damned_institute | Day 30: Staff, Morning

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Day 30: Staff, Morning

Burly orderlies and agile Calm Effect nurses flooded the cafeteria from the Courtyard while regular hall nurses filed in from the Sun Room and ushered out those not involved in the rebellion. It indeed seemed as if Landel was sending out all the cavalry, and an effective cavalry they were: The riot didn't continue for much longer after the alarm sounded, though it seemed strange just how quickly all of the mutinous patients fell, even the ones who hadn't been injected with anything.

The hall nurses were quick to escort their well-behaved charges back to their rooms, praising those who hadn't joined in and chiding those who muttered under their breath in response. There were some exceptions, of course: One nice young man had even defended one of the nurses from the violent patients! Now, wasn't that exemplary behavior? Dr. Landel would be so proud to hear about it...

Within half an hour, all of the so-called "loyal" patients had been safely deposited in their rooms, and it was then that the alarm finally stopped and the true difficulty of the situation was tackled. There certainly weren't enough rooms in solitary to accommodate such rampant disobedience, and yet measures would have to be taken to ensure proper consequences for each and every patient involved. After all, something like this couldn't be allowed to happen again!

Different options were considered. Perhaps they should make an example out of the girl who had sparked the riot, but then again, perhaps not. This certainly wasn't the first case of patients attacking nurses or their peers in a crowded area, but what had been different this time was the sheer support that the other patients had shown for her. Should the staff then make examples of all those who had tried to "protect" her from the well-meaning nurses? No, there were too many for that...

In the end, it was decided that the best immediate solution would be to treat the rebellious patients in the Medical Wing while they were unconscious and then move them back to their rooms to await punishment. To ensure the safety of both their roommates and the patients themselves, however, the staff decided to securely fasten their limbs to their beds and keep them heavily drugged. Such a sad sight they were to see, but... it was necessary.

Finally, when each and every patient had been escorted back to their respective rooms, the staff hurried off to an emergency meeting upstairs. Strangely, Head Nurse Lydia was the one taking care of the proceedings in the Head Doctor's stead. She calmly told them that he was preoccupied with more urgent matters, and as she began to speak to the crowd, the staff could only wonder what could possibly be more important than an unprecedented patient riot...

[ Comment to this post with separate threads for each patient room, and please put your character's room number in the subject line. Thank you! ]

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Sasuke was more than a little twitchy by the time his nurse had finally chattered their way back to the room. Allen didn't seem to be in yet, but the kid didn't seem like to type to jump into a 'riot,' as Mark had described it. Sasuke, on the other hand, was fighting down a good part of his nature and nurture that had gone into instinctively fighting the instant any kind of threat was present.

So he was still restless when the woman finally left, giving him a congratulatory sort of pat on the shoulder that just made him want to punch her more.

With an annoyed sound, he flopped onto his bed and rolled onto his side. Might as well catch a nap until Allen showed.

Allen was a little disoriented when the nurse brought him back to the room. He was still unsteady on his feet, so he had to have some help getting over to his bed. Everything was still fairly hazy. He could remember having left his seat to help Sanji, but after that, he felt faint and when he came to, he was being half-led, half-carried back to his room. How long had he been out?

He sat on the edge of his bed, still feeling dizzy. He'd lost a lot of blood over the past two nights, not to mention his injuries, and his body wasn't handling it very well. Sasuke was turned away from him, sleeping maybe? That sounded like a really good idea to him. He was exhausted and if he could sleep and forget that last night never happened... all the better.

Footsteps signaled Allen's entrance, although there was a definite unsteadiness about one set. Sasuke assumed it was Allen's -- the nurses never really seemed to have much trouble -- had Allen actually gotten involved? Perhaps Sasuke had left the cafeteria too early after all.

Shaking himself a little more thoroughly awake, Sasuke sat up, turning his head towards Allen's side of the room.

"Were you fighting?"

Either Sasuke was a light sleeper or he'd been awake the entire time, Allen wasn't sure. He was a little disappointed he wouldn't be getting a nap, but situated himself a little more comfortably on the bed anyway.

