damned_institute | Day 36: Arts & Crafts Room

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Day 36: Arts & Crafts Room

Momo was both relieved and disappointed to discover that she would not be receiving another visit from Aizen this week. She was happy that she would not have to go through another bout of doubting herself and getting answers she didn't understand to the questions she had. She was sad, though, that she wouldn't get to see him again, just to feel that comforting presence he has. She had accepted that he was doing very evil things and that she'd unknowingly helped him, but... he was still her captain. He was still Aizen-sama.

Since she wasn't to have a visitor, her nurse gave the option of the vice captain choosing what room to spend the next shift in. Given her injuries, the nurse suggested she stay in the Sun Room, but Momo declined. Now that she had time, she wanted to draw... to create something, especially since she had taken the Noah's life the previous night. Her nurse acquiesced and lead the shinigami to the room.

Momo was moving slowly because of her torso, but also so she could adjust to the new blind spot on her left. She was fairly sure she was doing well enough since neither Fai nor Hanatarou had noticed. Granted Fai hadn't been feeling well himself, but Hanatarou was of the 4th; he should have noticed. Then again, the other shinigami had barely looked at her their entire meal. Maybe she could continue to hide her handicap. The last thing she needed was whomever was planning retaliation upon her for Rhode's death (most likely the other Noah) to learn that she was half-blind.

The shinigami was disappointed to discover that not only did they not have a canvas and easel for her to properly paint on, but they only had finger paints, claiming the brushes were too dangerous... that she could accidentally poke an eye out. Had she the energy, she would have considered smacking the nurse for the bad joke. There was a large white board with various colored markers that she could use, though. It made little sense - markers were okay but a paint brush wasn't? Maybe she'd just make her own brush by cutting off a small piece of her hair and tying it to the end of a pen.

An idea quickly thwarted by the plastic scissors. Sure, if she worked at it she could cut her hair with them, but it's take too long and probably draw the attention of the nurse since there was no one else in the room. Sighing, the shinigami set the finger paints down on the table with some larger pieces of cardboard, next to her journal. Maybe she'd...

Her attention returned to the white board. Picking up a yellow marker, she uncapped it and stared at the board for a long moment before she started to sketch, not quite sure what she wanted to draw.

[Hokuto]

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Hokuto hadn't looked at the bulletin board all day, so her first stop after lunch was checking up on what she'd missed. Oh, Momo had...

She froze when she read the messages; what had happened? Momo seemed hurt, probably badly, and she'd killed someone... mostly in self-defense, but it sounded like there'd been a lot more to it than that. And at least one person was really angry with her for it, and...

So. If she heard Hitsugaya yelling at me, she probably doesn't care anymore. Like that mattered, compared to the situation.

She couldn't find Momo anywhere in the Sun Room; she tried the art room next, and was relieved to see her already at a table, working on something. Except... there were new marks around her eye, and the eye itself looked like...

Even surgery... won't save the eye now. She clenched her hands into fists to keep them from trembling; Momo didn't need to be comforting her, now. Especially when so much of her reaction was to an entirely different scene.

When she thought she had herself back under control, she went to sit down next to Momo, keeping where she was sure the other would see her, and gave as genuine a smile as she could. "Good afternoon."

Momo hadn't noticed Hokuto looking her over at first, given the girl had ended up not only in her blind spot, but because the shinigami was intently staring at the white board on the wall. The yellow lines had turned into the form of a person, but it consited of circles and lines, nothing definite to even reveal whether Momo was drawing a male or female figure.

At the voice, though, and the appearance of Hokuto in her vision, the vice captain sighed and then gave a tired smile. "Hello, Hokuto-chan." She turned to the table the girl was sitting at and flipped through her journal to quickly look over what she'd already done before leaving it on the table and turning back to the board.

The marker moved across the board. "Care to tell me what you said to Hitsugaya this morning to make him yell?"

Hokuto managed not to meep; uh-oh. "Just asking him to--think about a few things," she said, a little flippantly; it wasn't all that important, after all. Sure, his reaction to it was...

"What happened? I saw the board..." She knew a few things about eye injuries. And Momo's looked almost exactly like Sei-chan's had.

