damned_institute | Nightshift 34: Main Hallway, 1-West

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Nightshift 34: Main Hallway, 1-West

[from here]

The shinigami padded silently down the hallway, keeping to the left-side wall and her hand upon her sword's hilt. Her eyes scanned the area surorunding her as she continued on to the next hallway, especially the nurses' stations as she neared them. This would be a horrible time for her to get attacked by a nurse or two. Thankfully, the halls were empty, btu she didn't drop her guard. She knew better.

Almost there.

[to here]

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Glad to hear that Kaiji was willing to accept the idea of having to use a weapon (which might be intimidating to someone who wasn't used to fighting), Sora nodded to show his approval. He knew the other man wasn't really looking for it, but some support was never a bad thing, was it? Though Riku would have brushed that sort of thing off, so if Kaiji was like that, then maybe it wouldn't be appreciated.

"Yeah," he agreed, glowering down at the radio since it hadn't given any sort of message yet. Had there ever been a time when it hadn't come on? He wasn't sure since he didn't always take it with him, but it was something to consider. At least they had a back-up plan...

But right as he was about to suggest that they suck it up and head outside despite the almost certain danger, the radio buzzed to life and Sora quickly tightened his grip on it, lifting it up toward his head so that they would both be able to hear better. The broadcast drowned out the other noise around them for the moment as well.

Sora focused on the message, though he put most of his energy into memorizing the clues when they were rattled off. It always went way too fast for him, but he did his best despite the fact that this really wasn't his area of expertise.

He had a few vague ideas and probably had a better chance of figuring out where to go than Kaiji did, but he wanted to wait for the other man's reaction before he said anything.

Kaiji basically ignored Sora's approving nod. He hadn't been totally honest in his agreement, and was becoming more and more annoyed with himself. Not only was he thinking about things that he felt that he shouldn't have, but he was also for a brief moment dishonest. He probably wouldn't pick up anything even remotely weapon-like unless talked into it or forced to in the spur of a moment.

When the radio began to produce sound, the whole world outside of it stopped. Kaiji leaned in a bit to catch the broadcast while completely emptying his head of any other thought. The first part was fine. Normal sounding. He committed it to memory as best he could since forgetting would defeat the whole purpose of their 'mission' that Sora was hell-bent on fulfilling before anything else.

The last part, however, elicited a small but unpleasant sound from somewhere in Kaiji's throat. Bodies getting taken apart and put back together. Getting taken apart and put back together. Oh yeah, he knew all about that. So good old Landel was into that kind of thing, huh? At this very moment the bastard was probably drooling over the idea of taking poor defenseless down-on-his-luck Kaiji and toying around with him, cutting off this and that, watching him cry and squirm.

He wouldn't be the first one.

Kaiji looked like he was about to rip the radio to shreds with his teeth just for mentioning such an atrocity. How did these people handle all of this so calmly? How many times had he asked himself that today? One of his questions sped off of his tongue just after the radio turned silent: "They really do that here?" He spoke quickly, angrily. All fired up again, ready to dash any which way, pass through any obstacle, do anything he had to do to get the better of the guy running this operation. The concern, the caution, the doubt, all of it was dropped in an instant. He was quivering now, yes, but it wasn't from fear. Kaiji was officially pissed off. No one deserved to get hacked apart, and they especially didn't deserve to get hacked apart and used to make some... thing.

Hadn't Sora already mentioned the experiments to Kaiji? Then again, he hadn't put it like that. Still, the boy was pretty sure it was part of the clue, and Jill wasn't just being gruesome for the heck of it.

The question was valid, though, and the boy let out a sigh and nodded. "Well, there is torture. And like she said, there are monsters here that are made up of different parts from different monsters and people..." Those had to get made somehow, right? The doctors who were behind the torture and experiments probably picked out random parts and sewed them all together in their spare time or something. It wasn't what Sora liked to spend time thinking about, though.

Which was why he quickly changed the subject. They had a job to do, after all! "So I think she was talking about one of those rooms attached to the morgue... Y'know, where they cut up people to check how they died? I don't know what it's called," he said with a frown. Hopefully Kaiji was a bit more knowledgeable on the subject - or would at least know what he meant even from the bad description.

"I'm not sure about the others. Where's the place we're all trying to get to?" Wouldn't that be out? But she had said the clues were for people who wanted to stay inside, so that didn't make much sense. He would rather stick with the one he was more sure about, but maybe the older man had some ideas.

Kaiji was still shaking a bit even through the subject change. Man, fuck torture and the sick excuses for people who did it. "Son of a bitch," he grumbled. This place really was like something out of a nightmare. He may as well have considered his worst dreams prophetic and touted himself as a psychic at the rate this was going. He wasn't going to go any further with that line of conversation, though - the sooner they figured out the clues, the sooner they could actually do anything at all, and it seemed like Sora was on to something here.