"Fighting?" he asked. It took him a moment to understand what exactly Sasuke was talking about. He certainly hadn't been brawling like a good portion of the patients and staff. "Um... they were trying to hurt the nurses. I just... it didn't seem right. It's not their fault..."

By 'they,' Sasuke assumed that Allen meant that he hadn't personally been involved. Allen had said he knew how to fight, but it didn't seem his style to join a brawl; the boy was too soft-spoken, and not in the creepy Kabuto way.

Still, feeling bad for the nurses? That was pushing it a little.

"The nurses are monsters at night, aren't they?" He asked, raising an eyebrow out of habit. "Theoretically, eliminating them in the daytime when they are weaker would lower the numbers available to attack us come nightshift."

Allen didn't like how calmly Sasuke talked about 'eliminating' the nurses. How could anyone be so nonchalant about killing someone? Was that really the kind of person Sasuke was? He felt terribly enough about what had happened to Komui last night, he couldn't bear the thought of another person dying because of him.

"W-well yes, but... that doesn't mean they're bad!" he countered, "I don't want to hurt them I mean... they're people too... probably just as trapped as we are, you know? That's just..." he trailed off. "There's no way I could..."

No, Allen definitely wasn't the kind to have gotten involved in a fight like that. Then again, could Sasuke really have struck one of the staff with the intent to kill? Even if his nurse was bad enough that he wanted to punch her most days, the anger was still limited to punching. (The truth was still the same; there was only one person Sasuke wanted to kill.)

"True, they could be trapped as well," he shrugged, nonchalant. "There's no way to tell if they're definitively linked to the monsters at night, either. Even killing one wouldn't be able to prove it. I take it you weren't part of the commotion, then?"

He felt a little relieved at Sasuke's explanation. It sounded like he probably wasn't one of the ones trying to hurt the nurses either. He sighed, and fell over sideways, letting the bed cushion him. He still looked in Sasuke's direction, but laying down felt so much nicer. And... it wasn't too rude, was it?

"People were hurting the nurses... I just tried to stop them, that's all. I don't think... that they're the ones we should be trying to fight." It felt hypocritical to say so, after hurting... no, killing a good friend just last night, but he still felt the same. He didn't want people to get hurt if it could be helped. It wasn't... right. He wouldn't forgive himself for what happened to Komui... or Mana for that matter, but he wouldn't stop fighting for what he thought was right either.

He was quiet for a while after that. Internally, he struggled with whether or not he ought to say anything at all, but in the end he knew Sasuke had a right to know. If the same tragedy occurred, he'd feel at least partly responsible for not warning the other boy. "Um..." he started weakly, staring down at the floor. "Last night... I found some information... a... about the visitors." He bit his lip to regain his composure, "I don't know if... you'll want to hear it though."

Allen had actually protected the nurses? That was pushing it a little. Still, to each his own.

Sasuke wondered if Allen had seen how the fight had started; in particular, he wanted to know what had happened with River. Not that he was concerned in any way -- but because River, for all her instability, had managed to stay relatively conscious and effective in the situation, and attacking the nurses was not the way to do that.

Allen said something interesting before Sasuke could ask, though, making Sasuke turn his head at the slight flop of a body hitting mattress. The kid was apparently tired; he had walked in kind of heavily.

"If it's information, I want to hear it." Especially if it was about the visitors. The bag of tomatoes was still somewhere in the room -- at some point, his nurse was going to have to remove it, because Sasuke wasn't going to eat them.

"Alright," he said, a bit hesitantly. He'd really rather not face the problem at the moment, but... but it was important for other people to be aware of the danger. And he'd be having this talk soon with the arts and crafts captain later too, he was sure.

"A friend of mine, her... her brother came to visit her. Told her some... made up story about who she was supposed to be." He didn't have to include all the details, the things that'd happened afterward... "That night... we found him. He remembered properly, but... They'd done... horrible things..." he swallowed back the sickness that was building in his stomach at the thought.

"They'd used him for... I don't know what it was, some... experiment maybe. He was beaten badly, his... his limbs replaced with... with I couldn't even tell what some of them were." There was a rustling sound as Allen shifted on his bed, taking another deep breath before he continued. "He told us... they'd done the same thing to the others."

