damned_institute | Nightshift 36: Outside the Institute: North

Everyone, but Momo. The shinigami remembered what she'd been doing before Sora's unfortunately slip. Her eye focused on Hokuto's leg as she approached her.

"Now, now, Hokuto-chan," she said lightly, as she knelt down next to the girl, "just because you have managed to woo a princess doesn't mean that gives you any authority on how to woo another. I gather your princess isn't the typical kind, anyways."

She put her hand to the leg and raised her flashlight from where it hung at her belt and shined the muted light at the injury. "Hold still," she said, taking a moment to cut off a piece of cloth from the end of her sash before tying it around the girl's leg.

Sora honestly wasn't sure what to think about Hokuto and her princess. He hadn't really heard of that before, though that didn't necessarily mean anything was wrong with it. Love was love, right? He was glad that she had been able to find something worthwhile in this situation, whether it be friends or something more.

At Hokuto's suggestion, Sora's eyes widened and he immediately threw both hands up in front of him and waved her off. "No, no, that's okay! Like I said, it isn't like that."

They were just friends, right? That was how it had always been. Sora, Kairi, and Riku - friends forever. If something in that formula changed, he wasn't sure what would happen.

Now that Momo was tending to Hokuto's leg, Sora took a second to catch his breath after that scare earlier. He realized he probably should apologize for that (it had been a pretty foolish mistake), but he got the feeling they would both just brush it off.

Hokuto giggled, and tried to refrain from patting Sora on the head. "Okay." The little smile on her face said Tell me if you change your mind.

When Momo finished bandaging her leg (at least nobody had made a fuss) she stood up, carefully, and looked down into the quarry. "Now what?" she murmured. The "KEEP OUT!" signs were there for a reason... but personally, if she was a mad scientist setting up high-stakes games, she'd think this place was perfect to hide things. There was the danger of not being able to get back up... but chances were, when dawn came it wouldn't matter where they were, they'd get returned to their beds anyway.

Momo got to her feet after giving Hokuto a gentle pat on the leg and surveyed the giant pit as best as she could.

"Well... let's see if we can find a path down into it. Perhaps there's something useful among the equipment," the vice captain said. "If not, we'll move on and see what else we can locate out there."

She smiled. "Let's all watch our footing."

Glad that everything had been taken care of without much of a problem (Hokuto didn't seem to be hurting too much), Sora nodded as Momo explained their next course of action. Actually getting down there to get a better look would be great, but if there was no safe way to do it, then they would just have to try looking elsewhere. (Once again, Sora missed a time when this wouldn't have been a problem.)

He wasn't sure if he should still be taking the lead after almost falling into the quarry once before; on the other hand, that meant that he would be extra careful now. With his flashlight safely in hand, Sora turned and started moving along the perimeter of the quarry, searching for any way to get down.

"If tonight's a no-go, we should be able to find rope somewhere," Hokuto said thoughtfully.

Part of her pointed out, And you have how much rappelling experience?

Okay, point taken... maybe not this exact team. Or possibly anyone in this team, since she could hardly imagine Momo using anything like rope to get up or down cliffs.

"...well, to start with," she added. "Sora-kun? Have you ever been mountain-climbing? I'm not even totally sure what we'd need."

Given her eyesight, Momo decided it was best for Hokuto and Sora to concentrate on finding a path down. She trusted herself to detect incoming monsters, but not sudden dips and such in the ground near the pit's edge. Stepping a bit away from the edge and turning to face the surrounding terrain, she addressed the two teenagers.

"You two search thoroughly. I will keep guard in the meantime. Alert me when you've discovered something."

Even though rope seemed like it would be easy to find, Sora wasn't sure he had actually ever seen any of it lying around during his searches of the institute. And while makeshift ropes could be made, he didn't think that would be very safe.

Glancing over to Momo when she gave out her order, Sora nodded and gave her a mock salute. "Will do!"

As he continued walking with Hokuto, he considering her question and ended up shrugging. "I've gone up into the mountains, but I haven't climbed steep mountains with a rope or anything like that," he explained. He had been able to defy gravity at one point, though, so he hadn't really needed to do anything like that. "I've climbed pretty tall trees, but that's not really the same, is it?" He'd done a whole lot of things, in fact, but this was certainly a completely new adventure for him.

"Probably not," Hokuto admitted.

A second later, she stumbled again, but this time she managed to catch herself. She took a second to glare at her shoes; she'd thought they were a better choice than the patient-issued outdoor slippers, since she could be certain these would stay on, but they kind of weren't made for hiking.

Sighing a little dramatically, she said, "The roughest natural terrain I'm really used to is parks. I've been to the base of Mount Fuji, but we weren't there to climb it."

Momo shook her head silently as she listened to the teenagers talk. The shoes Hokuto was wearing were as ridiculous as the girl's outfit, but hopefully this night will have served up a lesson that heels are not for field work.

She kept pace with the others and moved aside some branches of a bush, checking to make sure there was nothing lying in wait. Nope. Momo was starting to get an odd feeling that this night was going too well. Sure, one member with a nice gash on her leg and the other almost falling to his doom was indeed a good night.

