damned_institute | [Nightshift 35] Patients Possessions Room

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miku

[Nightshift 35] Patients Possessions Room

[From Here]
Miku scurried into the room and caught her breath, leaning against a file cabinet. Sousuke seemed pretty irritated with her calling out to the other patients, but it wasn’t as though she’d been trying to purposely upset him. The patients' possessions room was dark as pitch, and Miku looked around with the flashlight, moving the beam over the cabinets. It was highly possible that they’d be attacked here, too, which was ten times more than annoying.Today's goal was to not be injured if they could help it.

“I’m sorry, Sousuke, I couldn’t... I couldn’t let them wander around injured. I’m not sure they listened to me, anyway,” Miku apologized between snatches of air. In all likely events, those four men hadn’t. They’d other things on their mind than a fleeing girl and her protector. She just hoped that he wasn’t going to carry on about her safety. Sometimes, there were things a little more important.

But only sometimes, if sometimes were never, according to Sagara Sousuke.

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Sousuke secured the door behind them, and then waved his flashlight around the room to check for anything obvious. So far, nothing.

"It's not a problem," he replied automatically, his light scanning over the boxes. He didn't recognize any of the names. "I was apprehensive that the enemy would have noticed us and attacked."

"But they didn't," she replied, looking for names that were familiar. "Maybe they don't like the small things like me," the adreneline had given away to nervous levity. Miku mouthed the names as she read.

John Connor, James Bleig, ...Ashley Evans. "I think they're all the names that they call us. Like 'Alice'," Miku said and started to pick her way down to where her own box might be. She kept her eye out for any movement that was neither her nor Sousuke. "Tell me your name again, Sousuke-kun, so I can look for your box as well."

She turned her head and smiled at him. "It might not be anything very useful, though." One could only imagine what they kept in his box.

Sousuke chuckled, amused at Miku's attempt to assuage his fears. "I would think that the monsters would like small things--given that you are much less likely to attack with brute power. That is most likely what the monsters here gauge their targets by: the ability to fight back." It wasn't smart, but Sousuke never said that these things were intelligent.

"They call me Akihiro Inoue here," Sousuke replied, shining a light on the boxes as well and searching for anything marked with 'Alice'.

"I don't know, I'm small, and bony... I wouldn't be a very good meal at all," she teased, looking for his fake name. It had to be close, if she had already come to the E's. "Inoue.. Inoue..." Miku's head popped up from around some boxes.

"Why do you suppose I have a Western name?" It wasn't as though Miku looked particularly Caucasian, after all. She spotted his name high up atop some boxes. "I found yours over here, Sousuke. It's a little tight in between these boxes, though..." She wriggled out, and frowned slightly at the obstructions.

"Not sure," Sousuke confessed. "You seem obviously of Japanese descent to me. Perhaps they are trying to brainwash you into thinking that you live in the U.S. and are an immigrant." It was possible. But then again, anything involving conspiracy was possible in Sousuke's head.

The sergeant trotted over to help her. "Let me," he said, reaching over her and easily getting a firm hold on the box. "I don't want it to fall on you."

"I think that's the least of our worries," Miku replied, and stepped out of the way. She was eager to see what was inside - what was it about boxes and chests that excited her so? She flashed her light over Sousuke's head to keep an eye out while he opened it.

Sousuke set the box on the ground gently. He didn't know what could be inside, so he motioned for Miku to stand back. Backing up a few steps himself, he nimbly kicked the lid of the box, knife extended just in case.

"I don't know if it's---" Miku's words were cut off as Sousuke punted the lid off of the box. She sighed, quietly, and pointed her dimming flashlight down at the box of effects. There was typical boy things inside. A pair of worn combat boots and a pair of dogtags with his fake name stamped on them. Miku removed them carefully and sat on her knees to examine his box. A pair of jeans and a T-shirt, that smelled faintly old from being boxed up, a CD that was smushed between them read 'Cacus Layne' and had a pink haired girl on it with a microphone.

"I didn't know you liked pop music, Sousuke," she teased and continued her investigation, passing over the items.

There were pictures too, one of a sports team the photographer didn't recognize, and one of a girl with a bright smile, turquoise hair and bright brown eyes, taken at a rather flattering angle. Miku felt something wicked and strange twist in her heart, dance across her other sense and quickly ignored it. "Ah, some pictures too."

Sousuke took the CD, looked at it and frowned. "I don't recognize this girl. It must have been something I was required to memorize for a mission." He'd had to memorize all those other strange names of bands and singers when he'd infiltrated Kaname's school, so why not now? This was an infiltration mission, after all.

He took the pictures from Miku, taking a look at the rugby team one. Ah, Jindai High's rugby team. He'd recognize those pathetic-losers-turned-killer-rugby-assassins any day. What puzzled him, though, was that he was wearing the uniform as well. And smiling of all things... "I trained with these people before, but I never wore their uniform."

Sousuke turned to the second photo and his heart nearly stopped in his chest. Kaname. Kaname was smiling up at him, seemingly happy. If this was in his box then that could only mean that the institute had stolen this photo from her. Or that she had given it willingly. Was she on the outside? Brainwashed and thinking that she didn't harbor Black Technology inside her head?

The man on the radio said that he hadn't heard of nor seen Kaname Chidori in the hallways, but that didn't mean she hadn't been there. This place... maybe he wasn't an infiltration scout, but a prisoner of war. If Kaname had been here before and willingly given up this photo, she had been brainwashed already. It was too late for her, and maybe only a matter of time before he followed her.

