damned_institute | Day 30: Cafeteria, Breakfast

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Day 30: Cafeteria, Breakfast

Hitsugaya woke with a start.

His entire body ached, but the pain was nowhere near as bad as it had been the night before. His injuries had been tended two with clean gauze and bandages, and he found every movement wasn't agony. He wasn't in the best of shape, but thanks to the miracle of landel's strange time distortion, he had mostly recovered from the vile poison without having to waste anyone else's talents.

And in his hand, still...there was the key.

He dressed quickly, sliding the key onto the key ring from his desk drawer and stuck it into his pocket. Whether the key stood to gain them anything or not, it stood as a vital reminder that they could succeed in this place. There was hope, as insignificant as it often seemed. They could beat this place.

That small shred of hope made getting up worth it.

The nurse who escorted him to breakfast was cheerful, and commented idly about how wonderful it was to see young Tommy Winters up and about again after his unfortunate run-in with a bad case of food poisoning. He smirked slightly, knowing that any lies the institute forced into their heads were only that: lies. He wouldn't buy it for a second. And on top of that, the concept of muffins sounded almost appetizing. While he still preferred his authentic Japanese cuisine, the food here was slowly becoming more and more bearable. He would have preferred a warm bowl of sweet nattou over rice over the mufffins, but they would do. The plain yogurt and fruit, on the other hand, was excellent. He piled his plate high with fruit as usual, and got several small bowls of yogurt as well.

Finding the most convenient table to the end of the food line, he took a seat and scanned for the new arrivals. New arrivals meant people who would be lost and confused. Renji did a good job of making a bulliten post last time...he should recommend abarai-fukutaicho do the same again this time.

[Waiting for Angel]

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So, she didn't know anything about this either apparently. That...wasn't good. Or was it? True, he was in a mental institution being told that his entire life was a lie.

But what if it were true? His past two years with Ryoko and the others had been...stressful to say the least. He'd been shot at, crushed, blown in half and just generally had a bad time of it. He should be thankful that it was all just a dream. Still, something seemed very strange. If it were all just a dream, why did all the memories feel so real? Tenchi sighed and tried to collect himself.

"I'm sorry, but I don't know. When I woke up, this was what I was wearing. Apparently, it's a uniform for this place. You are wearing one as well, Miss...?"

He let the sentence trail off, realizing that he had never caught her name.

He was right, everyone was wearing them, but what did he mean the uniform for 'this place'...?

And then, abruptly, his final words entered her conscious. Like the final setting of the sun, her eyes tracked downwards to her own body. She was...

She was wearing these rags too. That was bad enough. But it meant somebody had been in her room even before that annoying woman, somebody had dressed her, somebody had undressed her, somebodyhadundressedher...

It could be said that she lacked certain elements of human modesty. She was not, in fact, embarrassed. It could also be said that, quite inappropriately, she fancied herself some sort of pure-hearted maiden anyway. She was, most certainly, scandalized. But ultimately these did not matter. Because before either of those things she knew that she was a person to be respected, and this was an affront to her dignity as the elder of these children.

There was a sound, the catching of a breath in the throat, a scream of rage that rage itself killed. Her shoulders shook. And then, as her rage crystallized into a certain course of action, she stilled.

Insults were punished, one way or another. Her hand shot up. They would...

...suddenly, she felt very woozy. What was...?

Tenchi saw the young woman begin to do...something. It made the hairs on the back of his neck come to attention. Impressive, considering his rat-tail that draped down to the nape of his neck. In a moment, though, the feeling was gone and the girl looked as though she was going to faint.

"Um, miss? Are you alright? You don't look so well."

Standing slightly, he was ready to leap to her aid if need be. Or leap out of the way. Years with Ryoko had conditioned him for both courses of action.

She didn't quite fall, but she sagged forward heavily, the raised hand falling to the edge of the table to steady her.

Something was blocking the expression of her magic, definitely... and on top of that, her blood was weak. Too weak. She'd been woken earlier than she liked, but she'd still just had a rest of a week. Her magic shouldn't falter. Especially not from something so simple...

She was confused. The curse of the True Runes, immortality... even for those that embodied change, the wearer themselves became static, and she knew her Rune and the being it had made of her very well. These kinds of unexpected, unexplained things simply did not happen to her.

"I'm..." she responded. She didn't know.

Tenchi's face relaxed slightly. It didn't matter whether this was a dream, an illusion, or if it was reality. He was stuck here, wherever here was. It was time to stop worrying about his own predicament. He didn't know what the young woman had been trying to do, but it had obviously tired her.

Smiling, he handed her one of his apples.

"Here," he said. "You'd better eat. I don't know what you were trying to do, but it looks like you're too tired to do it."

Belatedly, it occurred to him to introduce himself.

"Oh, and my name is Tenchi. Tenchi Masaki. At least, I think it is."

Sierra shook off, or at least ignored, the feeling of weakness and glared at the apple and the attached boy. She was not in a good mood right now, and his offer felt aggravatingly like some form of pity... but...