Maybe things were looking up for once. Maybe she'd have good news to bring Hitsugaya. Maybe that grin on Momo's face whenever she thought of him would go away.

Nah...

When Hokuto stumbled, Sora's hand immediately went out to grasp for her shoulder before he could properly think about it. By the time he'd grabbed her, though, she had already caught herself, and so he quickly let his hand drop away. He wasn't very good at this sort of thing, but he preferred risking a little embarrassment to ensure that the girl didn't take a fall again.

Her shoes were pretty impractical, but Sora could admit that slippers weren't much better. Sometimes he wondered if it would be better to go barefoot, but that obviously wouldn't work on this sort of terrain.

"Mount Fuji?" he asked, tilting his head at her. "Where's that?" There were obviously lots of worlds he'd never been to, but he was still curious.

"Japan, where I'm from. Have you heard of it?" It was where a lot of people were from, so he might have heard about the country at least. Hokuto added, "I lived in Tokyo, one of the big cities. It's not a place with much magic, and danger is unusual in most of it. So this is all pretty new to me--I can fight, but before this I wasn't in many real battles."

She wondered if she should mention the outcome of the last one; well, it was an important part of her past. And despite how little experience she had with genuine danger, she wasn't afraid to face it head-on.

Momo hoped Hokuto wouldn't bring up the death she suffered prior to coming to the institute. It wasn't particularly relevant and the shinigami believed it would put a sad face on Sora. A night without sad faces would be quite nice.

"Maybe Sora's been to a mall, Hokuto-chan," Momo prompted, steering the conversation a bit away from Hokuto's battle experience. Though, now that she'd said it, maybe mentioning the mall hadn't been a good idea considering the way Hokuto had reacted to the vice captain not even knowing what one was.

"Yeah, I have!" Sora confirmed with a quick nod. "Only from other people here, though. It seems like a lot of people come from there!" It made him wonder what kind of place it really was. He had met a wide range of people from there, so it had to be a pretty interesting place.

Though Hokuto insisted that there wasn't much out of the ordinary there. Then again, just because it wasn't dangerous didn't mean Japan wasn't an exciting place!

"If that's the case, you're pretty brave to be doing all of this," he responded with a small smile. He couldn't imagine coming to this place with zero experience. Sure, he had taken to the Keyblade Master thing pretty well, but that had felt more gradual to him, and he'd had people like Aerith and Leon to help him adjust.

Hearing Momo's comment, he glanced over his shoulder at her. "A mall?"

Hokuto got the hint; for whatever reason, this wasn't the time. (She also wondered just where and when Sora was from if he'd never been to a mall either--he'd sounded modern enough to her!) She settled on smiling back at him. "Malls are my natural habitat--I'm a teenage girl, they're giant shopping centers, I've spent more hours than I can count in them."

As for her being brave, somehow she kept a straight face as she said, "When there are causes to help out with, I can't just spend every night in bed."

Oh boy, Sora didn't know what a mall was either. Momo was pleasantly surprised, though, that Hokuto didn't have the spastic reaction that she'd had when the shinigami admitted to not knowing what a mall was. She chuckled at the girl referencing it as her natural habitat. Maybe she'd take some time on the living plan once they'd destroyed this place (when she had the chance) to go visit one of these malls.

The vice captain had moved a bit further along the side of the rock pit, doubling back to get around an outcropping of boulders, when she felt it - the sudden cessation of a shinigami's reiatsu.

Momo stopped abruptly, her eyes widened in shock and she visibly went pale. "No..."

The words were barely audible as she whirled around to the south, staring off into the distance as if she could see the institute. She'd gotten so used to the various reiatsu levels of the other shinigami fluctuating throughout the night, that she had barely noted the changes until the one vanished. Feeling panic rising, Momo narrowed her eyes and forced the spirit threads into focus, a headache immediately developing, as she looked for that one thread.

Where was it? She searched, blood starting to drip from her nose, but couldn't find it. It was simply gone. She raised a shaking hand to her mouth, her breathing a little ragged. "No..."

Renji was dead.

"A big shopping center, huh? Well, I've been to places like that, but I didn't know there was a name for them," Sora explained. Weren't those just marketplaces and things like that? Then again, he didn't really know what scale Hokuto was talking about. She might mean something on a whole different level than Traverse Town or Hollow Bastion.

Just as Sora thought he might have spotted a way down - was that a ladder? - he became aware of the fact that he didn't hear Momo following along behind them.

Frowning, he paused and turned to see that she'd halted some distance back, and she wasn't even looking toward them. It was almost like she was staring at something, but even when he squinted, Sora couldn't see anything.

"What is it?" he called out to the girl, trying to make sure he didn't yell too loudly. There was a chance she was staring down a monster that he just couldn't see from where he was standing, and if that was the case then they needed to be extra cautious.

Hokuto turned when Sora did; when she saw Momo, she realized something was very wrong. She didn't see any monsters around, so she went over as quickly as she could without risking another fall.

