damned_institute | Nightshift 38: West Wing, South Hall 1-B

Utena could have sworn she caught sight of a flash of orange hair running away into the night, but it went away so quickly that she could only attribute it to an overactive imagination. She looked around at all the people in the hall, both those standing around and those who looked to be on the move. Everyone but them seemed to know what they were doing, where they were going. It was certainly a little frustrating being the odd ones out like this. If things kept going the way they were, Utena was decided that she was definitely going to interrupt somebody and ask just what the hell was happening.

"I have no idea. Both halls look mostly the same to me," Utena said worriedly, turning her light back and forth down the two directions before them. From where they were, she could make out a door in one direction and an intersection to another hall in the other direction. Neither one struck her as better to take than the other. "Maybe we should watch for a little bit and see which way more people are headed, then follow them," she suggested.

Anthy blinked for a long beat when she stepped outside of her room; no flashlight in hand and no roommate to speak to. Her eyes adjusted to the darkness, and she stepped forward, pushed out of her fear by that old familiar numbness that she had supplemented through strategic use of eyeglasses and false smiles. She rather wished for a pair of glass frames now; somehow even the worst carnage didn't seem so bad when framed with wiry steel rims like a perpetual moving picture.

Nothing was ever truly chaotic. That was perhaps what devastated her most about the troubles she'd experienced here. It wasn't random, or completely unrelated to herself. There was a reason why her ribs were still broken and her neck was scarred and she was slowly beginning to feel like her old self; pierced, controlled, torn up inside in a quite literal sense.

But she didn't even have power here. These injuries gave her nothing for their trouble.

So she walked the halls, musing on how poetically anti-climatic it would be to simply end, after thousands of years of struggle, in an arbitrary aimless wander.

If that was all Utena could suggest, then Naoto was about to take the initiative; whether they could observe and see where most of the crowd was heading to, it still wouldn't give the answers she wanted. It was an utter waste of time when moving would yield much quicker results.

"We haven't the time to spare for that," Naoto informed her, quickly debating which direction to pick in her head. She finally lifted her hand, pointing to their right. "This way--"

In the end, she found herself being cut short from where another girl quietly slipped by; there was almost no direction in the way she walked, no hurry or rush, and there was something about it that made Naoto stop in her tracks for a moment. This girl... what was wrong with her? Even in this situation, from what Naoto had gathered from the people around them, this didn't look like a normal way to act.

"I guess not. Sorry, was just a suggestion," Utena replied with a hint of annoyance in her voice as she started to follow Naoto's lead . . .

. . . only to bump right into Naoto as the other girl stopped almost as soon as she'd started. "Hey, you're the one who suggested moving--"

It was hard to make out the girl in front of them in the dark. Utena almost didn't recognize her with her hair down and without her glasses. But as her flashlight beam crossed the wandering girl's face, she was certain that she wasn't mistaken.

"Himemiya! Thank goodness you're here too!" Utena exclaimed with relief as she moved past Naoto and approached her friend. "I was worried that I was the only one from Ohtori here. Did you see anything when you were taken, or did you just suddenly wake up here too?" she asked, assuming that Anthy was just as lost as she was. She couldn't blame her, seeing as they were supposed to be moving into the chairman's wing rather than running around some sort of strange hospital at night.

Anthy looked up, un-startled, though her eyes widened in appraisal of what she saw before her. She knew enough of what went on in these halls now, from her own scars and her having kept vigil over the bulletin to gain some sense of retroactive security. (Though the lack of anything resembling her own attack in the chapel was worrying) There were patients that were brainwashed against the others. There was a creature that could transform into the likeness of a loved one. Judging from Utena being clad in her old uniform and not the drab gray of the rest of them, it seemed likely that she was the latter.

How appropriate that both of those monsters perfectly mirrored the way she had manipulated so many others.

So this was what she was here for. It was justice.

Placidly, she folded her hands, closed her eyes, breathed deeply and smiled.

"I've been anticipating your return, Utena."

Naoto didn't move from her spot as Utena stepped past her; instead, she simply watched the unexpected reunion. So this was the Himemiya girl that had been mentioned to her before... Quite a coincidence she would brush right by them not long after their departure from their own room. Well, that was only the smaller one-- the bigger of them was that she was here at all. What were the chances of running into someone you knew after being taken away elsewhere? Thankfully, that only further confirmed Naoto's idea that maybe the others from Inaba were here, too. After all, if this really did involve their case in any way, why only pick her out? They would need to target everyone else to be effective any, too.

