damned_institute | Day 30: Cafeteria, Dinner

Timed was definitely obvious enough. And presumably the lists of patients had gotten too long to introduce over the intercom anymore; Sasuke had noticed a real influx since he'd arrived.

"It had seemed that the patients who were chosen for modification or brainwashing were generally those who had been here for at least a day or so," Sasuke said, and decided not to drop Allen's name just yet. The kid had only barely been convinced that he might not have killed a friend of his. "But instead, some patients have run across one of their friends, physically modified and forced to attack them."

Done with the food, Sasuke took a sip of juice before adding, "You mentioned that you had experience with a mimic. We thought it might be one of those -- would that be consistent with what you met?"

The vampire's eyes narrowed in an arctic, inhuman look of thoughtfulness at Sasuke's words. He sensed the manipulation of facts, no different than what he did from time to time. Still. His meal was twice the size of Sasuke's, and there was still more left, now going cold. He toyed with the stem of the plastic fork.

"I've met more than one of them, yes." He did not want to think back on the one that had taken his own face right in front of him, but he just had to grit his teeth and get over it. "And this 'mimic' nickname seems to come from the fact that they are perfect copies of appearance and behavior. Lures, you could say. They're not forced to do anything." He ran his thumb along the plastic, bending it just to the point of breaking before easing off and doing it all over again. "What kind of 'modifications' are we talking about? Chances are it was just another monstrosity."

What was it Allen had said? At first the kid hadn't wanted to even talk about it, but eventually he had. It hadn't sounded like any of the experiments Sasuke had heard of here, either, more purely physical where Sasuke expected mind-play.

"I'd think so as well, but the humanoid monsters I've encountered have been mostly unaltered from basic human appearances," Sasuke said, frowning over his juice again. "This one apparently had been modified to have extra limbs, parts of animals, things like that."

Perfect imitations of appearance and behaviour, huh? Sasuke wondered if there was any difference in the chakra.

The fidgeting stop for a split second, then continued without pause. "Wait a minute, is this an Allen Walker thing?"

Extra limbs, parts of animals, things like that.

"Because I saw him last night, with something that fits that description. It'd never been human, I'm certain. On the other hand, the doppelgangers are very precise fakes until you get too close--vampire blood will smell like vampire blood even if it's not, for example." And that made him want to gag, remembering how much of his own blood he'd apparently spilled. "... They're weak, though."

Thank the gods the boy was unable to see the flitting emotions on his face.

An Allen Walker thing? Sasuke almost snorted, amused; apparently his roommate got up to more trouble than he'd expected.

"Allen's my roommate," he confirmed. "He was convinced that he'd killed his friend last night. Apparently this friend had been a visitor earlier in the day, so it was strange that he appeared at night as well, apparently with all memories intact. This thing was also pretty strong, according to Allen at least."

It could have been an odd coincidence, of course, though Sasuke suspected that this place left little to unpredictable things like chance. And it was true that Sasuke only had hearsay evidence of Allen's being able to fight, but there was no reason to lie about that, which meant that Aidou calling the thing easy to kill didn't tally well with Allen's losing control.

Aidou did snort, rather cruelly that. "Speaks wonders of a human's luck that such an idiot is still alive," he muttered under his breath. His tone of voice didn't hide the blatant derision. A very unfortunate coincidence that that little freak was Uchiha Sasuke's roommate--he was surprised Sasuke could speak so neutrally of him.

"I saw what he got himself into," he continued, full of antipathy. "It was just a monster, but he let it get too close. It's his own fault."

Aidou and Allen had met, and apparently utterly failed to get along. Sasuke supposed it was only to be expected, and frankly he had yet to find someone with whom Aidou did get along, but he also hadn't heard Aidou speak of someone else with that much unmitigated disdain. Not even a blinded Sasuke.

"It seems he and his companions all believed it was their friend," Sasuke said, and didn't mention anything at all about how his first thought when Allen had explained it had been about the fake Fugaku who'd said you are my son. "Then again, Allen doesn't seem to be good with objective judgement. How do you know him?"

Not so much because Sasuke cared either way, but because he hadn't actually been with Allen for a Nightshift and so had no real idea of the boy's capacity.

"It might be your instinct to trust. It's not ours. I can't say I'm terribly surprised to learn other people have believed that their friends and family have come for them."

Even seeing Akatsuki--the real Akatsuki--in the Landel's uniform had only brought out his suspicion and aggression, not relief. Aidou didn't usually bring up such differences, if ever. Vampires being better than humans, yes... but vampires were also more hard-hearted and vicious, more cold. Typically, one did not need another vampire to point out such things--the humans who hunted them did that for them.

He cleared his throat. "We became acquainted on the fieldtrip, where he forfeited all respect I might have had for him. Not a big loss. I don't see a scenario where he and I would have to associate for an extended time. He's about as mature as a weepy schoolgirl, in my opinion, but I take it you see something more in him." And that was all it came down to, in the end. Business. So long as there was no need to associate, he'd just as soon punt Allen's dead body.

Your instinct to trust? Sasuke was genuinely puzzled until he remembered Aidou's distinction between vampires and humans, which until now had just been that vampires drank blood and were generally somehow better. If Aidou thought all humans were trusting -- ... then again, a lot of them were. Stupidly so, until they'd been burned.

"Not so much," he shrugged in response to Aidou's last comment. "He's my roommate, but I haven't had a chance to see him in any kind of action. He's stayed alive and he's made alliances with one of the groups, though, so he's got his uses."

