being experimented on--but why, and where it's going, is anyone's guess." She couldn't do anything about it, so personally she tried not to think about it.

Though Haseo didn't voice it, his thoughts were along the line of how old she sounded when she scolded him. The girl didn't seem any older than he was, the time lapse between the two sure seemed obvious enough. Extrovertedly, the rogue only raised an eyebrow in response, followed by a careless shrug.

Experimented on, though... If she barely knew or had to guess at that then she most likely wouldn't know why they were experimenting on the people there. Haseo answered a little less serious, "Oh," he made a vague gesture in the air as if to casually wave off the news "Guess the crazy people here have a reason for it then."

So did Unit 731. Hokuto didn't want to say it, but what she'd heard of MU sounded a lot like the same kind of research. "I can understand why some people like learning for its own sake, but this is going too far," she said, as lightly as she could.

Crazy was right; the people running this place might as well be mad scientists straight out of horror anime. Actually, she wouldn't be entirely surprised if they were.

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[[Unit 731 (大日本帝国陸軍第731 部隊) (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unit_731) was a covert biological warfare research and development unit of the Imperial Japanese Army that undertook lethal human experimentation during the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937–1945) and World War II. It was responsible for some of the most notorious war crimes carried out by Japanese personnel.]]

"Yeah, I'd say making people lab rats against their will is a little over the edge." Couldn't argue with that point really, and he had no desire to.

"So, you know all this and you're still here? Why haven't you tried to get out or something?" After all, she said they were 'in this together' after the gave him the little finger-wag. If they were so "in it together", why didn't they hatch some escape plan? There were always powers in numbers, not to mention the place was practicaly abandoned at night from what he'd seen.

Or maybe she was scared of the little monsters that went bump in the night.

Hokuto raised her eyebrows. "What makes you think we haven't? Last night my group was looking for a way to climb the outer wall--which we usually can't even get to. We ran out of time before we could get any further."

She wasn't about to explain that she didn't really want to leave; she didn't think he'd understand. No, she didn't like it here, but no matter what Momo told her she figured it was better than the alternative. And she was needed, especially by Subaru, so--she wasn't going anywhere for a while.

If they'd been working to get out for a while (she made it sound like a while, though he didn't really know how long any of the people had actually been there) they'd been doing a pretty poor job of it. How hard could getting out of a place like this be? Yeah, the staff there was pretty attentive during the day, but everyone was gone at night.

In any case, he wasn't in the mood to talk about things like that--he'd have to deal with it soon enough anyway. "So," in an effort to change the subject he veered the conversation away from mention of mad scientists or escapes of any kind. "I've been cooped up in my room since I got here a couple days ago. What do people around here do all day?"

"Anything we can think of," Hokuto said with a shrug. "We've got a little more freedom on weekends, but that just means we can go into the recreation rooms--I don't think we're allowed in anything but the library and Sun Room very often during the week. I've only been in Arts and Crafts once." Discounting her group's code, of course!

"There's no school, if you're wondering," she added. If he was listed as a kid, anyway. "So you're on your own for getting to know people. Are you into joining groups? It's a good idea at night."

Though some people would think of it to be a little crazy, he was dissapointed there was no school. His dissapointment probably echoed in his tone. "Oh." Granted, at home he finished the lessons at such a pace he had to find other hobbies, but without it she was right in saying he was on his own for getting to know people. He was terrible at getting to know people like that.

"Groups?" like school clubs or something? At night especially, "Oh, you mean to beat those monster things?" if they were monsters like The World, they'd be a piece of cake to handle. Haseo didn't need a group or party to beat up a couple of pathetic looking monsters; The previous night he'd only seen one of them.

"Yeah. I'm a black belt and I would've had trouble with even the zombie rats here if I'd been alone and unarmed. What kind of weapons are you trained with?" He didn't seem alarmed, so maybe he was an experienced fighter; he definitely looked like one.

On the other hand, he might just be overconfident after having seen some of the weaker-looking monsters. She hadn't been too impressed at first by the rats her group had fought, but even though the battle went well she'd still come away a little subdued. If he wasn't already, she wanted him to be prepared as much as possible when Nightshift started.

Going by "The World" standards, Haseo had proficiency in four weapons. In the real world, however, he only knew what he needed to defend himself adiquately. Haseo hailed from a class called "The Adept Rogue"--a weapon tactician that was a jack of all trades, capable of weilding up to three weapons whereas any typical class could only use one. Haseo, however, was able to use four because of an .."accident" he had.

The rogue scratched at his cheek as he named off the weaponry, "Well, there's the dual short sword, broadsword, scythe, and dual guns. Oh, and I guess there's magic casting too, though I never really use it." Not unless it was an emergency anyway.

Haseo shrugged. "The monsters that I've seen didn't look that impressive." He hadn't actually been forced to fight anything quite yet, but the creature he'd narrowly missed the night before didn't look that tough.

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Day 29: Cafeteria, Brunch

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