damned_institute | Nightshift 36: Outside the Institute: North

"And whatever we do, don't split up." Hokuto had seen way, way too many horror movies for her own good.

As a precaution, she took her shovel off her back and held it like a staff; it would help her stay upright if she stumbled, and make her reaction time that much faster if they ran into trouble and she needed her weapon.

Since it looks like we're going to be here for at least another few weeks, maybe I should get on an alchemist's list myself. As great as her shovel was, a real blade just might be better.

Oh, yes, she'd also traveled into the western mountains once with Signum. "Ah, I'd forgotten, but I've also been to the west. There are steep mountains that way," Momo amended her previous statement.

She slowed down to navigate around some bushes. "Hopefully, we will find something of note tonight. I would like to bring some good news to Hitsugaya for a change." A small, affectionate smile touched her lips as she mentioned Hitsugaya, a little of it slipping into her voice.

She shook her head at Hokuto's words; of course they wouldn't split up by choice.

"And what's to the south?" Sora asked, if only to complete the picture. He didn't think that Momo had actually mentioned what she'd found in that direction, unless he'd missed it. There was a chance that she had held back on offering that information for a reason, but what was the point in keeping it from other Arts and Crafts members?

The fact that everything was so quiet and it was difficult to see beyond the husks of trees meant that Sora had to keep on his toes. Unfortunately, he was spending most of his time with his head lowered, eyeing the rocky terrain to make sure he didn't lose his footing or trip over anything. This was quite the hike, after all.

"Yeah, let's hope so," he agreed, looking up for a moment to glance at Momo. He didn't want to continue to be the source of disappointment. There were always some lucky breaks mixed in with everything else, right? They just had to stay positive and work hard.

"I watch too many horror movies," Hokuto said with a sigh. Sometimes it helped; sometimes it just made her paranoid.

Still, she smiled a little, too, at Momo's reaction to merely mentioning the love of her life's name. It was good to see. Not so gloomily, she added, "Good news would definitely be a nice change."

"There's thick woods to the south and the road that the buses take to Doyleton," Momo answered. "Signum-kun and her team should be exploring that direction, hopefully reaching the town tonight."

The shinigami stumbled a little, having misplaced her foot, and frowned at the ground. This terrain was insufferable. "That is, if they can get through the entry way."

Regaining her footing, the vice captain climbed up onto a rock jutting out of the ground. With the slight added height, she looked around. It looked like there was something in the near distance, but she couldn't quite tell.

"At least there's something out here," she said. "I can't tell what it is from here, though."

Horror movies? Sora smiled at the mention of that - he hadn't seen many himself, though he had been to Halloween Town, and that counted for a lot, didn't it? He knew the Pumpkin King personally, after all! Though he hadn't seen Jack around here in a while, come to think of it; he hoped the skeleton (with some newfound skin) was all right.

It was interesting to know that some others would be trying to get all the way to town - that was pretty far to try and go on foot at night when there were monsters about, but Sora still wished them luck.

When Momo almost tripped, Sora's hand instinctively reached out to grab her and steady her, but he paused when the shinigami was able to right herself on her own. He made extra sure to watch where he was stepping as he followed her up onto the rock.

He squinted, looking through the fog to see what she meant. There was something other than more uneven nothingness out there, which hopefully meant they were on the right track. "I guess there's only one way to find out, right?"

"Yeah." Hokuto was trying to move at a decent pace, but she didn't want to twist her ankle and the ground made it hard to avoid that. The shovel helped, at least.

From here, the thing up ahead of them was kind of looking like a crater or something. "If something crawled up from the depths of hell here..." she shuddered. It wouldn't surprise her all that much, but she still didn't want to think about it!!

"Now, Hokuto-chan... try not to be a doomsayer," Momo teased. "Let's think positive."

It took the shinigami a bit to get down off the rock, but she managed and gave a nod in the direction of whatever it was in the distance. "Stay sharp and let's go see what it is."

It seemed like Hokuto had quite the imagination. Sora could only hope that she wasn't jinxing them somehow. He carefully followed Momo down the rock, turning himself around to face it and scaling down it slowly.

He let out a small sigh of relief when his feet reached solid ground again, but the ground still wasn't flat. Even though having a flashlight on was going to attract attention, he was pretty sure he was going to be tripping every five seconds if he didn't use it to light his way.

