Day 30: Cafeteria, Breakfast

[whiteychan.livejournal.com]

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]

Comments

[get.livejournal.com]

Somewhat startled by the sudden arrival of another person, Simon stopped what he was doing long enough to look up and see just who was addressing him—a girl with pink hair? She didn’t look familiar, but then again nothing about this place did.

He returned her greeting with a nod and waited for her to finish sitting before continuing:

“Who’re you?”

He didn’t mean to sound rude; he just… did. Life underground didn’t exactly leave one with a good sense of proper etiquette.

[blazing-general.livejournal.com]

"I am Signum." Curt, but not out of offense. She didn't expect etiquette from him. She was considered a person who said troublesomely vague things and caused misunderstandings, but that wasn't quite right. She was just direct, and didn't bother with unnecessary details.

Other people's directness, then, wouldn't curry her disfavor.

But she did expect his name back, and the evidence of this was that her eyes remained on his and her food remained untouched. An interaction should be equitable. And while he didn't have that feeling that woke her blood, of a soldier in her mold, something good might come of talking to him. Even if it didn't, it wasn't a problem... there was more than enough time to eat and talk.

If only the nights were so convenient...

[get.livejournal.com]

Signum, hm? Nope, didn’t ring a bell.

He was about to return to eating when he noticed she was still staring at him… he supposed she wanted his name as well, but it didn’t make sense—did people here really not recognize him? Ah, it wasn’t important. What was important, he realized, was that maybe Signum knew where he was and what this was all about.

“Simon. I’m Simon,” he started, “and, uh… d’you have any idea what the hell this place is, exactly?”

[blazing-general.livejournal.com]

A new one after all then. She couldn't really do anything but tell him under these circumstances. She wasn't sure how well she could prepare civilians mentally but forewarning people about the physical dangers of the nightshift was an obvious step if you were going to take an interest in their safety.

"Aa," she nodded, the rough syllable her acknowledgment and response to his question both. "A prison, and the setting for some test or curse. Everything is like this in the day, but at night we're let out. To seek our freedom and be hunted."

She said this quite matter-of-factly. It was strange, but, she was something strange too. It was the immediate challenges that concerned her, not their absurd context.

...mostly.

[get.livejournal.com]

Prison, great; ‘cause it was so much fun last time. Not only that, but the way she said it left him with an unsettling feeling in the pit of his stomach; “seek our freedom and be hunted”? What was that supposed to mean? Normally he wasn’t one to dismiss the impossible, but this was almost too weird even for him.

“What’s this about a mental hospital, then? And who’s keeping us here? Hell, how did I even get here?!”

By now he was half sitting-half standing, hunched over the table in a rather awkward position and waving a utensil in the air as if that would somehow magically fix things. It didn’t, obviously, and he quickly added at the last moment,

“Rossiu’s not behind this, is he?”

He’d thought that any enmity between him and his former Counselor was gone—not that there had been any to begin with—but this just somehow sounded like a very Rossiu-ish thing to him. Then again, maybe he was just being overly critical…

Or not.

[blazing-general.livejournal.com]

"As I said, it's like this during the day." Signum answered. His agitation was a bit off-putting, and her face and tone hardened slightly. "None of us know how we're brought here. Perhaps a higher-order magic." The kind of thing the Alhazredians could do, if you believed the wilder legends. But even Reinforce couldn't tell, so Signum didn't entertain any hopes of figuring it out herself.

"Martin Landel is the face of both the daytime hospital and the night." Because she'd adapted to the notion of a larger... multiverse, she supposed, from which the patients were drawn she tended to dismiss the idea that any of them would actually have links to the Institute... but it was not impossible. If the Institute had learned how to cross such boundaries, surely others might as well.

[get.livejournal.com]

“Martin Landel? … magic?”

It wasn’t that he wasn’t used to being completely unprepared for a situation—it was more that the solution to whatever problem lay before him had always come fairly quickly; now, however, he was drawing a blank, and nothing was more frustrating to him than not knowing what to do. On the plus side, at least it didn’t sound too… “science-y”; then he’d really be at a disadvantage.

“Dammit!” He slammed his fist on the table, completely ignoring the increasingly stern look he was receiving from his dining companion. “If I still had Gurren-Lagann getting out of here’d be easy, but…” he trailed off, stopping for a moment to think—he didn’t need Gurren-Lagann, did he? No, of course not! He was Simon the Digger, and his drill could pierce anything—including the heavens—mech or not! He’d find a way out no matter what it took and nothing—not magic, not this “Landel” guy, not even reason, logic or the universe itself—would stop him.

Nodding in silent agreement with himself he turned back to Signum, now eager to find out more about this place.

“So if it’s like this during the day, then… tell me more about what it’s like at night? Er.. aside from being really, really dark.”

[blazing-general.livejournal.com]

"Hn. None of their guardians would be a match for us if they didn't weaken us so. It's a poor sport." She nodded sympathetically at the mention of is lost... well, she didn't know what a 'Gurren-Lagann' was, but she missed her Laevatein keenly. The knight and her blade had never been separated for so long, not in the millenia of their existence.

"It's a free-for-all," she said simply, and there was a telling mix of displeasure and excitement in her voice attending the description. "They unlock our rooms and leave us somewhat free to try to escape or investigate or loot, but there are various beasts and... what I can only call spirits that hunt us as we do."

[get.livejournal.com]

“A free-for-all, huh?” He liked the sound of that.

“So what—“ he stopped suddenly when he thought he heard a familiar voice above the din of the crowded cafeteria, but quickly shrugged it off as being just his imagination; there was no way it could possibly be who he thought it was… could it?

“… right. What kind of ‘beasts’ and ‘spirits’? Not beastmen, are they?”

[blazing-general.livejournal.com]

"Nothing like that," Signum said, thinking of Zafira mostly. "I've only seen rats and the things the staff turn into," she admitted. "The orderlies become extremely tough and strong. I've mostly run into ghosts I can't even fight." It was still a point of annoyance for her.

"They also use some sort of perception modification to have some of the patients fight for them every other night." Fortunately the only person she'd run into in that condition hadn't been too powerful.

[get.livejournal.com]

“’Perception modification’? O… kay.” He wasn’t really sure what it meant, but it didn’t sound good.

Signum was providing him with a lot of useful information, and for that he was thankful. He supposed he was lucky to have met someone who knew so much about this place early on (though he was sure he would’ve figured it out by trial-and-error eventually.. or at least that's how things usually worked).

“So it sounds like you’ve got a lot of experience with these guys, huh? How long’ve you been here?”

[blazing-general.livejournal.com]

"Only a week," she responded.

And... she turned. A fight was breaking out during the day. And more importantly, growing.

Well, she'd been wondering how effective open rebellion during the scripted dayshifts would be. Would their captors use resources beyond those of an ordinary psychiatric hospital to suppress them? It looked like she was going to have a chance to find out.