Checking how people died? There was only one kind of place he could associate with that description: "You mean where they do autopsies," Kaiji clarified. Where he would have been if he hadn't- "An autopsy room, I guess you'd call it." Finally, he got to do something useful. Kind of. Sort of. Maybe.

Kaiji seemed fairly apathetic about the other unknown clue. It was the more mundane sounding of the two, and he could easily regurgitate it with a fair amount of accuracy. He shrugged it off, giving his best answer for now, "I'd be trying to get to wherever the guy who runs this place is." It probably wasn't the right answer, and he didn't even have any idea where that was. Did most of the patients want to get out, or did they want to beat the Head Doctor at his own game so that no one would have to endure something like this again? Hell if he knew.

"We don't have to do them in order, do we?" If they did, this was going to be a bitch and a half to accomplish.

It seemed to Sora that almost everyone (or at least those who were over twenty) in this place used bad words. It still made him pause whenever he heard one, but he wasn't quite as sensitive about it as he might have been in the past. Landel's gave people good reason to use bad language, after all.

When Kaiji came out with the right answer like it was nothing, Sora's expression brightened and he stood a little straighter. "Yeah, yeah, that's it!" He shouldn't have been so happy about something that was so gruesome in theory, but they might get something useful out of it. That had to be the place the clue was talking about, right? Nothing else made sense.

And while they could theorize about the others, Sora thought it was best to focus on the one he was almost certain about. At Kaiji's final question, Sora raised an eyebrow before giving a quick shake of his head. "No, you don't have to worry about all of them. We'll probably only have time for one, since other patients will have beat us to the others clues by then." He didn't want to think of it as a competition, necessarily, but that was basically what it was designed to be. And usually the prizes couldn't be shared equally.

"Anyway, I'm pretty sure I know how to get to the... autopsy room, so are you up for it?" They were even right by the stairs that would take them up, so it looked like this was going to be a successful night, provided they were actually right about the clue - and didn't run into anything too difficult on the way.

With Sora's excitement, Kaiji couldn't help but crack a bit of a smile. It wasn't a big victory, but he finally managed to know or figure out something that his guide here hadn't. Hopefully throughout the night and possibly beyond, he could work his way up to being able to serve some other use than just being Sora's walking dictionary and thesaurus. Still, it was their mutual little win for the moment and he was glad to have been helpful.

This was more of a matter of chance than he originally thought. Kaiji was under the impression that all hinted locations had to be visited, but judging from Sora's odd look, he was wrong. "Oh, right," Kaiji chimed back at the answer he received. He understood well enough now, he thought: the patients weren't necessarily working against each other, they were just working for themselves. Or their group, as it were. And of course this typically meant that someone else was going to get shafted. That's just the way it went, especially when there were too many and too different types of people to coordinate everyone. "I think I get it now."

Finally. It was a damn good thing that Sora seemed to know this place since even if Kaiji figured out the clue, he never would have been able to figure out where he was supposed to go on his own. Man, he had been 'up for it' since the moment the Head Doctor dropped that freaky laugh. It felt like it had been ages since then. "Ready when you are," he confirmed.

This was it.

It was good to see Kaiji smiling for once, and Sora could only assume that the other man enjoyed being a help. That was more or less normal, though, unless someone happened to be antagonistic (which Kaiji was not, as far as Sora could tell).

But they were going to have to get moving if they wanted to be the first to the autopsy room, so Sora didn't hesitate in turning toward the stairs with flashlight in hand. "Okay, let's go! Just stay close to me, okay?" Sora glanced over his shoulder at the other man with a small smile.

He clicked the flashlight on and directed the beam at the steps, not wanting to trip over them by accident. There were hardly ever monsters waiting in the stairwell, so he was able to have some confidence in his step as he made his way up.

[To here.]

Kaiji's face quickly snapped back to a serious expression. It was time for them to move forward, and he was fully aware that their night was only beginning. He had been screwed over too many times before by getting overconfident thanks to the little victories that he had earned or more often was given. False security was never a good thing. "Right with you all the way," he answered compliantly. As if he was going to wander off on his own and get himself killed. He wasn't like some people.

With that, Kaiji shoved his inactive flashlight under his left arm and began to follow Sora up the steps, moving slightly more slowly and using the feel and rhythm of the stairs to avoid tripping rather than relying on sight.

[ to here (http://community.livejournal.com/damned/428265.html?thread=35339241#t35339241) ]

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Nightshift 34: Main Hallway, 1-West

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