Sasuke absorbed the information was a certain amount of surprise: the visitors coming back? Being used for -- there was a sudden memory of Fugaku's voice and something in Sasuke twisted. Even if it wasn't the real person, the idea of someone who thought his son was in a place like this, being tortured and ...

And if they remembered properly then they were the real thing, but Fugaku was dead, years on years dead, more dead than Zabuza and Haku, so -- or maybe that was just --

"The others? You mean the other visitors?" Sasuke's voice came out a bit harsh, and he remembered belatedly to keep it calm, if for no other reason than because Allen sounded troubled just talking about the topic. "Did your friend mention how he'd been captured and how he'd gotten here?"

"The visitors... the missing patients... it sounded like... I don't know... maybe the visitors never... really left this place," he said carefully, glancing up at Sasuke. The entire thing was unpleasant, but vocalizing these hidden fears just brought the reality of it home.

"He didn't say any of that," Allen replied with some regret. "I'm not really sure."

Never left. So the people who left were the ones who'd been here before? But that made no sense, unless this place really did have the power to pull the dead from their graves and desecrate them.

And if it did, then Sasuke had --

Something Aidou had said clicked, just then, and Sasuke frowned. It had seemed as if Mark knew what Aidou was talking about as well, and even if it wasn't quite the same thing, the Institute was known for playing games. Frowning, he asked, "What did you do with him? Your friend, I mean. Is he still here?"

He'd hoped it wouldn't come to this, that Sasuke wouldn't know which questions to ask and that he wouldn't have to face up to last night's tragedy. His expression grew stony and he was quiet for a long moment before he answered. His voice turned cold and empty. "He's not here anymore. I killed him."

Allen's voice registered with Sasuke, but Sasuke was more immediately concerned with the facts. Facts being that so far, Sasuke had heard of -- virtually no cases of one patient being able to flat-out kill another one. Even Aidou, plausibly could have because he fed on humans, hadn't. As far as Sasuke knew.

And though it would follow the apparent pattern to have them constantly kill each other off, it didn't make sense to bring in a patient -- or whatever Allen's friend had been -- that seemed untested against the current group of patients. Plus so far none of the other monsters had been uncontrolled by either Landel or Doyle, and it didn't make sense to send a challenge that wasn't controllable.

"Have you heard of the mimics?" He asked, finally, frowning. It didn't seem to fit the pattern, but this place was weird. Still, it was worth asking.

Mimics? The imitation creatures? Why was that the conclusion that everyone jumped to? He'd have known, wouldn't he? If that thing wasn't really Komui? Wouldn't he be able to tell? Allen shifted uncomfortably on the bed, sorely tempted to bury his head in the pillow.

"Sanji wondered that too," he commented, still far from believing it himself. "And the girl last night, a healer, she said... that it couldn't be real... but I... I'm sure I would have known if it wasn't him! I didn't... I didn't mean to hurt him. I couldn't stop it..."

"An acquaintance of mine ran into himself," Sasuke said shortly. And if Aidou had been pissed off enough that he'd killed it and then chucked it off the balcony, it had to have been pretty damn similar. "The only reason he knew it wasn't real was because it was copying him. They also die like a human and continue to look like what they were imitating when they're dead."

He shuffled back on the bed so he could lean more comfortably against the wall, folding his arms. The idea of the Institute doing something like that -- it did a lot of things to mess around with the patients, but it usually had a point. Sasuke's eyes for the genetic information; River's mind for her ability ...

"It doesn't tally with the rest of the Institute's actions," he said, still frowning. Allen sounded shaken and Sasuke was trying to shake a memory of the first time he'd faced death. He paused, and then, a little sharply, "The point of illusion is that you can't tell. If your friend only appeared for the night, it's more likely that he was a fake meant only to lower your defences and ability. It'd be a worthless illusion if you could see through it."

It sounded impossible. But then, so did ghosts that left you with strange tattoos and children who could cause crippling damage just by a single touch. Would they really be so cruel? To what end? He couldn't begin to fathom it.