Her friend looked shocked and horrified, and her nose was bleeding... so she'd been checking up on someone, and gotten bad news. Who about? And are they hurt, or...? Hokuto wished desperately she was even an Academy student, so she could check herself; instead, all she could do was ask her. "Momo-chan?"

In the very back of Momo's mind, she could tell that someone had moved next to her and that she was being talked to, but that's as far as the recognition went. The shinigami did not respond, only took a step toward the south, hand still covering her mouth, as she tried to process what had happened.

Renji was dead. Renji... the loud-mouthed, crude teddy bear she'd gone to Academy with. One of her best friends. Probably her closest male friend after Hitsugaya. He was gone. Gone...

How could this happen? In this place, Renji had the upper hand given his Eleventh Division honed fighting skills. Renji should not have died. But with Rukia gone... No. Momo couldn't make sense of it all. Hitsugaya's team was supposed to take care of him tonight.

Hitsugaya.

The vice captain closed her eyes upon feeling Hitsugaya's comforting presence still. It was weakened, yes, but he was still there. But Renji... She searched for his spirit threads once again - just to be sure.

...

Momo's sword hit the ground first as it slipped from her hand and, a few moments later, she dropped heavily to her knees, not even feeling the sharpness of the stones beneath them. Placing her palm to her temple, the shinigami bowed her head and stared at the ground. She wasn't crying yet, the disbelief holding that off for the moment, but her intake of breath sounded very much like a strangled sob.

Sora watched as Hokuto moved over to check on the other girl, but he didn't fully realize that there was something wrong until the shinigami fell to the ground. He wasn't quite sure what would have inspired this in her all of a sudden, since she'd seemed just fine a few minutes ago, but Sora wasn't going to question that right now.

Instead, he ran over to join them, falling into a quick kneel next to Momo even though he wound up scraping both knees as a result.

"Hey!" he said, putting a hand to her shoulder and trying to make eye contact, but she seemed to be in a whole other world. He spotted the blood near her nose and realized she must have been trying to use one of her shinigami skills.

"What happened?" he tried once more, though he was starting to get the feeling that he didn't want to know. Momo had seemed so composed before - what could have caused this sort of change?

Hokuto put her arms around Momo's shoulders; whatever it was, she wanted her friend to remember she wasn't alone.

Please, not Hitsugaya-taichou... She couldn't bring herself to ask, though, so she just stayed where she was, hugging Momo close and waiting.

Absently wiping the blood off her face with her sleeve, Momo finally remembered where she was and who she was with. She felt the warmth of someone hugging her and an insistent voice calling to her with a hand on her shoulder. She leaned just a bit into Hokuto's hug before shrugging out of it. She then turned to face Sora, tears glistening in her eyes though they did not fall.

Sora had been Renji's friend. This was going to be hard for the boy.

"Sora...." Momo put her hand over top of the boy's, fingers curling around them so if he decide to do what she almost did upon hearing the news, she could keep him in place. Her other hand, the one with the cast, moved to his shoulder. "I'm so sorry..."

She swallowed, the words a thick lump in her throat. "Renji's... he..." She shook her head a little, her voice breaking. "He's dead."

When Momo turned to him specifically - grabbed for him and looked at him with that sense of loss - Sora felt the ball of dread that had been collecting in his stomach grow to a point that it was almost unbearable.

The moment she spoke Renji's name, he knew what had happened, and it took all of his willpower not to pull away from Momo out of shock. Instead, he tightened his grip on her hand and stared blankly at the girl.

They had both known him, and while he wasn't extremely close with Momo, this was something they could both understand.

Not that Renji's death made sense - the news was sudden and crushing and almost unbelievable, except that he knew Momo would never joke about something like this. The pain she was in was obvious enough, and Sora knew he must have been mirroring that now.

"Why?" he asked, even though he realized there was probably no way she could answer that. "How?" Renji was supposed to be a pillar of strength - no matter what happened, he was supposed to be there. Regret for not having seen Renji much recently gripped the boy, and he was tense, frozen in place.

Renji? Gone? Hokuto stayed silent and kneeling where she was; she'd never gotten to speak to him, but even seeing him around, she knew enough to like him. And now, hearing he'd been killed... she bowed her eyes, closing her eyes for a moment. I'm sorry. Wherever you're going... I hope you're all right.

She didn't know what happened to a shinigami when their gigai was destroyed, but Momo's reaction was more than enough to tell her that it wasn't anything trivial.

For a lot of reasons, this might not be goodbye forever, for anyone--this place could and did bring back the dead, after all. But for now, all they knew was that he was gone, and so he would be mourned.

Shaking her head slightly, Momo moved her hand from Sora's shoulder to stroke back his hair in a gentle, comforting motion. "I don't know what happened, but..." She drew in a shuttering breath. "His reiatsu and the captain's had been fluctuating for a bit."

She closed her eyes a moment. "I've known Renji for nearly half a century. I am certain he went down fighting and he protected someone important to him," she said in a quiet voice. Renji wasn't a noble, so he would reincarnate, but she didn't think that information would matter.

"I'm so sorry..."

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