damned_institute | Day 35: Bus 1

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Day 35: Bus 1

Sanji woke up groggily to find his nurse already in his room. He gave a sleepy and half-hearted "Buh?" before realizing that nurse meant dayshift, and he'd fallen asleep after dinner.

"Shit!" He sat up abruptly, which gave his nurse a start. "Nami-swan!" How had he allowed himself to sleep through an entire night? What if she'd tried to return to the basement? What if she'd been waiting for him to appear and protect her? He'd let her down!

"There, there. Calm down." His nurse set a familiar flannel shirt down on the bed and Sanji eyed it with confusion. The last time he'd worn that had been... "Sorry I didn't knock or anything, but I was so excited~!" A pair of jeans followed the shirt. "Today is the field trip into town! Aren't you looking forward to it?"

The chef had to admit, the town had been an interesting enough place the last time he'd been. If he could find Nami early on he might even be able to lead her around... So he didn't complain too much as he changed into the other outfit (which he really wished they'd let him keep - anything was better than the regular gray) and was led out to the first of the buses.

He took a seat near the front, hopefully easily visible to any of his crew - especially to a certain member of his crew.

[for Usopp!]

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[mind a scholarly witch? :D]

Before Willow had enough of a chance to examine what they were finding in the mine, she was staring up at that familiar ceiling once again with the intercom crackling to life above her. It had happened enough times now that she was able to skip the confusion part, but it didn't make the transition any less disorienting. She sat up, blinking her eyes to clear her vision, as one of the nurses came into the room carrying clothes that weren't white and didn't have smiley faces on them.

"Good morning, Leslie! Did you sleep well?" she asked cheerfully, laying the clothes out on the bed. "We're going on a field trip today, so you need to get up and get dressed."

"Field trip...?" Willow asked, frowning. It took her a few moments to remember the trip to Doyleton, and then she was almost immediately alert and focused. Especially after finding the mine, she couldn't miss a chance like this, a chance to gather some more pieces of the puzzle and hopefully get closer to the answers. "Right. Doyleton. Um..." She looked over at the clothes as she got out of the bed. "Are those what I'm wearing?"

The nurse beamed. "That's right! Get dressed quickly so you don't miss the buses, okay?"

The clothes consisted of a long, olive-green skirt and a top that looked like a dress shirt, with fluffed frills along the edges of the sleeves and down the middle of the shirt. They weren't that bad, considering. Willow dressed quickly into them and followed the nurse out to the buses. She was handed a brown paper bag and ushered just as quickly towards the first bus. Once on it, she scanned quickly for Angel or Anya, but couldn't find either of them. She tried to hide her disappointment and looked instead down to a girl who also wasn't wearing the regular Institute clothing.

"Hi," she greeted a little tentatively, giving the girl a friendly smile. "Is it okay if I sit here?"

['course not! :D]

Kagura was always surprised at how friendly the people here were. But, she supposed, it was nicer to talk to the one who'd be sitting next to her than to sit through some unbearable silence as they traveled.

She looked up shyly at the other girl, "Please, go ahead. I would love some company." This new person seemed nice enough and she was really pretty too. Most of the girls here were, she'd noticed. Not that it was a competition, but it was enough to make her check her hair twice in the mirror in the mornings to make sure she was up to snuff.

"I'm Kagura, it's nice to meet you," she offered, giving her own smile.

Willow smiled back, slowly sitting down next to her. "Thanks." There were plenty of empty seats still left on the bus, but Willow couldn't help choosing to keep someone company when they didn't look like they were expecting anyone. She knew what it felt like to be the only one sitting alone in a room full of people; she'd experienced that enough times back in high school before she'd met Buffy. "I'm Willow," she replied with a small nod. "It's nice to meet you too."

She kept one eye on the people still getting onto the bus in case Angel or Anya arrived, but with two other buses the chances of that happening weren't very high. She'd just have to make sure to find them when they got to Doyleton. "Have you done this before?" she asked Kagura, still wondering what exactly to expect.

Willow. She hoped she'd be able to pronounce it ok. All these foreign names were so difficult. There didn't seem to be a language barrier, but trying to say some of the names was much harder than she'd thought. At least it wasn't as long or complicated as Alec Trevelyan's name. She still stumbled over that one.

