damned_institute | Day 34: Breakfast

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Day 34: Breakfast

[starting off in M13]

The last part of the night was little more than a blur in Homura's mind. The men had rushed in, but not joined them, instead staying off to themselves. Before any of them had a chance to react, however, a voice sounded through the air, mocking some other person Homura had never heard of, and the patients themselves.

To Homura, whoever that man was, he sounded a great deal like a god.

But before he could ask questions, the demi-god found himself no longer in the chapel, but some strange room on a bed. Is that what Kenren had meant from his earlier warning? Homura sat up, glad at least that the world didn't spin when he did so. Then the same man from before began to speak again, with a completely different tone. It was confusing to hear him talk that way, calling them patients instead of prisoners as he had before. Homura listened quietly as the announcement was made, then got out of bed.

Maybe he wouldn't have to go anywhere yet. It wasn't like Homura knew where to go anyway, and that meant he had time. If this was his room, and if he had been here as long as Kenren had said, there was a chance he could find something with answers. The Taisho had even told him that Homura had seen Rinrei. Certainly he would've written something down, made a map, something that could let him find her again! He started with the desk at the end of his bed, first finding a small stack of notebooks. Picking up the first, he flipped through, turning the pages with quickening desperation as he found each one to be blank.

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Ah, God. They really needed to stop pulling him out in the middle of fights like this.

Making his way to the cafeteria was business as usual. No Anya yet, but by now, he was fairly certain that if she survived the night, she'd survive the morning. Still, keeping an eye out for both her and Willow had become almost automatic at this point.

As he scanned for them, though, his gaze fell on a kid sitting not too far off. He looked a little lost, actually

Well, might as well. The nurse would drag him to sit with someone in any case. At least this way, he might be able to help someone out in the process.

He set his drink down on the table. "Hey."

He hadn't seen any signs of Murata yet, and that only made Yuuri worry more as he glanced around the room. Maybe the other boy wasn't here? That thought didn't sit well within his stomach, and it left him feeling terrible.

Poking at his pancakes, Yuuri couldn't help but sigh at his situation before he was broken from his thoughts by the drink. Glancing up at the other patient, the young Maou stared with wide eyes. Wooaah! Such a good looking man.

"Good morning!" Yuuri cheerfully greeted. This man didn't look crazy to him. "I don't really know what's going on here... Did you go the wrong way in the water as well?"

Angel had just barely slid into his seat when the question caused him to glance up again. His brows furrowed slightly.

"No, I—what?"

Was there context he was missing here?

"Eh?" Yuuri blinked in confusion at the furrowed brows and question in return. While he thought he was the only one who could travel to different worlds through water, he was beginning to wonder if that really was the case. "You didn't get sucked down the wrong pipe while traveling back home?"

It was only logical to the young Maou that everyone else had arrived in the same manner as him - regardless of the fact that he woke up in an area that obviously had no water in it. How else could they have gotten here.

...Okay, then. As far as bizarre questions went, that maybe wasn't at the top of the list—he spent three years surrounded by teenagers in Sunnydale, after all—but it was close.

"No," he replied, deciding not to question it further. Evidently, the boy had the ability to travel through water pipes and while it sounded more than strange when you put it like that, he'd seen enough to know that it could very well be fact. "Things, uh. Work a little differently here. We're not sure how anyone came through."

"Eeeh?" Things worked differently? Tilting his head to one side in thought, Yuuri brought a hand up to rub at his chin. What other methods were there at transporting people? His mind was drawing a blank.

"Ahh wouldn't your family be worried about you..." Yuuri's words trailed off when it seemed that he didn't know the other man's name. "Oh! I'm Shibuya Yuuri! Nice to meet you."

Someone else of Japanese descent. This had to be more than a coincidence, but what it meant was beyond him.

"I'm Angel," he replied. He tapped his index finger once absently. "Where are you from, Yuuri?"

The question had never helped him figure anything out, though. Still, no harm in trying. It was something to say, at least.

"Angel?" Yuuri parroted once. He'd never heard of anyone having that name before, but he wasn't terribly good when it came to western names. For all he knew 'Angel' was very popular in their societies.

"Eh? Oh! I'm from Japan." He announced cheerfully. "Where abouts are you from?"

