damned_institute | Day 31: Sun Room (Fourth Shift)

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Day 31: Sun Room (Fourth Shift)

Though perhaps not entirely as successful as he wanted it to be, Homura walked away from lunch feeling satisfied with his efforts. Roland and Fai both had shown interest in the goal, and that was enough for the moment. Homura could be patient, had already been for five hundred years, and felt no harm in waiting another five hundred if he had to. He would have his goals realized, no matter what obstacles he faced, be they from the prison or those trapped within.

But now was time for business of a different sort, and the demi-god made his way to the Sun Room, near the common board. He made sure he could be seen from the entrance to the cafeteria, knowing that one stranger and one member of his own group both wanted to meet with him. It worked out well enough, especially given that the stated purpose of the History Club was simple.

Revenge and escape.

For now, Homura had no intention of revealing that it'd grown more complicated than that.

[Waiting for L and Junior]

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Rukia crossed her arms, making a show of being offended. "Now, that's not an appropriate question to ask a lady!" she scolded.

A moment later, though, she chuckled, answering, "I'm not exactly sure. Somewhere around a hundred. I died when I was a baby, I think, and didn't really know to keep track of years for a long time." She wondered if he would be shocked by that information.

"Is it?" he asked, never having been scolded for something like that before. Well, his mother might have scolded him once for it a long time ago, but it hadn't come up since he'd been in Tomoyo's service.

And he really couldn't have cared less if he'd offended her as a result.

... "So you're dead?" A dead death God? There were such things?

"Normally, yes," she said. "At least, that's what some people say."

She nodded, explaining, "In my world, when people die they go to Soul Society. Some of us are strong enough to become shinigami. We fight to protect the living from Hollows, which are the monstrous souls of those who have died and refuse to move on to the next world." There, that was pretty concise. maybe the shortest version she'd been able to manage so far.

He'd heard as much about Hollows from listening to Ururu, though he hadn't pried into it much. It was sort of weird that he was knowingly speaking with someone who was dead (and had been for a while), but the Princess had done the same in Spirit. The difference here was that Kurogane did not have the power to actually see spirits like the Princess.

"Never thought a Shinigami would look human," he said plainly after a bit. He wasn't one to get riled over the inexplainable, not anymore at least. Sure, he'd stare at strange foods and any kind of talking animal here and there, but for the most part he'd gotten over his exploding fits from earlier in his travels.

Rukia shrugged. "Maybe they don't look human in your world," she offered. "There may not even be shinigami in your world."

"About which I must admit I'm curious," she said. "Fai said that you travel to many different worlds?"

Edited 2008-04-11 21:37 (UTC)

"There are," he said. None that he could see, but he knew the term well enough. And if Rukia was supposed to be dead, then she'd be a spirit or something. He wasn't usually able to see such things. Of course, in a place like this anything was possible.

He nodded. "Yeah, we do." Fai had said that much already? Normally he would have only mentioned passing through or some sort of similar excuse.

Genuinely curious, Rukia asked, "But how do you know that they exist if you haven't seen them?"

"That must be exciting, getting to see new places all the time," she said, though she expected Kurogane was less enthusiastic about it.

Answering that would mean... "My mother was a Miko," he said a little reluctantly. He didn't like having to talk about his past, so that was all he'd say concerning that. It should be enough.

He growled a little more at the word "exciting". Different, maybe, but far from exciting, and definitely annoying. He hadn't wanted to go on this stupid journey in the first place.

Rukia frowned, not familiar with the word. "What's a Miko?" she asked.

"A priestess."

He found it strange that she didn't know that. Shinigami were Japanese so far as he knew. The word was anyway. Or maybe she was saying something else and that was just what the translation the Manjuu was giving. He wasn't about to sit there and figure out how Mokona worked where Language was concerned. So long as he could communicate well enough, things were fine.

"Oh, so she was familiar with that sort of thing, then," she mused. There really wasn't such a thing as a priestess in Soul Society, but Rukia had met a few people in the Rukongai who had been priests or priestesses in life. From what she could tell, they sometimes spoke to spirits, and performed a lot of rituals at shrines.

"Ah..." As a kid, he'd asked a lot of questions of both his parents. He wasn't so carefree anymore.

"So why are you and Fai traveling together?" she asked after a few moments of silence. They did seem like a strange pair.

Back to that again. "It's not by choice," was the first thing out of his mouth. He still found the whole mess annoying and unwarranted for the most part. Tomoyo had overreacted.

