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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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."

Allen shook his head, "that's not... good enough. Even if it happens again, I don't... I don't think I could stop it." Whatever had happened, he still didn't remember, but he hadn't had control; it'd been his Innocence or... that strange other voice. The one that'd brought back his black and white world when Rhode had nearly taken it away. Until he'd arrived here, he knew it'd been getting stronger. Now... now he wasn't sure of anything.

"Nothing here makes any sense!" Allen countered, pushing himself up from the bed. He was shaky, but he managed it. "They hurt us... they do terrible things... try to kill us... and for what? What could it possibly be for?!" His eyes focused on the floor, but he was staring past it, trying to get hold of his mixed up thoughts and feelings. "Even if there was only a tiny chance... it was still a chance. But now... we'll never know."

"Are you or aren't you a fighter?" Sasuke's tone was sharp and annoyed. He'd almost said ninja, and was irritated with both his almost-slip and Allen's fatalism. "You don't think you can stop it. You stop it."

Well, maybe that was harsh for someone who hadn't undergone the same kind of training, but if Allen wanted to call himself someone who could fight, Sasuke would treat him as such. He'd been dubious the first few nights, but the kid had survived, after all, so he must have been worth something.

"We're experiments," he said, in a way that implied that it should have been obvious. "Even if we're not part of a larger test of some sort, we're part of Landel's and Doyle's game. Any game has a premise, and part of this one is messing around with us. You've heard them arguing, haven't you?"

And they were damn good at messing around with them, whatever this place was. With both the patients and -- if the people outside the Institute were real -- the others in this world.

Sasuke's words bit into him as sharply as any knife. He was being reprimanded, almost like a child, but he couldn't deny anything Sasuke said either. He had to control that power or others would get hurt too. There were no ifs or buts or maybes about that. But how to go about that... he hadn't a clue.

"You think they'd make such... such an elaborate fake just to... just to hurt us?" saying it aloud, it sounded even more ridiculous, but he wanted to believe it was true, that it wasn't Rinali's older brother that he'd killed. "I've heard... some of it. I don't really... pay much attention." Other things usually took priority. He was a soldier, there to fight and take orders. Figuring out puzzles and riddles wasn't really something he was any good at.

"It's possible," Sasuke shrugged. "More likely, there's a purpose to the experiments. There's been a bit of talk about some kind of military on the intercom, but no elaboration past that. Some of us have theorised that they're weeding us out or otherwise testing us in preparation for something."

Although Mark wasn't so sure, and not everything was similar in function to Orochimaru's experiments. Still, Sasuke had to believe there was a purpose. If there was a methodology, then there was some way out through the inevitable cracks.

Some of which seemed to be showing up last night, for example.

Allen shook his head, "I don't understand." If it was a game, perhaps, but what point could there be in the things they'd done to Komui? If it was just to hurt them, hadn't he done that already when he'd visited Rinali and made her think she was someone else? Why go so much further? Nothing was adding up in his mind and he didn't want to make excuses for what he'd done. Komui deserved that much at least. He could own up to his actions, even if it was at a heavy cost.

Sasuke frowned. Had Allen really not discussed the possible motivations at play here?

"You already know how this place tests physical endurance," he said, starting an explanation he wasn't completely sure of himself. "Being put in a false world by day and forced to fight all night is a test of mental endurance, along with the experiments they've done on individual patients." He didn't mention how close he'd come to failing that test. "Telling us we aren't who we think we are could either be to brainwash us in some way, although it makes no sense if they already have effective brainwashing techniques, or to add to the mental stress.

"Either way, the stronger patients stand out. If they're looking for useful abilities or powers, this is a good way to pick out the ones they want most."

Is that what it was? Tests? Allen certainly felt exhausted, but he hadn't thought of it as a test before. But Sasuke was probably a lot smarter than he was. And he'd already been the subject of this place's cruel experiments, having his sight taken away. So wouldn't he know?

Though, if what Sasuke said was true, wasn't it better not to stand out at all? If it was only going to cause more pain and suffering, maybe it was better to keep his head down and take the easy route. "I guess... that does make sense," he admitted.

"It's only a theory," Sasuke shrugged. "But it's the one that makes the most sense. And some of the things here are similar to a place I was in, in my own world, that had a purpose like that."

Not exactly the same, but Landel had his eerie likenesses to Orochimaru.

Allen's brow furrowed as he tried to comprehend all of it. In a way it did make sense, but it all seemed so impossible! He wasn't anyone special. He had Innocence, but there were others who were much stronger than he was. Could it be that this was also where Cross had disappeared to? Sasuke's answers only seemed to give him more questions.

"How did you... escape that place?"

Allen's next question was probably to be expected, and Sasuke sort of wanted to hit himself for mentioning it again. Mark's reaction hadn't been positive, and Mark was a reasonable man. But substantiating what he said was important, and ...

"I didn't," he said. He hadn't yet, and he hadn't really been an experiment there anyway. Or at least if he had been, he'd been the prize. "My ... teacher was the one who was in charge of it."

Allen's eyes widened in surprise. Sasuke... had really helped someone else run a place like this? In his home world?

"W-why would you do something like that?!" he exclaimed, unable to stop his own sudden outburst. Sasuke seemed like such a nice person, surely there was a good reason, some explanation!

"I wasn't involved personally," Sasuke said, but it sounded like a weak defence even to himself. Although -- he didn't need a defence; he was there for a reason and he'd cast off any scruples when he'd gone, but -- in light of being here -- and in light of actually seeing some of the experiments ...

"I went to the man for power," he said finally. "I was going to free all of them once I was through with my teacher."

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