Giving Angel a thoughtful lok over, Yuuri tilted his head subtly to one side as he stated. "Your Japanese is perfect Angel. Actually, everyone's Japanese here is perfect now that I think about it."

Which was a surprise. Did this whole institution only take in those who spoke Japanese?

What? Oh. Right. That language thing.

"L.A. And I'm not speaking it," Angel said. "No one is. Or, some people might be, but...not everyone. It's complicated."

Clearly.

"L.A? Really? I was born in Boston." Yuuri said with a large smile on his face. The expression, however, didn't last for too long. It only took a moment for Angel's words to register in his mind, but when they did, Yuuri loudly exclaimed. "Eeeeh?! You're not speaking Japanese?!"

Did they have Anissina's 'let-me-hear-your-heart-kun's' with each of the patients?!

Peering around to look at either side of Angel's head, Yuuri blinked in confusion when it appeared that the other man wasn't wearing such a device. "What is this place?" The young Maou asked with wide eyes.

All Angel could really do was watch Yuuri look...for something. What was he looking for?

Never mind. One more thing not to ask. He was starting to pick up on that skill. Sometimes it was better just to take it as is.

"I don't know," he admitted. "It masquerades as a psychiatric hospital, but that's not what it is. I can't exactly tell you where we are or the specifics of how it functions. What I can tell you is not to go out alone at night."

"So are we even on Earth?" That was a possibility he didn't want to consider, but if Angel and himself were both from different parts of Earth, then there was a good chance they were still there. Maybe he hadn't taken himself to a completely different world. But did that mean Murata was stuck in a similar situation? He hoped not.

"Huh? They let you wander around during the nighttime?" That was odd for a mental institution.

Angel hesitated. He didn't want to scare the kid when he technically had no solid proof either way, but somehow, he suspected Yuuri would find out what was up eventually.

"I don't know, either," he said finally. "All I've got are theories. We might be trapped in an extremely sophisticated glamour or we might be in another dimension altogether. There seems to be a time and dimensional rift of some sort. Wherever we are, it's unstable."

Which was what worried him the most. If it was a glamour and it broke apart, everything would be fine. If an entire dimension tore apart, though...that would be an issue.

"Doors open at night. The safest place to stay is your room, but if you have to go, go with a group. You'll find a number of people willing to take you in, if you ask around for the Arts & Crafts."

He'd offer, but keeping someone under his protection here was a little different than the way it'd worked back home where he could just give people a place to stay while he went out and killed things. Given he'd run into—what, two hyenas, a cat, and a couple of giant demons over the past two nights alone? Yeah, he doubted he'd be the safest companion to travel with. Nothing good was ever attracted to him, anyway.

Yuuri blinked at the hesitation. Was something wrong? This looked an awful lot like Earth technology, he noted while glancing around the room. Sure, he'd never been in a mental institution before, but from what he did know everything looked normal.

"Glamour? What's that?" Turning his attention back onto Angel, Yuuri's eyes widened at the explanation as he gasped. "Dimension?! As in, another world?!" Sighing, Yuuri rubbed at the back of his head as he muttered more to himself than at Angel. "Ahhh why does this keep happening to me?"

He wasn't a king of this world either was he? Yuuri didn't exactly want to find that out again. Having two worlds as home was more than enough for him.

"Eh? Really?" The young Maou asked as he glanced around the room. "So everyone here is in the same situation then? Taken from their homes to this place."

"Well, like I said, no one really actually...knows for sure," Angel added hasitly, despite damage already being done. He knew he'd scare the boy. "You mentioned that before, though. The water pipes. You've had this happen before?"

Certainly, dimensional travel wasn't truly exclusive or anything, but the method that Yuuri had mentioned was, well, off, to say the least. The only logical explanation he could come up with was that Yuuri had somehow found a portal within a pipeline. Which wasn't entirely impossible.

"Pretty much. You'll find not a lot makes sense here."

He wondered if they really were in an entirely different world, if not, then he should be able to call his family back in Japan right? Since this world definitely wasn't connected with Shin Makoku.

"Ahh yeah something like that - it's not the pipes but the water source. I was first flushed down the toilet and landed in a different world on the other end. But I've also fallen into rivers, pools, puddles and bathtubs and traveled between them as well." Yuuri began explaining. It sounded so far-fetched even to him when he spoke it out loud. "I was traveling from one bathtub to another one when I entered here."