"I appreciate your initiative in speaking with him on matters that you find concerning, but he is not to type to take kindly to your well-meaning intentions," Momo replied, moving from a yellow marker to a blue one. "It would be in your best interests to make sure you understand the facts before broaching certain subjects with the captain."

The blue marker sketched out around the yellow figure, which still had no definition, what could have been large reptilian wings and a tail.

"If you've seen the board, then you know what happened," the shinigami continued, her voice getting quieter. "There isn't much else to say."

"I know." She'd spent the conversation wondering if she would be able to block a hit, after all! "Habit... I would have preferred just leaving a note in his shoe locker, but we don't have those here." She tried to smile.

"And if you're trying to get me to not worry, not happening," she added softly. She waited until Momo's marker wasn't touching the page (she didn't want to ruin the other's drawing, after all) and gently took her by the chin, trying to turn her head so Hokuto could get a good look at her eye.

The vice captain stiffened when Hokuto's fingers found her chin and she resisted having her head turned. She kept her gaze focused on the drawing before her, which she decided was going to end up as Hitsugaya's bankai.

"What do you think you're doing? Please, let go."

Hokuto did as asked, but only withdrew her hand a little. "Humor me?" she murmured. "Sei-chan went blind in one eye just over a month before..." she trailed off, unsure how to phrase that. Before... I died? He killed me? I left?

She usually did a decent job of hiding it, but she had issues, and in this case she felt like she needed to know what had happened. Momo had taken what had to be some pretty severe damage, and if she'd lost any sight...

So that's how Hokuto had figured something more than just the scarring was up with her eye. Momo did not like admitting that she'd lost sight in it, but she had a feeling denying the girl would onyl lead to complications down the road. Possibly with a strong pink-haired knight involved.

With a sigh, Momo turned to look at Hokuto, meeting the girl's eyes. Now that she was giving her a direct look, it would be neigh impossible to miss the slight red tint to her left eye or it's slight dullness. She still had a pupil, but it was very slow to dialate with the changed in light.

"...and so have I," Momo whispered, not wanting her words to carry to anyone else in the room. "Not completely, since I can still sense changes in the light, but that's it."

Somehow, Hokuto stayed calm; she'd guessed as much, but having it confirmed was still... after a moment, she said quietly "I'm sorry," trying to sound sympathetic instead of guilty. If Hokuto had been there for the fight she would have just been in the way, but--who had been there this time?

She'd keep it secret like she could tell Momo wanted; it wasn't... all that obvious unless someone was looking for it...

She broke eye contact before she could start to cry, and saw a container of beads; for something to do, she grabbed them. Well, she hadn't made anything for Subaru for a while; it was something to do.

"The damage has only been done to this body, not to me. Once I'm free of this gigai, I will have my sight back," Momo replied in an attempt to make the girl feel a little better - maybe herself too.

She returned to the drawing. After a bit of silence, she said, "I will adjust and overcome the new difficulties. A warrior does not glorify their injuries. I don't want special treatment."

If I started thinking you're fragile, I'd deserve the smackdown you'd give. "I know." Hokuto was glad her voice was steady. "It would take a lot more than this to keep you down."

There weren't enough white beads... she could find some off-white ones, though. Hmm... Oh! Awesome! Some sort of claw-shaped beads, too... they weren't exactly magatama, but close enough.

"Thank you," came the quiet reply.

Now that she had the basic outlines donw, Momo took the black marker and started turning the circle and line form into a solid male figure.

"How was your mission last night?"

"We didn't get anywhere, and Signum thinks I shouldn't have a personal life," Hokuto grumbled. "Seriously--she more or less said I shouldn't need time off." Her tone was a mixed of confused, exasperated, and pleading; was there any way to get through to the knight that her way wasn't ideal? Not everyone was designed for endless battle, and Hokuto still didn't believe that Signum honestly didn't care about anyone around her.

Being independent is one thing, but what kind of a life is it if you have no real attachments...?

Momo paused in her drawing and turned to look at Hokuto, raising an eyebrow. "I seriously doubt that's what she meant. If a knight does not rest when rest is needed, she will place her liege in needless danger when the exhaustion and injury take their toll."

How did this come up anyways?

"Though, with having a personal life comes the challenge of balancing it with the other obligations you've made. Signum... has a very unique outlook on life; remember, she's not human and never has been. A knight is all she really knows how to be. For her, duty is everything and she has always chosen duty and Hayate over anything else she may have had the opportunity to experience," the shinigami explained.

