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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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?"

"Yep!" Yuuri said without any sign of hesitation. It was getting difficult to decide which world he preferred over the other these days, and he doubted that he'd be able to pick between the two anymore. Both were special to him in different ways.

He found his mood mellowing just slightly at this line of topic, and in the next moment, Yuuri found himself smiling happily. "My family lives on Earth, but the person who named me lives in Shin Makoku... along with Wolfram and the other Mazoku and humans I want to protect and look after."

Hunh. Wasn't that interesting. And the count of actual average Joe civilians at this point was still essentially at zero, including this encounter. The only theory in which all of this made any kind of sense was the fictional one, which only went to show how bizarre this entire situation was.

"Protect from what?" he asked.

"Eh?" Soushu had been defeated a few weeks earlier, and there hadn't really been any real threat to such a degree since then. They'd all managed to stop the rebellion that Wolfram's uncle had been trying to create, but other than that there wasn't much going on. Thank fully.

Yet there was still a few human countries that were against creating a united world. Ahh a Maou's work never seemed to be finished. "Um, well I guess there isn't too much to protect them from anymore, really, but there are still a few human countries against mazoku and humans living peacefully together." Smiling up at Angel, Yuuri added, "I want to help create a world where everyone can live together without worry."

An idealist, huh. Sometimes he wished he had that clarity. He kind of hoped Yuuri wouldn't lose it. And maybe...maybe he wouldn't.

He smiled faintly. "That'd be nice."

"Mhm!" Nodding his head, Yuuri's eyes became alight with determination as he stated. "I won't give up."

Glancing around the room at all the different patients having their breakfast, Yuuri regarded them thoughtfully. How long had all of these people been in here? Some looked like they had actually settled into this situation, and that thought upset Yuuri slightly.

"How long have you been stuck in here Angel?" Yuuri asked.

"Not that long," Angel replied. "Close to a week. Six days."

He hadn't started losing track of time yet and the days were both routine and different enough that he doubted he ever would. So that was good, at least. There was little else as bad as being trapped in a black hole mass of indistinguishable time. And he really wasn't too keen on going there again.

"Six days?!" Yuuri's eyes flew open and he almost fell out of his seat at that notion. "How can you be so calm when you've been stuck in here for that long?"

Sure he'd spent quite a lot of time over in Shin Makoku, but the time was different to there. Was the same true for here then as well? And if that was the case, then had only a few minutes at most gone by back home?

"Well, I don't really...panic well." Or answered questions well.

This was probably a cue to change the topic before Yuuri could dwell too much on his non-answer.

"You said you had a family, didn't you?"

"Eh? Aaah you're lucky!" He panicked too many times in situations. That was something Yuuri just could help considering his lack of experience. Although, Eru's birth was, perhaps, the worst panic attack he'd ever had. Ahh just thinking of when Nicola went into labour was enough to make him feel panicked.

Yuuri was entirely oblivious to Angel's successful deflection and change of topic. "Yep!" The young Maou's excitement was put on pause as a thought occurred to him. "Although that nurse before said that my family were the ones who put me in there in the first place."

"They feed everyone the same line," Angel replied. "Whatever they try to convince you of, it's a lie."

He didn't even have a family, which made the lie fall through immediately in his case. And he was fairly certain this was true for a number of people here.

"Really?" While he asked the question, Yuuri already knew the answer. Why would they do such a thing? It didn't make sense to the young Maou. He'd never experienced anything like this either on Earth or on Shin Makoku. Where should he go now?

Yuuri fell silent for a short moment as he glanced back around at the other patients. "Is there even a way to escape?" He mumbled to himself. Wolfram was going to be mad at him for getting himself into this mess... all of them probably would be.

That was the question of the hour. Truthfully, the logistics of getting everyone out were next to impossible, but that hadn't ever stopped things before. They hadn't hit a dead end yet.

"Theoretically, if the door goes in one way, it can go the other."

Pulling his attention back to Angel as he spoke, Yuuri found himself smiling up at the other patient. "Aa, that's true!" He announced cheerfully.

"I wonder if I'd be able to open up a portal back home or not." The young Maou murmured before rubbing his chin in thought. "I'd have to test it out on a decent water supply though."

Would be nice, if it were that simple.

"I'm not so sure that works," Angel replied. "There's something preventing the use of our full strength."

"Ahh I see. Well that's no good." A small pout formed on Yuuri's lips when it appeared that it might not be that easy. It had always worked before... well, almost every time before. There were a few times where travelling didn't go as smooth as usual.

It was only then that Yuuri made any realisation. From what he had been speaking to with Angel, then did that mean that him and the other patients also have special abilities? "Oh! So does that mean that you and the other patients can do things like that as well?"

Yuuri seemed remarkably at ease on finding out the abnormality of most here, for someone who lived primarily among humans.

"Not everyone," Angel said. "But there are some, yeah."

Only the specifics of each tended not to agree, the same way Yuuri's case didn't. In fact, he was starting to question if anything about this place was stable all throughout.

"Woah really?" Yuuri asked with an air of excitement. He had never considered the possibility that there might be worlds other than Earth and Shin Makoku, but it made sense really. If he'd already experienced two completely different worlds then why couldn't there be more?

"I wonder how many worlds are out there." He muttered more to himself than to Angel. "I bet there are so many races of people out there."

Yuuri kind of reminded him of Buffy's friends. They always took everything in stride, although Yuuri seemed actually intrigued instead of just blasé.

"There's a few," Angel said.

Understatement, really.

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Day 34: Breakfast

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