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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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."

Wasn't involved personally? What did that mean exactly? That... that he could tolerate what was going on behind the scenes, so long as it didn't affect him? That he didn't do the experiments himself, but still worked for the man who did?

"I... I see," he replied, hesitating for a moment in light of this new information. He was relieved to hear that Sasuke was planning to free them, but... even so...

There was a long pause, and then Sasuke spoke again, voice very slightly more strained than its usual coldness.

"Most of them were various prototypes," he said. He didn't have to justify himself -- he didn't -- but these were facts that related. Definitely. "For ... something I am now. I'm a finished product. My teacher was a scientist, of a kind, and his assistant had his own interests. Their methods bear a resemblance to this setup; a low survival rate and an interest in singling out the powerful."

Allen could feel goosebumps prickling his flesh as he heard Sasuke speak. He couldn't help but be reminded of the experiments the Order had done as well. Rinali had told him some of it, that they'd forced Innocence on people who were relatives of accomodators, trying to find more compatible Exorcists. The result, however, he'd seen for himself. When someone was incompatible... they became one of the Fallen and the Innocence consumed them, body and soul.

Sasuke wanted to become stronger by working for these people, hadn't that been Allen's aim as well? "The place I work for... used to be like that too. I joined... some time after, but..." He shook his head, "They wanted to create more Exorcists. There so few of us, but... it just... doesn't work that way."

And there were crazy sort-of scientists in every world, not just every corner of any one. Somehow it wasn't much of a relief to hear, but at least Allen sounded like he had a frame of reference for Sasuke's point, now. He sort of wondered why Allen had wanted power, but if Allen held true to type, it would have been 'to protect people' or something.

"That arm of yours. You fight with it, right?" Hadn't the boy said something along the lines when they'd first met? And the way Allen had described how he'd killed his friend -- if nothing else, control was something Sasuke knew well. "My teacher's experiments involved power augmentation. I have some experience with controlling a dangerous power."

Although the curse seal was still dormant, as far as Sasuke could tell. Even putting his hand over the place where it lay on his shoulder didn't register any heat, any telltale tenfuuin chakra -- nothing at all. Still, he could remember that first rush of power, spiraling out of his control, and Sakura ... "It comes down to force of will."

"Yes, but... it's not that... I..." he wasn't sure himself how to explain it. When that level 3 had attacked the China branch, it wasn't just that he'd wanted to fight it. It was more than that, his body craved it, the Innocence wanted more than anything to erase the presence of that Akuma. Sometimes it seemed like his body was simply a weapon and most times he had control, but in the end, a weapon was just a weapon, and good for only one thing.

"Last night... It happened while I was unconscious," his hands fidgeted in his lap, "at least... I think so. That's the only... explanation that makes sense."

"It's separate from your consciousness?" A little more sentient than the average juuin, then, though letting the heaven seal take over felt less like conscious action than being sort of intoxicated with power. Irrational power. "How did you control it in the past, then?"

"I... guess?" Allen said, a bit confused himself. He hadn't thought about it much, he was usually too busy on this assignment or that for any sort of serious contemplation.

"I couldn't... when I was a child," he told the other boy. "But I learned to. It... it usually happens if... my life is in danger. It's not always so... violent, but... I just don't know."

"Do you think it's something they did here, then?" Sasuke frowned. This was a little beyond the realm of his immediate experience, but then again, Juugo the original had been born with the madness. Juugo had never learned to control it, though. "Something that makes you no longer able to control your power?"

"No... I don't... really think so," he said quietly. As far as he knew his powers had been suppressed, not enhanced. But Sasuke didn't seem to understand.

"I think it was because... that... Komui was trying to... to hurt me and... I blacked out. But when I woke up... it... it was definitely my power that did it."

Sasuke was silent for a moment, processing the idea. If it had been him ... if it had been Fugaku, and somehow the heaven seal had been released and beyond his control -- no, there was no way to manage this without being forced to assume that non-patients in the Institute at night were one of the monsters. There was no way and no point in pulling people out of different worlds for the express purpose of killing them; it furthered no goals at all.

"It was a defence mechanism, then," Sasuke said, contemplative. "This friend of yours, would he ever have tried to truly hurt you in your world?"

That wasn't the easiest question. Komui had been... asinine and cruel to him for reasons he didn't understand right from the start. Back at the Order, the first time they'd met, he'd used those giant drills and frightening equipment just to 'fix' his anti-akuma weapon. In the end, it'd helped, but the sedative that came with it left him too weak to do anything when Hevlaska was studying his Innocence later. Komui had known it would be frightening, but he hadn't said a word before hand to warn him!

It'd been a lucky thing they'd had a doctor so close in the rewinding town as well, but again, Komui had carried around those gigantic pointy instruments and other things all for his own 'good.' Still...

"No... he wouldn't have..." he gave a resigned sigh. Not intentionally, not like last night. It still gave him chills just thinking about it.

"If he really was brought from your world, though, he'd have retained his personality," Sasuke said, decisively. "None of us are inherently different for being in this place; only physically changed. It stands to reason that if whatever you met that night were really your friend, he wouldn't have attacked."

And it thus stood to reason that if Sasuke ever met Fugaku wandering the Institute and grotesquely modified one night, it wouldn't be Fugaku. Sasuke knew that already, and so he wasn't sure why he was taking such pains to convince Allen that whatever he'd killed hadn't been a real person, but it was important on some level, in some way.

"But... I heard that... that sometimes the make the patients... fight one another. Brainwash them somehow." Hadn't someone on the bulletin boards said that Ravi had attacked him a few nights back? Why was this so different from then? Allen was just relieved that he hadn't run into his friend that night. It might've ended just as tragically as last night had.

"When we're brainwashed, we're given our original equipment and powers back," Sasuke said, rather close to being outright dismissive. "It's a good way to test both the skills of the non-controlled patients and those of the one being used by the Institute."

Breaking the pattern could mean a couple things, if it had occured. It might even be that the Institute was releasing a new wave of experiments, ones that didn't have innate powers and had been modified here for them and were brainwashed to attack from the outset. If so, what that meant for those here who had powers of interest wasn't a particularly bright story.

"So you don't... think this was similar?" he asked, not sure if he was ready to believe it himself, but at least now willing to accept that the idea was plausible. Should he mention it to Rinali? On the one hand, she might be relieved to hear it, on the other... could she even trust anything he said anymore?

"No," Sasuke said, short and firm. If he was operating under this theory of this place, he'd have to believe in it until it was definitely disproven. There was no way to make gathered information coherent otherwise.

Allen sighed, long and drawn out, but this time there was some relief in it. At least... he had something he hadn't had this morning. Hope. And that could make all the difference.

"I... um..." he paused, "thank you."

Sasuke blinked, surprised at first, and realised that Allen at least sounded a little better than he had when he'd first come in. It was awkward accepting thanks for something that Sasuke had needed to clear up himself, so he just shrugged and leaned back against the wall again. When was this shift ending?

"There's no point in losing someone who can fight to this place's crap."

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Day 30: Staff, Morning

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