At any rate, Sasuke was now considerably more certain that Allen had fought a mimic and nothing more, and also reasonably able to convince himself that he hadn't actually been worried that Uchiha Fugaku might turn up in the Institute. "Speaking of imitations, have you had a visitor yet?"

Aidou was a brat, but he was smart enough and sufficiently different from Mark that discussion with him was worth the time.

He smiled thinly. Sasuke was a good boy. Or at least one that he could respect--set apart from a normal human kid his age, he could be tolerable. Ironic, wasn't it?

"No," he answered truthfully. "And I really have no interest in accepting one. Are they that believable, despite all the untruths?" It was honest curiosity now, since everyone seemed so gung-ho over these "visitors." He hadn't heard of one person refusing a meeting.

"I wasn't given a choice," Sasuke said, blankly until he considered the fact that he was blind and therefore his nurse essentially steered him to wherever she considered best for him. "Anyway, that doesn't matter. They're not believable insofar as they give the same bullshit about our pasts as the Institute doctors. Their ... behaviour is accurate."

Extremely accurate. And possibly calculated to strike in the right places, or at least Sasuke's fake had chosen things that Sasuke hadn't built defences for, because he had never thought they would be needed.

"Be warned of a mimic's mouth, then," the noble said after a moment of silence. "Their only offence seems to be an extendable jaw." Proof enough that he believed Sasuke might need the warning; a suspicion the poker face he was now presenting Aidou hadn't held up in the face of his... visitor.

The closest Aidou himself had come to losing control over their lies was in his first therapy session with Hatori Sohma, and he was prepared now. With Akatsuki's disappearance, with everything. He wouldn't be open to believing in anything, not unless all channels could be examined to his approval. He found this kind of psychological manipulation all too common. Trying to fool one's better judgment...

"In any case, have you noticed any change with your eyesight?" He came short of saying 'your little eye problem', but changed it at the last moment. "What was the procedure exactly?" Aidou'd never bothered to take a close enough look.

... extendable jaw. The things in this place were every bit as oddly creative as some of what Kabuto and Orochimaru came up with. If that was the only threat, though, Sasuke wouldn't have a problem. (And if Allen's multi-legged beast showed up, Sasuke had handled the spider alright. With backup, but alright.)

Aidou's query about his eyesight drew Sasuke up short, a quick flashback to the bit of taunting this morning as compared to what seemed almost like a civilised question, but then again: Aidou was flighty and weird. There was no point in trying to understand him if it wasn't key to the alliance.

"Nothing, but I'm getting used to fighting with it," Sasuke said, and still left out Sharingan. At this point, it was still only Sakura and Naruto who (might be gone) knew for sure. He frowned when Aidou asked, but not talking about it would be akin to admitting that the surgery itself was still something that affected him. Which it wasn't; or at least, he wasn't going to let it. "A portion of my cornea was removed and replaced with the opaque patches that are there now. It blocks off light to the pupil."

That made Aidou's brows shoot up, and he had the strangest urge to laugh. An interesting choice of surgery... with inserts, there was a chance for recovery should a second reconstructive surgery be preformed, perhaps. Surely it would have been easier to just permanently blind the boy.

Though, maybe that wasn't the point.

"I see... well, that's somewhat beneficial to you, I suppose." In truth, Aidou had thought maybe Sasuke could help out with another experiment of his... if it had something that hadn't involved such obvious implants, he might've thought to test his healing abilities. He still could, but removing whole patches of natural tissue made things more complicated. Oh well.

Sasuke was almost suspicious at what Aidou said, but there was absolutely no way for Aidou to possibly have known about the Sharingan.

"I have reason to doubt it was done with just the blindness in mind," he said with a bit of a shrug, and finished the rest of his juice. "The doctor who performed the surgery said that he was collecting my genetic information as well."

He said it as neutrally as he could, because Aidou seemed to speak to plenty of people and might have heard of something similar. With River it seemed to have been purely to mess up her mind even further, but taking Sasuke's DNA was another matter.

"You must have an ace in the hole if they're interested in your genetics," the vampire mused. He found himself not quite as curious about that. "The thing with yours eyes done with something specific in mind, maybe?" Who knew. Even if it had been random fun for the doctors, the loss of sight was still debilitating on a whole, being the most used sense.

The experiments themselves were probably one of Landel's sideshows that made the most sense. What other purposes could it serve, beyond poking at lab rats and spreading turmoil? Even if there was something more nefarious in mind, Aidou surmised it would not come into action so soon.

Sasuke made a noncommittal sound at the first comment. He did, sort of, limited as his bloodline was here, but there was no point in advertising.

"I've spoken with River on the subject and at least one other patient who had been experimented on," Sasuke was assuming that Aidou had heard of River, since pretty much everyone in the Institute had. "Based on what was done to us, it seems like the experiments themselves are done primarily to cause mental strain without lowering our physical ability to the point where we are unable to fight."

It sort of fit with the theory that this place was performing military-related research. Mark had his questions, but Sasuke had seen Sound.

River...? Yeah, he recognized that name. Crazy girl. Supposed telepath. "Oh, then she wasn't completely nuts before then?"

The boy's observation was otherwise accurate, though he didn't point out that Sasuke was doing an awful lot of blundering around for someone who claimed to still be able to fight. Without even having to look, Aidou knew when twilight turned into evening, and happened to surprise his nurse by standing up before she did.

"All right, it's that time. See you soon."

Day 30: Cafeteria, Dinner

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