This was definitely more of a workout than he ever got wandering around the institute. As they continued toward the suspicious area, Sora found himself wiping the sweat from his forehead. Still, he was used to making long treks in all kinds of worlds, so he wasn't going to be the straggler by any means.

"Sorry--nerves," Hokuto said with a laugh. It happened sometimes.

She shut up when she slipped and actually fell; it wasn't too hard, but her leg really hurt. She couldn't see what she'd done to it, and didn't want to take out her flashlight to check; she gingerly brushed her fingers over the most painful spot, and flinched as she felt a scrape.

...and a nasty run in her stocking. Dammit.

"I'm okay," she said, scrambling to her feet. She didn't think she was actively bleeding, and anyway it wasn't worth taking a break over.

At Hokuto's fall, Momo stopped and waited for the girl to regain her feet. She silently watched her get up and continue forward.

"Please, be careful," she reiterated, continuing on, prodding the ground before her.

"Sora... You seem the lightest on your feet. Please take point."

It was only a matter of time before one of them was going to trip, and Sora winced when he heard Hokuto crash to the ground. It hadn't sounded too bad, but he knew that sometimes scrapped knees were what hurt the most.

He watched her get back up with a concerned frown, wanting to help and yet knowing he'd probably get brushed off. Why did girls always do that, anyway? He was just trying to do the nice thing and they always took it the wrong way.

"We should probably take a look at you once we actually get to, uhh, wherever we're going," Sora suggested. Maybe it wasn't his place to be making those decisions when he wasn't the assigned leader of the group, but it was always a good idea to check out wounds once you got a chance.

At Momo's order, he nodded confidently and pulled ahead of her, holding his flashlight steadily to illuminate any unsteady points in the ground. It wasn't an easy hike they were making - and the fact that it was so cold out didn't help - but he was still hoping they would make it.

Hokuto smiled sheepishly and waved him off. "I just ruined my stocking, I think." If she was lucky he wouldn't check. "I've had worse." Walking on the injured leg wasn't really any more painful than not, and injuries didn't faze her much unless they made it hard to keep going.

If she took a bad injury to the chest, that might be another story, but she wasn't going to think about that one too much.

"Regardless, we will take a look when we get to a clearing," Momo replied. At the very least, it'll probably make Sora feel a little better. And, the shinigami had to admit, herself as well.

She loved having her uniform back but when her hakama snagged on some brambles she wasn't pleased. The loose material was wonderful in fights for disguising leg movement, but it did make it easy to catch on things.

She let out an annoyed sigh as she stopped to free herself from the offending brush. "Please tell me we're almost there."

It was one thing after another, wasn't it? Once again Sora paused to wait while Momo untangled herself. For once he was glad that he didn't have his old outfit back. Even though he missed it, the clothing here was comfortable enough, and it was a lot lighter than his usual get-up.

He laughed at Momo's comment, taking a moment to glance ahead of them. "Yeah, we're getting there." He was pretty sure it would be his turn to do something embarrassing and slightly painful soon.

Still, he wasn't going to keep on moving until he was sure everyone was ready. Hokuto probably need a second to get a breather herself, after that fall.

Hokuto hadn't expected this to be easy, but she was exhausted and in a lot more pain than she'd expected by the time they stumbled on a... quarry, she guessed. Or maybe a crater.

Filled with old, broken-down construction equipment. What?

She knew she wasn't the only one needing a break, so she went to the edge and sat down, pulling her jacket as far around her as she could to keep warm--she'd gotten too sweaty for her own liking, so going from overheated to freezing in the space of a few minutes was pretty much inevitable. (Plus, covering her legs meant her team shouldn't see the scrapes; the moisture she felt probably wasn't blood.)

From there, she just stared at the quarry; something about it just gave her the creeps. Even more than usual.

Momo came to a stop when they entered the clearing and started down at the giant crater. Or was it a crater? No... it appeared more that it was a location where humans had removed stone from the ground.

"I am unfamiliar with what humans call this type of rock mining," she stated before gingerly kneeling down next to Hokuto. It was clear the girl was trying to hide her leg, and failed to fool the shinigami.

"Hokuto-chan... let me see it," she said gently, not wanting to issue a direct order.

Finally, they had made it! Sora just wasn't sure what this place was. The equipment scattered around meant that someone just have been trying to build something here, but he didn't know enough about that sort of thing to guess what. Or maybe they had just been digging for something - like fossils, or some sort of valuable material?