Within moments, however, Naoto was beginning to feel like a third wheel between the two girls, and behind them she shifted awkwardly, glancing away at whatever else was going on around them. The two were close, by the sound of it; in that case, Himemiya wasn't going to know anything about this place, either. Surely Utena would have noticed her friend's disappearance if she had been here for any length of time, coming from the same place.

Hm... she didn't get the feeling they were going to move, at least not right away. So then... "Tenjou-san," Naoto piped up. "I'm going to go see what I can find. If you gather anything, I'd like to meet again later and pool together our findings." She then turned towards the other girl, bowing her head slightly. "Himemiya-san, I apologize for ducking out so soon, but I assume you two will be able to look out for each other."

With a step forward, she gave one last message before departing to leave the girls be; "Be careful."

[to here (http://community.livejournal.com/damned/544700.html?thread=44982460#t44982460).]

Well, Himemiya certainly didn't seem perturbed by the situation much, which Utena found surprisingly unsurprising. It wasn't uncommon for her friend to be either unaffected or only mildly affected by things that would have made Utena angry or scared.

One thing did bother her, though, and that was Himemiya's choice of words. "Return?" she asked, blinking in confusion. "Himemiya, I just saw you last night. What's there to 'return' to?" Unless she'd been knocked out in that little hospital room with Naoto for longer than she'd initially thought. Maybe she'd been out for days? It did happen sometimes to people. That was called a coma, right?

Utena turned to her new roommate when she was spoken to, and nodded as the girl started to head off. "We will. I'll go back to that room by the end of the night and let you know what we come across," she said, waving to the other girl as she made her way off down the hall.

With Naoto gone, Utena felt free to go up closer to her friend. "Do you know what's going on here, Himemiya? How long have I been out for? What did I miss?" she asked, deciding to go with her theory that she must have been unconscious for a while and that Himemiya had been awake for longer than her.

Anthy wondered if she would be devoured by this illusion of Utena or strung along and made to trust her before she was attacked. It seemed cruel of the monster, to take the form of the girl who had so nearly saved her in order to punish her just as soon as she thought she had gained her own freedom. But then, there was hardly a time Anthy could remember when she hadn't been even more cruel to others far less deserving.

Even if the creature was a fake, she supposed she could at least entertain conversation with her.

"This place isn't very different from the last world we lived in. But the game has changed. I was wondering where you would fit in."

Rather than having her questions cleared up, Utena only felt more confused by her friend's answer. Not to mention that even for Himemiya, there was just a touch of too much calm in her voice.

"I don't understand. When you say the game has changed, do you mean that the Student Council is behind this after all? I thought they might be, but I wasn't sure," she said, not entirely sure she was making sense in the face of Himemiya's seemingly more knowing statements. Narrowing her eyes, she also asked, "Are they still after you? You know I'll protect you no matter what."

"You... don't remember?" This Utena image seemed to only take a small portion of Anthy's memories. How curious for a monster who used this trick to feed itself. One would suppose it might have the capability of reading a victim's memories more thoroughly to trick them. Perhaps this was meant to be over quickly and the shapeshifting was merely an anglerfish's lantern, not meant to endure being swallowed by small prey fish.

"Interesting."

"Don't remember what?" Utena asked, now almost positive that she must not only have been in a coma, but that she had probably also suffered some sort of bump on the head and subsequent amnesia. Funny, her head didn't hurt at all, but she supposed if she'd been out for long enough, such a pain would go away after a while.

Utena reached out and put her hands on Himemiya's shoulders, gently but firmly, as though to steady the both of them and make sure they both still existed. "What happened, Himemiya? Please, you can tell me. You have to tell me."

Anthy stiffened when Utena touched her, deviating from the disaffected way she had conducted herself before. She breathed again, looking Utena in the eye as if trying to figure out a complex puzzle in front of her.

She reached up, her hand hesitating just before touching Utena's face.

"You want truth?" Did the creature intend to dissect her before it destroyed her? What did she have to hide from it? Her fingers touched Utena's cheek, and she stared, unable to suppress a slight tremble at the prospect that it might all end in a moment. That was what she had always wanted, wasn't it?

Utena's eyes widened slightly. She wasn't sure how to react to Himemiya touching her cheek so tenderly. Sure, they were close friends, but wasn't this sort of touching usually reserved for lovers? She blushed a little at the thought, but didn't push her friend away. If she needed this touch for whatever reason, then Utena would let her have it.

She nodded at Himemiya's question. "Yeah. Why wouldn't I?" she answered, the edge of her tone tinged with nervousness. Had her friend's eyes ever looked so deep before?