In the end she took the fruit, for a second almost gracious, though that air was quickly spoiled by her dark mood and resultant expression. She couldn't turn away a gift, even a poor one.

"You think?" she asked, wondering at his introduction. This was all thoroughly beyond her experience, and her failure to end the offending situation by intimidation through magical force had left her temporarily stalled.

Dealing with this one was going to be difficult, he could tell. She was about as surly as Ryoko on a bad day and as arrogant as Ayeka could be. Still, dealing with the both of them had given Tenchi and obscene amount of patience.

"I can't tell anymore. The nurse called me something else when I woke up this morning. She said that my memories weren't real. Even so, the way I see things is that worrying won't help me," he said, still smiling. His smile dropped though as he thought of something.

"To tell the truth, though, I've been feeling kind of strange myself. I feel...heavier...somehow. Something strange is going on here."

Tenchi had been trying to reach out for some of his Juraian abilities, but had received nothing. He wasn't terribly surprised, it wasn't like he was in control of them, but he wasn't even getting a tingle.

In addition, his physical body felt like it was being restrained. Some of his Juraian abilities included an increased reserve of strength and speed, but that wellspring of power felt as if it had dried up.

It was an odd sensation. He had gotten so used to that feeling that it was a part of him. Now that it was gone, he felt empty.

"Could this be another one of Washu's experiments...?" He mumbled to himself unconsciously.

An alien thought, from her perspective. She bore the Moon Rune; who could she be but Sierra the Elder? She'd merely thought the woman who'd woken her had been sent for someone else and made some typically stupid mistake.

But he was right, something was strange. "The building wasn't this big before," she agreed.

Having not interrogated her nurse but instead wasted all her energy on the protests of an indignant customer, she wasn't even on the same page as Tenchi. To her this whole mystery was an entirely nonsensical one.

Tenchi sat munching his food quietly for a few moments. Still, the thoughts wouldn't stop. Somehow, no matter how he looked at the situation, it was either Washu's fault or, through her, Mihoshi's. Eventually, the poor high schooler finally snapped.

Jumping up onto the table he began to shout.

"WASHU!! I KNOW YOU'RE OUT THERE!! STOP THIS RIGHT NOW! COME ON, WASHU! THIS ISN'T FUNNY ANYMORE!!!"

"What do you think you're doing!?" Sierra rose to her feet shouting. She'd been stewing over what she could only think of as the stupidity of this entire situation during his silence so she could only react to such an absurd outburst with further annoyance.

Obviously he had problems of his own, but right now she really didn't care. What mattered was that he was doing something so disrespectful as climbing up on the table she was sitting at. And eating from.

She clenched the barely-eaten apple tightly, ready to take punitive action.

Tenchi barely heard her. He wanted answers. He still had two fields to plow and vegetables to fetch for poor Sasami. He couldn't waste any more time in one of Washu's experiments.

"WASHU! YOU'RE GOING TO MAKE IT IMPOSSIBLE FOR SASAMI TO GET HER COOKING DONE! WOULD YOU REALLY DO THAT TO HER? COME ON WASHU! LET'S CALL IT A DAY!!"

He wasn't going to stop until he got a reaction.

She had no idea what the hell he was shouting about but it sounded inane. If he'd been screaming about the fate of the world or maybe a True Rune or a country or something she might actually care but this was random and adding to the idiocy of this whole situation and he was going to stop.

Unwilling to step up on the table to actually try to shout him down she settled for a commanding "Shut up!" and hurled the apple at his face.

The apple caught the poor prince square in the nose, sending him flying off the table. His landing was less than graceful, crashing to the floor in a gloriously painful nosedive.

Sitting up, he rubbed his hurt face and settled back into his seat mumbling darkly.

He was right about what he said earlier. What a lousy way to start a day.

Sierra did not return to her seat, but instead leaned over the table to berate him. "What do you think you're doing? You-"

She paused. Did she detect...

"...obviously have a lot of responsibilities to attend to. You said your name was Masaki? Mine is Sierra. I haven't heard of your family before...?"

Her voice was, with alarming abruptness, suddenly quite charming. But as usual, she was a little too intense about it. Not to mention the change was a bit jarring after her minor assault...

"Eh? Yes. I'm Tenchi Masaki. I'd be surprised if you had heard of my family. We're just a small clan of shrine keepers in Jap-"

Tenchi froze mid-sentence. While he was glad that she wasn't going to bean him with another apple, he couldn't help but be a little curious as to why she was suddenly so polite. Whenever a woman made a transition between moods that quickly, it usually meant trouble. He'd seen Washu and Ayeka do it enough times to be properly frightened.

"Why do you ask?"

True, his family was a group of shrine keepers in Japan. While they were on Earth. On his mother's side, however, he was a prince of a far off planet called Jurai. He knew better than to make a big deal of that though. It was something he hardly believed himself.

Worse. When someone found out, they usually ended up kidnapping and/or trying to kill him. THAT was a situation he wanted to avoid at all costs.