At the same time... he wanted it to be true. He wanted some excuse, some reason to believe that Komui wasn't really dead. That he wasn't to blame for his friend's untimely death. Even if it were so, it still meant he was a danger. What if he'd been traveling with some of the others? The shinigami? His arm wanted to destroy them and if he wasn't even in control...

"If that's all it was... I should've been able to tell," he said again, though his voice was still cool and detached. "That's all this cursed eye of mine is good for. I... It was human... It had to be."

"This place suppresses abilities," Sasuke said shortly. "And they can alter the magnitude of the suppression to suit their purposes."

Like his stronger Sharingan.

"If your eye tells you what is and isn't human, what is the staff?" Sasuke hadn't had a chance to look at their chakra, not even during the brief time he'd had Sharingan activated in the cafeteria, but now that he thought about it, it might be worth a try eventually.

He knew that already. His eye wasn't nearly as strong as it had been. It used to be able to detect Akuma for miles, but now it was back to the level one state and it could barely see all of the Akuma within a space as small as the Sun Room or the Cafeteria. It was frustrating, but he'd thought that at least... at least it still worked! Now he wasn't even sure of that much.

"Human," he said without pausing. If he'd thought the staff were just Akuma, well... it would make a lot more sense, and he'd have had no trouble just jumping into the fray earlier, rather than trying to defend the nurses from attacks.

Human, huh? Sasuke made a half-surprised sort of noise. What that meant for the 'nurses' that came out at night, Sasuke couldn't tell. And the kid seemed very certain about it.

It made him have to wonder whether simply disabling one of the staff -- breaking an arm or a leg -- might deter them from becoming monsters (if that was what happened), or if that sort of thing would even make a difference here.

"Did your friend attack you?" At any rate, it was important to figure out what sort of thing to expect out of whatever Allen had met. Sasuke assumed that the -- mimic or ex-patient, whichever it was -- had attacked; Allen wasn't the type to so much as speak sharply without provocation, let alone kill.

His shoulder was still sore from last night. The healers had done an excellent job of repairing him, but it still felt stiff and achy and it was difficult not to recall Komui's face as he'd bitten into his shoulder, devouring the flesh and muscle like a greedy animal. He shook his head, trying to clear away the awful memory.

"It wasn't his fault," Allen insisted, "they must've... done something... he didn't mean to hurt us..."

Allen was making Sasuke wish he'd been able to ask Aidou more about the mimic he'd met before the fighting had started. Also that he could see Allen, so that he didn't have to ask (and probably not get a straight answer) how badly he was injured.

"If he attacked you and you defended, there's nothing else you could've done," Sasuke said, slightly irritated. Although if the common thread in his and Mark's theories held, then any patient who'd been experimented on and let loose should have been ... "You said you couldn't really tell how he was modified, but did they seem to be extensions of abilities he already had?"

"I wasn't... in control when I should have been," he told Sasuke, feeling the tears start again, but immediately pushing them away. "We could have saved him."

He wasn't quite sure how to describe all the things they'd done to Komui. "N-no... it wasn't like that. Komui was... he didn't really have any abilities before." Not physical ones at least. He'd been a brilliant scientist, a valuable asset to the Order... "Everything... was warped. His... his teeth were jagged... and there were way... way too many. One of his arms was gone... replaced with... some... armored claw. Like... a crab or a... scorpion. There were... too many legs and..." He shuddered involuntarily.

"It was... just terrible."

Not in control when he should have been: it was something Sasuke knew. Perhaps in a different sense, in a different place, but it was. And probably because he did recognise the feeling, it annoyed him.

"Then you've learned for next time." Sasuke's tone was terse, but his arms were tense, folded tightly. There was a reason he'd learned so quickly in Sound.

Moving on to facts was easier: Sasuke's frown deepened as Allen catalogued the alterations. It seemed much more like a typical Institute monster than anything they would do with the patients. What was the point of collecting people and fiddling with their bodies if not for some ability? Fighting, thinking, whatever it was.

"It doesn't tally," he muttered, annoyed with how little sense this place made. "It sounds like a useless experiment. Even if he'd lived, the human body doesn't sustain that kind of modification well. The survival rate would've been extremely low."

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