The apparition sounded so much like Utena herself that Anthy found herself wishing it would be over quickly. Perhaps it knew that, and drew the conversation out in spite of it. Even in deceiving others, Anthy herself had taken on vague guises, acting out subtle parts rather than true imitations of people. Mamiya came to mind.

"This is my prison," She confessed to her understanding, "Utena left me long ago." Even Utena's compassion couldn't erase Anthy's past. Even if Anthy had forgiven herself, it was more than likely that there were higher powers who hadn't. Perhaps even the scorned spirits of those she had used, all waiting for the chance to strike her when she finally became truly vulnerable again.

There was silence between the two for several long moments, broken up only by the sounds of others talking and some muffled fighting happening far at the other end of the hall. Utena considered Himemiya's words as carefully as she could. But even so, they barely made any sense. Okay, she knew that Himemiya was a prisoner of the Rules of the Rose. That much she could wrap her head around, though she still found it odd that she would refer to the building around them as the prison.

"Utena left me long ago", though? How could that be? Even if Utena had been in a coma long enough for Anthy to be saying something like that, surely they both ought to look older by now.

"Himemiya, I'm standing right here with you. Don't talk to me like I've gone somewhere else," Utena asserted strongly. "And I told you that I wasn't going to let anyone treat you like a prisoner or an object anymore. That promise still stands. If I really was gone and I don't remember, then I'm sorry. I'll make it up to you. Just please, tell me something that makes sense!"

There was a bitter warmth in hearing Utena's voice make the naive promises she had so long ago. It seemed unfair; unfair not even to Anthy but to Utena herself, that that kindheartedness wasn't enough.

She drew her hand back, fist clenched over her heart and looked up at the apparition, hurt.

"I know who you are," She said, although it wasn't the full truth, "Do you intend to continue to hurt me with her voice and image until the novelty runs out? Until it's not a game any longer?"

She felt a wave of sympathy for the creature. Whether it was a pawn in the hospital's game or simply a slave to its own hunger and cruelty, it was a poor existence indeed.

"I know these games. They won't ever fill you or make you feel truly whole... but if it makes you feel better, do what you must to me. Just please, don't dishonor her image. She was a better person than I."

Utena had never seen her friend like this before. The closest to being truly upset that she had seen her before had been on the night of the ball earlier in the school year, when the dress Nanami had given to Himemiya had half dissolved in front of everyone in the ballroom. And this time, there didn't seem to be an obvious way for Utena to rescue Himemiya from such hurt. How could she when she didn't even understand what she was being accused of?

As Himemiya drew her hand away, Utena reached out to gently take it in her own hands. Though she felt a little awkward doing so, she guided her friend's hand back to her and held it against her chest where her heart was beating. "I don't know why you think I'm not me. Who else would I be?" she asked, her blue eyes full of worry. She kept her friend's hand against her bosom, letting the girl feel the warmth of her own pale hands and the thump of her heartbeat underneath. "I'm not that clever, so this is the only other thing I can think of to prove who I am to you. If that doesn't do it, then I don't know what else to say."

The feeling of a human heartbeat under her palm was both frightening and heartening. Made her feel all the more human herself, like those small moments with Utena once had. She melted, just a touch, her eyes softening into an expression resembling comfort, for one hesitant moment in time.

No. Utena was gone. Or dead. Or free. Or all of those things. Anthy was in no shape to play these games with a creature of the institute. She'd had enough of dishonesty.

She withdrew her hand as if hurt somehow, and without a word, turned straight around and began to walk away. No aim, just a forward, brisk escape. She couldn't stand to see Utena's face in this ugly world where Anthy belonged.

Utena felt tears welling up in her eyes when Himemiya turned her back. She really didn't know what else to say. What had happened to make her friend like this? What exactly did this place do to people?

It was in that moment that the sounds of the fighting further down the hall finally registered fully in Utena's ears. She couldn't see very well what was happening, but she could hear hissing and shouting, and she could swear that she saw glimpses of blood as she shone her light further down the hall. Her eyes widened, seeing Himemiya begin to wander straight in the direction of whatever was going on.

"Himemiya, no, not that way!" she cried out, rushing forward and retaking her friend's hand. Rather than holding it gently this time, however, she held on tight, trying to guide the girl back in the direction she had come from earlier. "I don't care if you don't think I'm me. I'm not letting you just walk out there to get hurt. You have to take better care of yourself!" The last of those words seemed much too familiar in her ears, and she felt a disconcerting flash of blank memory in her mind briefly as she ran for the door.

[To here]

Nightshift 38: West Wing, South Hall 1-B

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