Shrine keepers? That was no good. She could have sworn...

No, she couldn't be wrong so easily. He definitely wasn't just some priest.

"You have a very aristocratic bearing," she lied. It actually wasn't strong at all, but there was something in the look and smell. Definitely noble blood. But perhaps their family had fallen, or it had mixed in generations ago and been forgotten. Disappointing thoughts.

That cinched it, she was onto him. Tenchi couldn't figure out how, but she knew he had Juraian blood.

"U-um, aristocratic? I-I'm afraid I don't know anything about that. I'm just a normal high school kid."

He was a terrible liar, and he knew it. Still, he wasn't going to admit that he was part alien via his grandfather. Not in a mental institution.

"High school?" Unfortunately for him, to her the term sounded pretty aristocratic. And he was a terrible liar.

"It's nothing to be ashamed of," she assured him, smiling gently. Nothing wrong with great taste.

Mornings when there were new people wandering around was always exciting. Hughes grabbed his breakfast and immediately began scanning for groups of faces he didn't recognize. When people who had no idea what was going on got together, it could lead to hysteria.

So far, it looked like everyone he couldn't remember seeing before was already with someone he knew had been around a bit. Except for....

Moving over to the woman and young guy, Hughes paused politely at the edge of the table.

"Mind if I join you?" he asked. "I don't want to intrude or anything, but I haven't seen you two around before... thought maybe you'd like to ask someone who isn't one of the nurses some questions?"

Tenchi couldn't believe his good fortune. Sierra seemed nice, but she was making him really nervous.

"Um, sure. We don't mind. Now, what's going on here? Is this another one of Washu's crazy experiments"

Right now, it didn't matter who he was. Still, Tenchi was a polite boy, and it would be rude to just ignore Sierra.

[[Gah sorry the ISP out here is really terrible... I'll be back in the States in like a month though]]

Sierra was disappointed by the interruption of her conversation with her 'new friend' but the newcomer was polite enough that she didn't mind... or at least, smiled rather than starting into one of her tirades. She could always afford to wait for good things~

"Nurses?" she asked. Wait a second... that explained why the building looked so different. "I've been taken to a hospital?"

The only explanation she could think of for all this was that some plague had broken out in the town she'd been staying at and she'd been taken for ill and moved. Not the likeliest scenario... but she was only just starting to wake up, and her faculties were not at their fullest.

"Not a real hospital," Hughes said, sitting down. How many times had he been through this? "This place just pretends to be a hospital during the day. Hell, I think most people working here think it really is a normal hospital. But it's a prison. And it's a pretty bad one." He rubbed the bridge of his nose and leaned forward.

"I'm Maes Hughes, by the way. I've been here for a while, so I can fill you in on the basics. But you'll have more questions, and you want to take those to the public notice board in the Sun Room. I'll try and head off the usual ones first." He smiled and chuckled a little bit.

"No, no one knows why we're here or how we were brought here. Well all just woke up one morning and there was some nurse telling us our life was a delusion and we were really someone else. And you can't argue with them. The guy in charge is Doctor Martin Landel, and he's one scary guy. Controls everything. At night things get dangerous. There's monsters out and the staff is gone and it's like something out of a bad dream. You guys with me so far?"

Tenchi had been nibbling his own meal again. This man seemed like a nice guy. He got the same feeling from him that he got from his grandfather. Goofy, but reliable.

It was an impossible tale, but Tenchi had -lived- through the impossible. It wasn't outside of the rules his life had been governed by before. Still, there were some things that worried him. Things that worried him immensely.

"Mister...Hughes?" he began timidly. "My name is Tenchi and it's nice to meet you, but there's something I need to know. What about the people we left behind? Are the people I care about safe, or is this Doctor holding them? I'm not worried about myself, but if anything happened to them..."

He let the sentence trail off. Tenchi was incredibly protective of his friends. And God only knows what trouble Ryoko would be in without him. She was strong, but rather reckless. He was worried.

Sierra stared at Hughes, mind running over the details of this new reality he'd presented, gradually making it real. Prison. With monsters. No one knew how they got here? It was hard to digest, but given her strange surroundings she was at least willing to listen to what he said.

But none of the details really mattered. If she'd been put in a prison, there was really only one sensible course of action. Catch up on her sleep, then ruin the life of whoever had thought they could detain her so easily.

She laughed lightly. Really, they had terrible luck to have kidnapped her. "Yes, yes. I'll be sure to put this Landel in his place," she said, apparently feeling indulgent.

"Good luck," Hughes said, and he meant it. "We've all been trying, no one can get at him. Whoever and whatever he is, he's got more power and strength than anyone in here." He turned to Tenchi and smiled.

"As far as I know, they're fine. I've got some friends here, that were taken years after I was. They were fine. Until they came here. Time's funny here, it's hard to explain. But the people we left behind are still home, and I'm sure they're fine. Everyone he's got is right here. But it'd be a good idea to ask around if you're worried - a lot of us do have friends who were taken, too."

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