She shook her head slowly at Willow's question. "This is my first time," she admitted, pulling absently at the hem of her shirt. "I hope we can... I mean... do you think anyone there will believe we're not crazy?" Even if it was just one person, just long enough to run away, that would be enough. But they'd made it outside the building before, only to wind up back in bed. Would it be the same come morning? Even if they were miles away?

The question didn't surprise Willow at all. It was one that she'd been considering ever since she knew about the trip, too. "I think," she began carefully, "that if there was a chance someone would, then we wouldn't be here." She smiled weakly. "Dr. Landel's not that careless." Willow had no idea what they would find in the town, but she was pretty sure now that it wouldn't be anyone sympathetic to their plight. The most she could probably hope for was more information or tools.

A thought occurred to her the next moment. "Hey. Are you Japanese? I'm sorry, your name sounds..." It was a little surprising how many Japanese people seemed to be here, but if Kagura was one of them, then maybe Willow could finally get a couple questions answered.

She had a feeling that was the truth, but she hadn't expected the girl to be so blunt about the answer. Wasn't there anything here they could hope for? If you took hope away, what was left? "Mm," she agreed, looking down at the bus floor, "you're probably right."

The question Willow asked next though, she hadn't been expecting. "Ah- yes," she looked up. "Why do you ask?"

"Oh, I didn't mean to..." Willow amended hurriedly at Kagura's reaction. "I mean, maybe someone might. Or maybe there will be a way without getting anyone's help." That was true, of course, just... not very likely. While Kagura didn't exactly look incapable of handling the truth, Willow had to remind herself that not everyone had the same kind of experience she and her friends had. She had to be a bit more careful about what she said.

Willow had a feeling that she knew what the answer was going to be by now, but she wouldn't be satisfied until she asked. "Um, you speak English really well. Did you learn it somewhere?"

Kagura had a feeling Willow was trying to placate her with the answer she gave. It was a nice gesture, even if it felt a little empty and Kagura did her best to show Willow a smile in return. She let the subject drop at that, more intent upon answering the girl's question anyway.

"Oh no, no," Kagura's cheeks reddened in embarrassment. "My English is really terrible." It was Willow who spoke excellent Japanese, or seemed to, just like everyone else here. "One of my worst subjects in school," she added, wincing as she admitted it.

Willow frowned. If that was true... "Are you speaking Japanese right now, then?" she asked. "Is, um... everyone?" She remembered that Armand had been French, but he'd never really specified how he knew English so well. And with all the Japanese people here so incredibly bilingual, even when speaking just to each other, it didn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that something was up.

Kagura looked dumbfounded for a moment when Willow asked her next question. Of course she was speaking Japanese, what kind of question was that?

"Yes?" she replied hesitantly, almost afraid it was a trick question. "I don't... know any other languages really. W-well, I'm not good at any other ones I mean."

Willow wasn't sure if it a good thing or a bad thing that was the answer she'd been expecting. "So... I'm speaking Japanese right now?" she asked just as hesitantly, her mind racing forward to what that meant. Was there some kind of language barrier? What were the rules surrounding it, if someone knew more than one language? Would anyone have been able to read the Latin she and Anya used once on the bulletin board? Whatever it was, the phenomenon was more proof for Angel's glamour theory, that was for sure. But if it wasn't a glamour, then... how were they doing it?

"Aren't you?" she asked, still hesitant. Why was Willow so insistent? She definitely didn't know English well, not enough to be fluent and the words coming out of Willow's mouth were definitely Japanese. Why did the girl have such a hard time accepting that?

So to Kagura, Willow was speaking Japanese, while on Willow's end it all definitely sounded like English. Did everyone hear something different depending on what language they were most familiar with? What happened, then, if Willow were to speak in something like Spanish right now? Would Kagura still hear it as Japanese anyway?

Seeing the expression on her face, Willow gave an apologetic smile. "Oh, I'm sorry! It's just... to me right now, you're speaking English. So..." she paused. "Could you tell me what you hear when I say this? Sed quis custodiet ipsos custodes?" It was a Latin phrase, one of the first Willow had ever learned. She heard it as Latin, but... would Kagura?

Willow sure asked a lot of strange questions. "U-um... I didn't understand it at all, I'm sorry," she said with some embarrassment. It just sounded like gibberish. French? Maybe Spanish? She wasn't even sure.

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Day 35: Bus 1

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