Frowning softly, Yuuri crossed his arms over his chest as he thought out loud. "Although... I've only recently begun opening the portals by myself and I wonder if I just took a wrong turn or something."

Angel was silent for a second or two. "...Oh."

Did that—was that even possible? Even for someone who didn't seem to be entirely human, it sounded kind of out there. Then again, possible was starting to become a wider and wider definition. Still. Flushed down a toilet. That was—it was.

Yeah.

"Um." He shook himself out of it. "I-I don't think you took a wrong turn. Portals are like doorways, you can only go in or out. But that aside, there doesn't appear to be a logical reason as to why any of us are here. It seems to have just...happened somehow."

Edited 2008-07-30 22:35 (UTC)

Yuuri looked at Angel with a confused expression when the other patient remained silent for a moment or two. It wasn't like he would make up the most ridiculous situation and just blurt it out. He wasn't proud at being flushed down a toilet either. So why had he mentioned that? Ahhh damn the spur of the moment things.

A sigh slipped passed Yuuri's lips at those thoughts, but Angel's hesitated words brought him back to the conversation. "Huh? Really?" Angel seemed to know a lot about portals. "You seem know a lot about portals Angel."

"I've had some experience," Angel replied.

And he was finding more and more people with similar knowledge, even though the metaphysical laws didn't always quite match up even though they came from his world. Or, well, Earth, anyway. But a slightly different version, maybe? However that managed to work.

"Where were you trying to get to?"

"Ahh really? I didn't know that there were others on Earth that could create portals. That's great!" Yuuri said with an excited grin.

Poking at the pancakes on his plate, the young Maou wondered just how long he'd be stuck here before he'd be able to go home. If it was anything like his beginning time in Shin Makoku, then there was a 'boss' or something that he had to defeat before he could return him.

"Huh?" Broken out of his thoughts by the next question, Yuuri glanced up from poking his meal as he cheerfully answered. "Oh! Back to Japan."

Angel blinked once. "They can. If you have the right texts and power. Depending on the portal, the supplies vary."

But somehow, something said Yuuri opened them...on his own. If he did, he was harbouring some serious power inside him. He looked like a kid, but Angel had learned that appearance didn't usually mean much.

"You were going home," he stated. "So where were you before that?"

"Oh wow!" Yuuri's eyes sparkled with excitement at the prospect. There wasn't that many back in Shin Makoku that could open up portals, and just before now, he thought he was the only one who could on Earth. His excitement paused; however, at the mention of needing the right texts to open up a portal.

"Texts?" He'd never had to use anything like that to get through portals, and neither did Shinou from memory. "Really? ...Eh! Could that be why I ended up here instead?! Ahhh I thought it was just because I'd only recently began doing it on my own lately."

Shoulders slumping at the thought, Yuuri shook his head. How could he be so careless? He would have thought Murata would have informed him about needing any paperwork to do any travelling.

"Mmhm! Yeah I was." Yuuri confirmed with a nod. "I was in Shin Makoku before then - back at Blood Pledge Castle with Murata and the others."

Yuuri's reaction was--somewhat unexpected, but Angel supposed if someone was going to have any sort of reaction, excitement wasn't the worst option on the list. The boy was surprisingly carefree. It was a little refreshing, actually.

Though kinda hard to know how to respond to. He never did do well around excitable people. Or people in general, actually.

"How it works for you might not be the same. Honestly, it's hard to say anything for certain right now."

He rotated the cup idly around on the table in a half-circle. "Shin Makoku. Are you from there?"

Although he'd said he'd been born in Boston. That didn't make his ancestry any less likely, though. Doyle blended in perfectly well despite being a half-demon.

"That's true. I think Murata explained that it was to do with the control of my maryoku that allows me to travel between the two places." Yuuri murmured thoughtfully. But who would have thought there were other methods to travel through to other dimensions and the like. "But I haven't gotten used to that kind of travel yet."

The rotating cup caught the young Maou's attention. "Eh? Ahh no, I'm from Earth actually." He said with a slightly sheepishly tone. "Shin Makoku is a medieval world that I spend half of my time at."

Maryoku referred to powers of some kind, Angel assumed, so he opted not to question it. He really needed his reference books to even begin trying to sort all this out.

"But you have ties there," he said. "That is why you go to and from, isn't it?"

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