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]

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[norainu]

Renji's eyes went wide as he saw Rukia dive off the table. "Rukia!" He took a step forward, but was stopped short by Sora grabbing his arm. He looked back at Sora; he didn't want to just jerk away from him; while Rukia was always his first priority, Sora was important to him as well. Every instinct he had screamed that he should be right there with Rukia, because that was how it always was, how it always should be. But he also couldn't quite bring himself to shove Sora away. He didn't want to hurt him, ever, physically or otherwise, and he knew what it felt like to push someone he cared about away, even in such a simple sense. He never wanted to feel that again.

He didn't know what to do. He had two equal, but perfectly opposite impulses. It wasn't something he knew how to deal with. "Sora, let me go," he said.

Like that would do any good.

He noticed two of the larger orderlies moving closer to them; two of the really big guys, the ones that normally were there to dogpile him when he started shit. They weren't being all that obvious, and weren't being aggressive, but they were there, and obviously waiting for him - and maybe Brooklyn - to try to jump in.

"Shit!" He turned his head back toward Sora, the look in his eyes all but pleading, begging to be let go.

[manhattan-red.livejournal.com]

Sora seemed so adamant. Brooklyn didn't want to let the kid down in what might end up being a pointless struggle. The boy had been there longer than he had, anyway. He probably knew what the staff here was capable of. The gargoyle liked a fight as well as any member of his clan, but he wasn't the most irrational of them.

Still wishing he could help out in some way, he found himself returning to his seat. It was for the kid's sake, he told himself.

[lighthearted]

In the end, what right did he really have to keep Renji from doing what he wanted? Especially seeing how Rukia was involved - if Kairi had decided to join in (which she hadn't, and Sora was glad to see that she knew better), he would have felt the same way, after all.

The look he got from the man made him quickly pull his arm away and let it fall back to his side limply. "Sorry, I shouldn't have... You can go if you want to." He was going to get hurt (probably) and sedated (definitely), but Sora had no place in holding him back.

Brooklyn had taken a seat, at least, and Sora figured he could stay with him and make sure he stayed safe. As a brand new patient, this had to be a lot for him to take in.

[norainu]

Renji gave Sora a look that was something like gratitude when the boy let go. When he looked over toward Rukia's table again, though, she was already down, being stuck with one of the damn needles. Seeing that made him feel ill, like his breakfast had turned into stone in his stomach.

He started forward, no longer intending to fight; he mostly just wanted to get to her. The two orderlies headed him off before he'd taken more than a couple steps.

"Just have a seat, Kyle," one said. "We don't want things to get any more exciting."

For a moment, Renji clenched his hands in to fists. Doing his best to sound reasonable, he said, pointing toward where Rukia was, "I just want to go make sure my friend is okay."

The orderly looked over his shoulder. "She's fine. The nurses are taking good care of her. Now, please sit."

He thought about hitting the man, long and hard. But he also knew that would end up with him sedated as well, and no closer to Rukia. He'd just have to get to her as soon as he could after breakfast. Gut churning at yet another reminder of how damn helpless they were during the day - at least at night, they could fight - he went back to his seat next to Sora. He sat down with a thump that set the trays on the table rattling, and put his face in his hands. Somewhere between stewing and fuming, he muttered, "I hate this bullshit."

[manhattan-red.livejournal.com]

Brooklyn fidgeted, frowning at the room in general and feeling helpless. But what was he supposed to do? Sora had been right about the sedation. It looked like people were going down right and left and he couldn't make out any that were actually making any positive impact. What would be a positive impact, anyway? It was like a battlefield, except there were innocent bystanders thrown into the middle of it.

"Does this... happen a lot?" he asked, hesitating to bother an obviously infuriated Renji but needing to know. One would think that if it did, others would already know the outcome and not get involved - unless people had actually managed to escape this way. Then again, if there were new people like him arriving all the time...

What a mess. There was still a possibility that he was dreaming all this, wasn't there? He'd wake up in the evening and he'd have his wings again and everything would be back to normal.

...But the sun. He was pretty sure that even at his best he wouldn't be able to imagine the way the sun actually felt. That short experience kept this whole crazy world feeling too real to dismiss as fantasy.

[lighthearted]

Sora sat down, though he kept an eye on Renji as he attempted to head over, only to be stopped by two orderlies. That didn't seem very fair, especially since he was only trying to check and make sure that Rukia was all right, but the staff was probably pretty wary of him since he had started fights in the past.

He jumped a little when Renji fell back into his seat and caused the plates to rattle, but frowned sympathetically and set a hand on the man's shoulder for a moment. "I know. I'm sorry."

Glancing to Brooklyn, he quickly shook his head. "This is the first time I've seen anything like this happen." He couldn't stop himself from watching as more and more of the patients who had been fighting started to fall to the ground, succumbing to the effects of sedation. It was a little disheartening, actually, but Sora had gotten the feeling from the start that it wouldn't work.

It bothered him a little, that he couldn't have faith in things working out. But night was the time for that, right?

When the intercom came on, Sora pulled his hands up to cover his ears while still trying to take in the words. They were going back to their rooms now?

Nurses were already heading toward them. Sora let out a sigh and looked to Renji again. "I'm sorry," he repeated. If he hadn't held him back, he might have been able to get to Rukia before those men got in the way. Once his nurse arrived, Sora stood up and let her grab him by the wrist so that she could lead him safely out of the room.

[norainu]

If it was possible, Renji was even less happy when the orderlies started taking people out of cafeteria. He stood, stepping a little away from the one coming at him, just in case he got any big ideas about grabbing his arm like the nurse had done with Sora.

"Where are you taking them?" he demanded.

The orderly gave him a soothing smile. "Everyone's just going back to their rooms now," he said.

Renji watched a nurse pick up Rukia, who was limp and obviously unconscious. "What about her?"

"She's just going back to her room too. We don't want anyone to get hurt. You don't need to worry."

He didn't trust it. He didn't trust anything these people said or did, ever. But he also didn't have a hell of a lot of choice. He could fight them - he wanted to, just because he was so upset and anxious - and it wouldn't do a bit of good.

He made a sound like a strangled, frustrated growl, then looked at Sora. "Hey, don't worry about it. Find me again when we're out, okay?" he said. They still needed to talk about their business as well. And to Brooklyn, he said, "If you can find me again, or Rangiku - tall blonde lady, really... curvy - we can finish the talk we started." He wished he could point Ran out, but with the chaos, it was impossible.

Hating every step of it, he let the orderly lead him out of the cafeteria. He kept his eye on Rukia as long as he could. It wasn't nearly long enough.