damned_institute | Nightshift 34: Bus Unloading Area

[from here]

Wally shivered as he stepped out into the cool night air. They seemed to be in some kind of parking area - a few buses were throwing huge shadows across the ground which, combined with the general lack of lighting and cold breeze, sent a chill down his spine. Not that he was afraid or anything, it was just a little creepy, that was all.

He looked around, trying decide which would be the best direction to try for a phone. Probably the one the road was leading in. Duh, he mentally berated himself.

First things first, he had to lose Kal. Not that he really had that much of an issue with the guy normally, but he really wanted to get to a phone and call the League and he couldn't do that with a kid following him around the place. Wally glanced over his shoulder to check that Kal hadn't followed him yet. The coast was clear and it was probably too dark for him to be seen, he decided. He smirked as he kicked into speed and ducked behind one of the buses, figuring he could hide until Kal gave up and left on his own.

Hunkered down in the shadows, Wally pressed his head back against the bus and supressed a whimper. His stomach was painfully empty now and it was making him feel a little light-headed. He wasn't sure any more if he would even be able to run all the way to a nearby town. It was looking like he'd be lucky to make it over the fence, let alone however many miles away a town would be. It was hard to imagine this night getting any worse.

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"Let's keep your magic in reserve and use the coat," Momo replied. "The fabric of my uniform is tightly woven and should also offer some level of protection."

Since she was unsure what they'd find on the other side, the shinigami was hesitant for either of them to use their magic. Mundane means were better right then, Momo narrowed her eyes at the top of the gate. Right then, she hated being short.

"I''ll need your help up; I'm too short."

Signum nodded, and the rest of her gear followed her bat over the wall in a series of short, unceremonious flights. When her coat was empty the knight folded it and threw it over the barbed wire topping the gate, producing a narrow section that could hopefully be traversed without injury.

"Here," the knight said, answering Momo's request with a pair of cupped hands. Lifting her ought to be easy enough...

Momo's sword clanged onto the ground amid Signum's gear and, with a nod to the knight, put her sandled foot in her friend's hands. She didn't weigh much, so getting up to where she could push up off of Signum and get to the top was easy. The shinigami clambored across the coat, grunting a little in pain as a few of the concealed barbs pushed uncomfortably against her still tender torso.

She dropped to the ground on the other side and took a quick look around. "Clear," she called back to the knight as she retrieved her sword.

Signum, for her part, just took a running jump at the gate and managed to get a good enough hold on it to haul herself on top, where she balanced rather precariously while she disentangled the coat before jumping down. She'd been through... well, everything since she'd come to this place in that coat, and she didn't want to tear it apart. Especially if leaving the walls meant they'd actually be spending the night out here instead of being whisked back to their rooms come morning.

After doing her own check of the surroundings (there was absolutely nothing blind about Signum's particular brand of obedience) the knight started gathering up the gear she'd thrown over the wall... and wondering what exactly they were going to do out here. Besides 'see what happened', anyway.

"Do you have any goals for the night?" she asked.

Momo slipped her sword into her belt and then folded her hands into her sleeves as she slowly looked in the three cardinal directions they could head. Doyleton was to the south as that's the direction the road was heading through the thick forest surrounding the place.

"Our official mission to the 'explore the area outside the front entrance' which I interpret as a mapping mission." Momo cast a glance at the knight. "He's not admitting it, but he's feeling similar to us after last night," she added on, no longer making an attempt to hide the bitterness in her voice. Hitsugaya was probably feeling the frustration even more because of his position as the leader of Arts & Crafts. Plus... he was still young.

She turned to face the north east and her eyes shimmered for a moment, almost not detectable in the moonlight, as she called up Hitsugaya's spirit threads. "Hitsugaya's in that direction, a ways out." A little blood dripped from Momo's nose and she wiped it away as she turned west.

"Just mapping does not suite me this night," she said, eyes focused on the dark mountains in the distance. "We've already learned that the limiters are still in effect in the town to the south. Let's head to the west into the mountains and see if we can get far enough away to break their range."

Momo was silent for a moment. "I am tired of being in this gigai."

"Very well." The knight agreed stonily. She wasn't terribly optimistic about this approach, since the limiting systems used by the TSA worked without regard for their distance from their administrators, but it would be foolish not to try when one considered how much they would gain if the effort paid off. It was worth a night of her time, at least.

Momo's complaint, though, gave her pause. Despite the shinigami's occasional familiar reference to the afterlife and such things as the soul, for the most part her nature hadn't intruded on their relationship and Signum had persisted in treating her exactly as she would the officer of an allied military, a few questions during the idle dayshift aside. But little comments like this reminded her that there were things about her friend she might never understand.

"Is having a body that different?" She asked, curiosity overcoming her tension and the guard she kept over it both.

"It is hard to describe the sensation," Momo replied as she started to head west. "It's very uncomfortable, constraining and..."

What was the best way to put how it felt? There were several reasons seated shinigami never stayed in gigai for longer than absolutely necessary. She can't imagine how Rukia did it for so long. Then again, she did end up suffering the consequences for doing so, even if she was a special case considering where her gigai had come from.

"...to put it bluntly, it feels like I'm being strangled by my own reiatsu."

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Nightshift 34: Bus Unloading Area

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