Rukia tilted her head. That wasn't much of an explanation. "Some sort of assignment, then? Or if you'd rather not discuss it I understand."

"Mmmm..." he thought it over. It wasn't something he wanted to explain, and talking about it would only serve to rile him. He had a feeling though that if he did not answer, Fai would. That idiot only talked about things if it meant bothering him, so he wasn't about to leave things open to Fai's imagination. "My Mi-- priestess threw a fit over the way I protected her. She put some kind of spell on me, then sent me away," he sneered, remembering how he'd shouted at her during that incident, "and now I'm trying to get back home."

Rukia frowned, wondering what he had done to warrant such a punishment. "I'm sorry," she said, "I hope we can all get out of here soon, and you can return home... May I ask what you did to anger her?"

"Don't apologize." And once again, he was reminded of the Princess. Were all young girls like this? He was more used to Soma and Tomoyo being pains in his sides, but he hadn't yet met anyone like that on his journey. Well, aside form the Tomoyo of Piffle, and she'd at least been decent to him. No spells and curses and forced trips that made him have to give up his sword!

"i just said, she didn't like the way I protected her," he sighed hard. It was true that he'd enjoyed some of the fights he'd had during this journey, and that he'd kept from killing anyone by the curses constraints, but that did not mean he wasn't still sore. "Assassins would attack the castle, trying to kill her, so I'd kill them before they could. She didn't like that I killed them."

That wasn't the response Rukia had expected. Granted, her apology had been more of a reflexive phrase than a real apology, but it was somewhat surprising that Kurogane had told her not to apologize. He was an interesting individual...

At least he clarified his previous statement, though he seemed irritated that Rukia was not, in fact, a mind reader. She frowned again, blinking. "That's odd. I would have done the same in your position. Had you not killed them, wouldn't they just have been captured, tried, and executed?" Why was his priestess so unhappy with his apparently effective methods?

"Knowing Tomoyo, she'd have let them go. No executions." His Priestess had always been too kind for her own good. "And they'd have just come back to try and kill her again," he bowed head, sighing once more, "I don't get it."

But that was one of the reasons why he'd been sent away, he knew. Because he didn't get it. Tomoyo had said that she wanted him to know the true meaning of strength, but even after all this time he still didn't understand what it was she'd wanted him to find on this journey. All he'd gotten out of it thus far was a mess of troubles and a missing sword.

"No executions?" she murmured. "Perhaps she thought that her mercy would set a good example?" In Rukia's opinion, that might work to an extent, but there were some who were beyond redemption; like the souls that went to Hell when they died.

"Maybe..." he wouldn't have known. The politics of such things had never been his concern. He had only been at the castle to protect Tomoyo, nothing more, nothing less.

"Hmm..." Rukia still thought it was odd that Kuorgane's master would have sent him away like that. If there were so many assassination attempts on her, what would she do without him? Or perhaps she had many other body guards to watch out for her while he was gone.

They were silent for a while longer, then Rukia asked, "What do you plan to do now? With Fai, I mean? And do you know what happened to him last night??" She had seen him earlier in the day, and he looked to be in a worse state than she was. How had he gotten himself hurt now?

Being silent would have been fine for a while. Fai could be entering soon and Kurogane had a few questions for him that needed to be asked outside of another's hearing range. But then Rukia began asking some more questions. "We're finding the rest of our group, then leaving." No matter what he says to the contrary.

"I had to deal with him last night." Another sore area. Being in the clinic and having to have done.... what he did.... if Fai ever remembered something like that, it would not end well. "Some kid was retreating from the Sun Room with him. Said that he'd fallen in from the second floor. Found out later that he'd been attacked while trying to get something from up there on his own." Now that he thought about it... he gave her a look, "Can you think of something he might have wanted up there?"

Rukia covered her mouth with one hand. "Oh, he's lucky someone found him!" A fall like that could easily kill a human.

She mulled over Kurogane's question, then opened her notebook to where the 2nd floor map (http://i74.photobucket.com/albums/i259/Serey-chan/2ndFloorAC.jpg) was tucked between the pages. Holding it so that they could both see the map, she muttered, "Well, there's the morgue... Maybe he was going to see the Radio Man's body? But, no, if he fell into the sun room, he was probably trying to get over this way... Maybe the pharmacy, for some medicine? I think some people have found useful supplies there... Or the room where they keep our 'real life' possessions?"

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