damned_institute | Nightshift 38: East Wing, Hall A

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Nightshift 38: East Wing, Hall A

[From here.]

Soubi was certain he knew the way now. He'd come along here with Ritsuka, alone....teasing the boy with that can. Oh yes. He'd enjoyed that, though they'd had discussions about things Soubi would rather have hidden from. But you can't win them all.

Finding the door, he gave the handle a twist and a push but, like last time, it was a job for his shoulder. He stepped back before forcing his weight into it. The door opened and he shone the light in from the torch, checking for monsters.

[Going here.]

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Jiraiya did notice, and it made him frown. She was injured? Then why hadn't she said anything?

"You're injured?" Jiraiya asked sharply, and he didn't sound pleased that he hadn't of known... or been told.

Renamon stopped completely, glancing down at her hand before removing it. "Hm." That hadn't been conscious to her. She was slipping. "Nothing serious," she explained. "A few rib fractures."

Nothing that should slow her down.

"Not serious until you get hit there a second time," Jiraiya replied as if it was obvious. "Something your partner can try to prevent if he knows about it."

If it wasn't for the case he was holding, he'd be crossing his arms, judging by the expression on his face. "A clean hit on them could force one through your lung, easily. I've seen it happen, and that man died."

He was trying not to sound too annoyed. Renamon said she was a Digimon, and therefore she might not understand the damage one broken rib could do.

She let the annoyance show far too easily. "It's nothing. It shouldn't effect anything." Because she was better than this.

The annoyance was in no way directed at Jiraiya, but more of her own irritation at her lack of progress. Lack of success. And now, she was being injured? It would not affect her. She would not let it.

He smiled at that reply, surprisingly. It made her sound far younger than she normally did. Although she was old enough to know she wasn't invincible, she didn't seem quite ready to admit that.

"Renamon..." Jiraiya was still smiling. "I've been through wars. I've fought with fractured ribs."

He sighed, and his smile grew a little wistful, "... I also fought alongside my teammates in that state. A part of working with someone is letting them know about semi-critical injures, at the very least, so they can make sure that you aren't injured further in those areas. It allows your teammates to optimize your ability to fight. One person guarding his ribs is much more obvious than three people doing so. Hiding injuries like that doesn't make you strong--it makes you stupid."

He was speaking as if from direct experience, and as if those words had been hurled at him instead of calmly explained. This was familiar, although there was one thing that was extremely different about this situation. Tsunade wasn't going to punch Renamon in the face and break her nose for hiding her injury. And Orochimaru wouldn't be snickering because of it.

The smile didn't help. She could step backwards and see where it was supposed to be reassuring, but at the current moment, she wouldn't be able to accept it. Her facial expression didn't change, except maybe to grow more irritated. This wasn't... accepted. If she had been injured before... but no, that wasn't true anymore was it? Things had changed. Rika had changed. And so had Renamon.

But she was so tired of letting people down. Angry that the people she claimed to care about were still getting hurt. Yukari was....

"I'm not strong enough," she said finally. "I need to be protecting people. And...."

She stopped talking and was silent, before abruptly continuing. "One of the ones I should protect was taken last night. I told you this. She gave me... this. And this," she said, pulling up her sleeve to show a shallow cut the length of her upper arm. "And none of it should have happened. The attacks. Her being taken. My inadequacy."

Again she stopped talking. Surprised at what she had said aloud, she simply stared at the floor blankly.

Jiraiya listened to her, letting his smile fall to show he was taking her seriously. Because he was, and this was something he understood. He remembered feeling like this in another time, another place... when he was younger, and he couldn't help but blame himself for so many things.

"Things don't happen as they 'should'," Jiraiya replied. "Orochimaru shouldn't have left the village, and shouldn't have become what he did. Minato shouldn't have died. Naruto should have parents. I should have been able to defeat Pain, instead of falling to him in battle."

"I couldn't protect them," Jiraiya's voice wavered slightly, if only for a moment. "But I did the best I could, and even if it wasn't good enough... I died knowing that I gave it my all and that Naruto would finish it for me, somehow."

He sighed, then, ".. But that probably doesn't help you any. The only thing you can do now is to focus on what you can do for them. You can be there for your friend, now that she's back to normal. You can help discover how the hell to get out of this place. But in order to do so, you have to acknowledge your own limits--so that you can break them."

"You can either let it destroy you with guilt or harden your resolve," Jiraiya shifted the case, freeing a hand to place on Renamon's shoulder. "... You aren't inadequate--you're a hu--a living being that has merely run into the walls of her current limitations. That's what life is. ... But you can climb walls, if only you take the time to figure out how."

She couldn't follow the backstory. The names were unknown to her. But she understood the principle behind it, and she knew she was close to breaking down like she had with Orihime. And she would not allow that. Not here, when she had something to accomplished, and not with....

She would not be seen as that weak.

Renamon regreted saying anything. She knew everything Jiraiya said, and there was no reason for her to have brought that up. No reason at all. She merely nodded stiffly at him to show she understood, before turning back towards the doorway. "Shall we proceed?"