Sousuke suddenly and rather violently kicked a random box across the room. Its contents flew everywhere, including a stuffed moose. He seized another box out of the stack and threw it easily against the opposite wall, letting out a scream of frustration. He was going to tear this place apart.

Miku's heart seized, frightened at Sousuke's sudden outburst. She skittered back against another pile of boxes, eyes wide. "Sousuke...?" It was just so... so weird. He was normally so unflappable despite all they'd done together, that this was completely off her Sagara Sousuke Readiness Scale. Her sudden movement against the boxes toppled one off the top and scattered its contents on Miku and the floor.

Sousuke looked back, wide- and wild-eyed. His expression quickly fell when he saw Miku covered in things from the boxes. Oh God, he'd lost his head again. Taken out his frustration on those closest to him. He'd failed again...

"Hinasaki...!" Sousuke approached her slowly gently removing the things from her, hands shaking.

"I'm all right," Miku responded quietly, tugging a t-shirt from her face. Well, she wasn't completely lying, just enough to make him feel better. "What happened? Why did you... Why did you do that?" She tucked her hair behind her ears, unaware of how it'd been mussed by the boxes.

"Who is that girl?" It wasn't a far leap, after all. He'd been fine until he'd seen her picture. That odd feeling wrapped tighter around her heart.

Still shaking, Sousuke continued to pull the random articles off of his charge, cursing himself for going so far. "I lost myself," he said simply, finally clearing Miku of the objects. "I'm sorry, I lost myself."

Suddenly, the young sergeant wasn't thinking about what was right or practical. All he could remember were Usopp's words. He pulled Miku into him and held her closely.

"That girl... is named Chidori Kaname. I failed to protect her. She is gone, I can't protect her anymore." He shook even harder, clinging to Miku more fervidly, as though she might disappear.

Miku was never good with jarring, bone crushing hugs. She was too little, too thin, and too shy for such intimate contact. Not that she could say anything, not now, she'd already gone off and kissed the poor man. She leaned against his shoulder, looking over it, and watching for him, should anything choose to skitter up behind them.

"It... It doesn't mean she is here, or was here, or has ever been her, Sousuke-kun," Miku kept her voice quiet and soothing, the same kind of voice she used when Rei was stressed out, or sad. Miku the protector, Miku the Sacrificial, a chilly, evil little voice slithered through her head. She ignored it. "It doesn't mean you've failed her." Or, that he'd ever failed Miku. Somehow, the little photographer had a feeling she was the least of his worries, even if she was right there with him.

And not this Chidori.

Sousuke nodded, but he didn't quite believe her. It was his job, his duty to protect her first and foremost. And then he'd sworn himself to Miku and suddenly... the reminder of Chidori came back. But he'd failed, no matter what Miku said. If she'd been through here already, it meant that Landel had the Black Technology already and he'd failed. The reason MITHRIL hadn't come to bail him out yet was most likely because he'd been discharged. Tossed away like a useless soldier.

"I am here to protect you," Sousuke said. "I am here to protect you," he said again, almost like a mantra. "And you will never cry for help in a place where I cannot reach you. Ever. I will not fail you, Miku."

"I know you won't," she said quietly, and stroked his hair. "I know." She was the elder in this relationship, despite the fact she still didn't look much older than him. Miku pulled her head back and lit their features with her dying flashlight. "Why don't we find my box? Mm? And then we'll go back before the night ends. We'll calm down." Her fingers brushed his jaw, over that weird cross-shape there. "Okay?"

Miku knew that she could cheat, she could touch him and learn what she needed to. But, that was the responsibility of her power. To use it for who and what needed her, and not her own desires.

Sousuke, for all his military experience, looked like a frightened child at this point. He nodded shakily, and let Miku go. It was hard, but he did. He didn't want to be apart from her. Was this the feeling that Usopp had mentioned? He was growing closer to Miku, the relationship was mirroring his relationship with Chidori. This could be bad.

The sergeant wove around the room, looking for anything marked 'Alice', but he wasn't really paying attention.

All right, then. One problem down, one to go. Miku stepped around the objects that had fallen from the box, and began to look earnestly for her own. When she had first arrived, she had wanted to believe that maybe the nurses had just been confused, that there had been an Alice Rhodes here, but Miku had just... some how possessed her, or taken her place. Like stepping into her own reflection.

It was a pity no one had believed her.

Miku found her box under another one and carefully removed it. "Over here; I've found it, Sousuke-kun," she called gently, pulling the lid from the box and holding her breath. There were little things inside. An old Japanese doll, with a network of web-thin cracks in it. An antique. With careful fingers, and a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach, Miku put the doll aside. There was a few photos, of Miku when she'd been young and innocent of the implications of her abilities, sitting next to her brother and her mother.

She was smiling, brighter and more brilliantly as a child than she did as an adult. The next picture was a portrait of Miku, her brother and...

...for the second time in two weeks, Miku's heart stopped cold. Kirie stared back out at her triumphantly. The photographer swallowed. She couldn't lose herself like Sousuke had. She had to be his rock. With very careful fingers, she ripped Kirie from the picture and threw it to the side. There were clothes, likely what she'd been dressed in. A pair of white stockings and small black ballet shoes. A crisp, white blouse and a short skirt. Fairly normal, she noted. There was a small photobook, and finally a thin, black ribbon, attached to a hook-and-eye closure.

"My necklace," she murmured.

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[Nightshift 35] Patients Possessions Room

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