She turned back to the board. "Learning to balance both duty and personal is very hard and complications will arise," she said in a quiet voice. "There is a time and place for everything and... sometimes the place decides it's not time, no matter what stupid things you do or stupid things you think about."

Though telling Hokuto that she shouldn't persue any romantic interests if there is one seemed a little odd considering the knight had implied once that maybe it wasn't so bad that Momo have feelings for Hitsugaya while here. Maybe the knight just didn't respect the princess Hokuto was so fond of.

"I tried to explain..." Hokuto's voice was quiet as she sorted the beads in front of her. "I'm here for the people around me. I didn't choose to come here, but I'm not stuck here; none of us are, if we're willing or desperate enough to... take the fast way out. I would be, if the people here didn't give me reason to stay.

"She holds on for her master, doesn't she? I do for my friends. I don't think it's that different."

"Do you know the difference between friendship and comraderie?"

It was now quite easy to see that the figure was of Hitsugaya, now that she was putting detail into the hair. Well, as much detail as she could with the marker; she wished it had a finer edge.

So that was all Signum thought of them as? Hokuto nodded, murmuring "Yeah."

Finding a string, she started on the necklace; did three beads between each claw work? No, that left them too closely spaced together; she tried five, and that looked a little better.

Finally, she said quietly, "It just sounds so lonely."

"It is," Momo replied, her own voice echoing Hokuto's feelings. "But some people prefer it that way. That way, when you have to make the tough decisions, you can have the emotional detachment necessary to follow through."

The shinigami switched the to blue marker, giving the drawing piercing blue eyes. "There will always be a barrier between us and Signum for two very important reasons. The first being once we destroy this place, the likely hood of either of her ever seeing either of us again is practically non-existent. It is easier to continue on after something like this if you haven't made any emotional investments."

She looked over. "It's sad, but true. And somewhat effective." Hokuto must be making something for her brother; the combination of beads was far too subdued to be anything the girl wanted for herself. Turning back to the drawing, she continued.

" The other factor is that, even though Signum is five thousand years old, I don't think she's been actually living for more than a hundred." If that. "And by that I mean having the freedom to experience things by choice, not by obligation."

She sighed and finally decided to voice her earlier thought. "Or, it may be that she simply doesn't believe your princess is deserving of your time."

As much as Hokuto wanted to protest that... if she was immortal, and the people around her weren't, several thousand years of watching the people around her age and die while she stayed young would make her want to withdraw, too. I don't know what I would do... but Signum's made her choice. I can't change that, and shouldn't try to get her to.

A hint of a sly smile appeared. But if she's withdrawn because she doesn't know any other way to be... maybe she should be taught how to let go and have some fun.

"I'll ask," she said. "Maybe Alita-kun just reminds her of someone." Hokuto was a pretty good judge of character, but if she was missing something, it might be good to know.

"That may be your best option," Momo replied. "Just remember, Signum is a Belkan knight with nearly as much pride as Landel. Keep that in mind; a knight such as her will not change the way she does things without due cause."

Momo reached for the blue marker again, fumbling clumsily for it, a small frown on her face, as she'd accidentally set where she couldn't see it. "She may take great insult to things you may mean to be good intentioned; you are still a teenage human and she is a five millennium old Belkan construct."

"Did I say anything?" Hokuto asked, perfectly innocently. Momo had a point, though, so she added "I'll be careful. If I can talk my grandmother out of grounding me, I can keep from insulting a knight."

Okay, so she blew it last night, but that was out of anger.

Momo stopped and turned to fully face Hokuto, the eyebrow over her blind eye raised. "Your grandmother has nothing on a certain stubborn, old Belkan knight."

She turned back to the board, now having found the marker she needed. "Old Belkan curmudgeon is more apt," she muttered.

Okay, point... "You haven't met my grandmother," she said dryly.

The "curmudgeon" line made her giggle; so she wasn't the only one who thought Signum needed to relax, apparently. If she even knew how to.

If she doesn't, we can teach her!

Momo wasn't psychic, but she knew Hokuto well enough to know what she was thinking. The giggle helped comfirm it.

"Don't even try," she replied, with a small amount of amusement in her voice.

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Day 36: Arts & Crafts Room

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