damned_institute | Nightshift 31: M81-90

Clark woke up feeling drained.

And once again, he was on the floor - only this time he'd fallen out without jolting himself awake and apparently slept sprawled like that for who knew how long. Pushing himself up, the farmboy winced. Ow. His neck was sore from lying like that. Rubbing at it, grimacing, he sat up and leaned back against his bed, trying to get used to actually feeling sore. What with his powers going on and off like this, one minute he could chug burning coffee without feeling a thing and the next, he couldn't even sleep on the floor without getting cramps. Cramps!

He still got surprised over stuff like that. Sure, it was little and every day to most people, but he'd spent most of his life not able to feel uncomfortable like most people. He'd probably even enjoy it if his bouts of normalcy were consistent.

But they weren't, so instead of feeling relieved, Clark just felt sharply out of place. It was like he was stuck between being human-normal and...and, alien-normal, whatever that meant.

Sighing and getting to his feet, Clark automatically looked over at Leon's end of the room. It was too dark to see if his roommate was still here or gone. Moving quietly, Clark felt his way about the room, his hands briefly brushing on the flashlight he'd left on the desk. Picking it up, he then felt his way to the door, running along the wall and not wanting to turn on the light and wake up his roomie. Sleep was hard to come by in Landels, nightmares or not. He'd let Leon get some sleep.

Clark closed the door behind him, flicking the flashlight on. The light seemed even weaker than normal - probably had to do with the batteries - and he hoped it'd last through the night, if not long enough to get to Dr. Burrough's office. He'd had to break and enter more times than any teen should back in Smallville, but he'd told himself that it'd been for the right reasons; to get to the bottom of things, to learn the truth and protect people. Chloe did it herself from what he knew and if she knew what he did, she'd probably even approve. But this somehow felt different. He didn't think that his doctor was a criminal. If anyone was doing anything criminal, it'd probably be him.

Assuming he even could trace his way back to her office.

Keeping the flashlight angled toward the floor, Clark set off.

[To here]

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"Exactly," Momo said to Hokuto when she mentioned the competitions and gave the girl a small smile.

Getting up, the vice captain nodded to Archer. "Yes, that is all for the briefing. Before we start our mission, though, there is one thing I must do first. As shinigami, I have the ability to see the underlying spiritual structure a person's soul possesses, regardless of their origin. These spirit threads are as unique to one as fingerprints. Because there are creatures within this place controlled by our enemies that have the capacity to effect that structure and even impersonate another, I would like to take a look at your spirit threads, Archer-san."

She gave the man a reassuring smile. "This way, I'll be able to tell at a later time if you've been effected negatively by something or if someone is attempting to fool me with impersonation. I do not talk about what I see in a person's threads and I cannot affect or manipulate them at all." Definitely not here. "It is merely a safety precaution."

Hokuto smiled back; she did what she could, and it was good to hear that Momo knew she was trying.

Hearing the explanation of spirit threads again renewed her curiosity; in her onmyouji training, hadn't she heard a little about that?

...of course, that had been when she was in early elementary school, and if she was capable of doing this normally, she'd forgotten. But if nothing else, it was interesting--and the fact she couldn't do onmyoujitsu didn't matter. Related didn't mean the same, and it would be nice if she knew more than she thought she did.

Wait a sec, she wanted to look at the spiritual threads that composed his soul? Archer felt more than a bit of hesitation about this procedure but ultimately decided to go through with it.

"I understand," he calmly replied to the Vice Captain.

Being a spiritual being and magus, Archer intimately understood the soul. While he understood the value of what she was saying, it still didn't completely assuage his discomfort.

"Thank you," Momo said with a nod and a small smile. "This will only take a moment and you shouldn't feel anything."

Setting one hand on the headboard of the bed, the shinigami centered herself and let her senses expand and bring the spirit threads into view. Immediately, she started feeling her headache again, but she ignored it. She focused on the spirit threads of Archer that swirled around him and out, quite relieved to see that the only similarity between his and Gilgamesh's was that thread she'd come to uniquely associate with the Servants.

She reached a hand out a little to touch one of the threads, allowing it to move freely as it slid through her light grip. At this point, a small amount of blood started to drip from the vice captain's nose, but she paid it no heed. Just as she had with Saber, she looked at the end of that unique thread, nodding just a little, and then released it as well as her focus. Momo closed her eyes, her grip on the bed frame increasing a bit as the vertigo hit her. She drew in a deep breath and slowly blinked her eyes open.

"All done," she said, her voice quiet. She thought about telling Archer about Saber's disappearance, but she wasn't sure how much the knowledge would effect him during the mission. If there were monsters waiting for them, she needed him focused. There was a chance that knowing about Saber would only drive him to distraction. She would wait on distributing that knowledge for now.

"Sumeragi-san... a towel please," she requested, fingers moving to staunch the nosebleed.

Hokuto quickly handed over a few, just to be safe; she'd certainly grabbed enough to have some to spare.

So, all in all, they had no idea what to expect... Hokuto was glad she didn't scare as easily as she had in life, but she was still getting nervous. Being killed didn't frighten her, not really... but the risk of severe injury sure did.

Ah, well. It can't be helped.

She went and slung her shovel onto her back again; she was ready to move on when Momo was.

It didn't actually feel painful, but he still felt uncomfortable. After all, a stranger was touching his soul. The experience reminded him of how it felt when he opened his magic circuits for the first time. When she was done, his unease began to fade.

Archer was a little concerned when blood started to drip from Hinamori's nose, but he wasn't exactly squeamish. In his experience, he'd seen much worse than that.

He didn't want to patronize her by asking if she was okay because that might question her capacity. Hinamori seemed like a responsible person who understood her limits, at least more so than others, which is why he remained silent.

"Ready when you are Vice Captain," Archer said, waiting until she had seemed to recover before speaking. His words were a polite way of ignoring what he'd just seen.

At this point, Momo was very adept at staunching her nosebleeds. It didn't take long for the blood to stop and, after wiping her face with a second towel, she tossed them into the waste bin. She gave Archer a tiny smile. "Expect to see more random nosebleeds and the like if I need to use any of my abilities. This body was not made to contain reiatsu of my level," she explained.

The shinigami picked her sword up and headed to the door. Hopefully, she wouldn't have to use any kidou, but that was too much to ask for. Besides, it was still hard to remember her greatest strength was also her greatest liability while under Landel's limiter.

"Let's go," she said, leaving the room.

[to here] (http://community.livejournal.com/damned/337119.html)

Nightshift 31: M81-90

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