As earlier, the subject change was obvious, but at night moreso than any other time, she needed to be the emotionless warrior, and not the being that was slowly transitioning to a human against her will.

"Renamon..." Jiraiya stared at her back.

He knew he couldn't get her to talk more than that--it would be futile and would only aggravate her. Renamon was too concerned with appearing strong in front of him. Even touching her shoulder for a moment would get a bad reaction.

They also had a mission to finish.

Jiraiya sighed, letting the subject drop entirely, "Yes. Let's get moving."

Some part of her that she was worried about, the part that scared her, and made her turn to Orihime; that part wavered when her name was said, wanting to turn and say everything that she couldn't. But she would not go to that place willingly. She had too much to accomplish.

Rika was waiting for her.

A different part of her realized she'd have to come to terms with this soon, or risk it overtaking her, but that was something that could be taken care of in the light of day. Even though her days were full of meetings and interviews. Renamon stood still for a moment, understanding how much she was changing.

Then she moved forward.

[to here]

[back from here]

And back to this hall. This was turning out like the night she spent with Yukari. The possessions room was right down this way....

Walking ahead, she asked softly, "How is Naruto? Really?"

"He's doing better than he was," Jiraiya stated seriously as he shifted his case, but then he smiled softly. "... He's hanging in there, though. I figured meeting you would cheer him up, especially if you gave him some weapons he could share with his team--which you did. Naruto feels much better when he's useful or when he's given attention."

"As for the longterm effects of what they did to him--" Jiraiya's smile fell into a slight frown. "--I don't know yet. He's not ready to talk about it yet, I don't think. But if Naruto's lucky, whatever they did won't work, and we won't have to worry about his physical condition."

Jiraiya already knew that even Naruto wouldn't be that lucky, and that was obvious from the tone of his voice. At the same time, though, his voice wasn't admitting defeat. Naruto would get through this, somehow--he had a lot of people who cared about him to fall back upon if he needed them.

...The comment of being given attention made Naruto sound like a puppy. Which, really, wasn't that bad of a connection to make, she thought, remembering his enthusiam. She smiled slightly, before turning more serious.

"You don't know anything about the process? Or any effects?" She paused a moment, before continuing. "It would be better to get the details sooner rather than later, in case there's a chance of..." Reversing it might be out of the question. "Lessening it.

"From the people I've spoken with on the subject, the experiments are individualized--each pertains personally to the person. Is there anything... unique about Naruto that would be of interest to them?"

Jiraiya shook his head at the questions, then quirked a small smile. "Naruto is Naruto. That alone makes him very unique."

He grew serious after that, frowning in thought. "... There are reasons why they'd be interested in him, but..." Jiraiya had to think about how to phrase it. "... His eyes wouldn't be the most interesting thing, if they were experimenting on what most people would go after."

"If it was that--" He gave her an apologetic look to say that he couldn't tell her what that was, not to mention that part of him felt bad for practically giving Renamon a dissertation, but he did some of his best thinking around her, when he had someone to bounce ideas off of, even if she wasn't saying anything. "--then they would have implanted a device either in his heart or close to his stomach. So if it's not after power, then..."

Jiraiya paused for a moment, considering, before he continued, "It'd have to be his personality. Something about him--Naruto's not your average kid. He doesn't give up when everyone else in the world would, when there shouldn't be any rational chance he could succeed--and then he does. And he can instill that sense of confidence in others, to renew their hope, and change them. That's why we have a true alliance with one of the other villages, now; Naruto helped their leader, Gaara, see--"

He froze for a moment, thoughts colliding, and then he frowned deeper, almost angry. "... See a different path. It's. It must be something about the way he sees things that they're after. He sees things differently than others. That's why Naruto can overcome just about any physical hardship they throw at him, but emotionally--he's been alone for too long--it. Certain things could break him, very easily, and even if he could recover from those things...."

But that wouldn't explain why that was a bad thing to Renamon, why emotionally it was more dangerous for Naruto to be hurt. Jiraiya had to go at it from another angle.

"Strong emotions define Naruto," Jiraiya stated, shaking his head, then glancing at Renamon, "His presence can fill a room when he's excited. But it's when he's hurting and silent that his presence is the most deafening. He's been alone for too long--Naruto tends to bottle his pain behind a smile, and has done it for so long that when it's unleashed...."

And now he was scowling, visibly angry, "... If they use emotionally energy to keep us here, the amount pouring out of him would make it easy for them to trap others and keep those already here bound."

The anger left him after a moment, fast enough that it even surprised him, and it was replaced with a sense of weariness. ".. being restrained in order to do that procedure would have already started the process, not to mention meeting his 'parents' for the first time in his life... But that wouldn't be enough to break him--it'd have to be something much bigger than that. It's just a matter of how they plan on attempting that with whatever they did to his eyes that worries me..."

Jiraiya trailed off, not wanting to explore the idea farther than that for the time being.

[to here]

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Nightshift 38: East Wing, Hall A

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