He wasn't really sure, and there wasn't a good way to find out unless they went digging themselves. Seeing how only one of them had a shovel, he doubted that would work out very well. And what were the chances of them actually finding anything?

The quarry seemed to go pretty far down, though. Even using his flashlight, he couldn't get an idea of where the bottom was. He moved a little closer to the edge, a few feet away from the two girls, and that was when he lost his footing. Sora yelped and flailed his arms in the air, knowing that he would fall into the quarry if he didn't right himself somehow.

In the end he did start sliding toward the edge, but he was able to throw his free hand out and grab onto a rock to save himself from taking the plunge. The arm holding his flashlight was left to hang at his side, so his grip was certainly precarious.

Man, had he screwed up or what? He tried to push back his fear as he snapped his head up toward the others. "I -- I think I need a hand here," he said, doing his best to sound calm.

Hokuto flinched and scrambled forward to help Sora; not good. She didn't stand up, but got on all fours as close to the edge as she dared. "Take my hand," she said, reaching for him. He could toss his flashlight to safety or drop it, his choice, but he was probably going to need both hands free to get back up safely.

She'd never pulled someone up like this before in her life, helping friends on the playground didn't count, but she knew enough to keep herself in a position as stable as possible and not shift her weight any further forward than she had to. Sora couldn't weigh too much more than she did, if at all, but that probably mattered more than strength; they might need Momo to help, but Hokuto was pretty sure she needed to be the one to really pull Sora up.

If they ever came back here, it would be with rope.

With Momo's broken arm and injuries, she knew there wasn't much she could do to help pull Sora up. Hokuto was right, this would rest in the girl's hands. What the shinigami could do, was be an anchor for Hokuto.

Digging her sword into the ground, she held onto it's solid grip and hooked her other arm, the one with the cast, about Hokuto's leg. This was, if she stretched too far, Momo would be able to keep her from falling in as well.

"If he can't reach, use your shovel for added length," Momo replied, her voice strained.

Sora let out a sigh of relief when Hokuto was quick to come to his aid. He could already feel his fingers starting to slip, which meant there was no room to hesitate. Doing his best not to move any more than he had to, he pulled his arm up with enough force to throw his flashlight back up onto solid ground.

The moment the flashlight had safely left his hand, Sora reached out for Hokuto. His relief increased when they were able to clasp hands, and he braced his feet against the side of the wall as he started pulling himself up with both arms.

With their combined strength, it would hopefully be okay. His heart was still pounding, though - ever since learning how to fly in Neverland, this sort of fear hadn't concerned him. But Landel's had taken all of that away, and now he really only had friends to rely on.

Luckily, he did have them. Maybe he didn't know these two very well, but they were both good people. That much was obvious.

Hokuto braced herself as well as she could--Momo definitely helped--and did her part in pulling Sora up. She hadn't quite been at the best angle for this after all, so she found herself leaning to the side a little; as long as it didn't throw her off-balance, whatever.

Unwilling to take any chances, as soon as it was safe to she pulled Sora towards her as well as up; the sooner he had his feet on the ground, the better.

Hokuto being Hokuto, she overdid it a little, and used enough force to pull him on top of her...

At least it looked like disaster had been averted... for now. Though, as Momo stood back up and got a look at the two teenagers, she couldn't help but giggle.

"I'm sure your princess would love to hearing about this," she teased. Becoming more serious, she added on, "Are you alright, Sora?"

Well, he definitely made it up without any harm! But not without a price, as Sora soon found himself on top of Hokuto, and he had to fumble to put his hands on the ground rather than anywhere on her.

Suffice to say his face was red as he got off of her as quickly as he could. He could only hope that neither of the girls could tell, considering how dark it was. Speaking of which, finding his flashlight would be a wonderful distraction, and Sora was heading over to pick up the light when he heard Momo's comment.

"Princess?" he asked, turning toward her and blinking. She knew about Kairi? Wait -- Kairi wasn't his princess, necessarily, and had Momo assumed certain things about them, or--

"It's not like that," he quickly sputtered, completely unaware that the shinigami hadn't been talking to him in the first place.

At least he hadn't groped her? Of course, the mere thought had Hokuto giggling; an innocent, accidental touch wasn't anything to get upset about, but the look on Sora's face would have been hilarious.

"She means my princess," she assured, sitting up and flashing a grin. "Alita Forland. Why, you have one too?"

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