damned_institute | Day 39: Sun Room

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Day 39: Sun Room

That really hadn't been the breakfast she'd been expecting, but Yuffie couldn't bring herself to complain. The kid made for good company, and was, if nothing else, pretty entertaining. She could've just done without the whole choking thing. That… That had been embarrassing. A bit. Okay, a lot. Yuffie was starting to get a feeling that this day was -- for once-- actually going to ping on her ‘interesting!’ meter.

Whether or not that was a good thing, she didn’t know.

By the time she’d reached the Sun Room's bulletin board, a kitten on her shoulder and a pen twirling between her fingers, Yuffie was starting to put her finger on why she had that weird, nagging feeling. Though on second thought, it was less like putting her finger on it and more like it had jumped up and punched her right in the nose; the feeling wasn’t just about waffles, magicians, or tricky candy thieves. Sagara hadn't answered her bulletin post; he hadn't answered any bulletin posts. She hadn't seen that stupid, spiky head of his all morning. It was like radio silence without a radio.

Agai-- No, Yuffie cut herself off sharply, frowning. She was just jumping to conclusions. It wouldn't be the first time, right? Right! And yet… instincts were instincts for a reason, and in a dump like this, who knew what could happen?

[for Okita?]

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"I should read that." Not that she'd believe any of it. "The Rose Bride is here? Then that settles it." She looked over at the board, as if she could read any explanation from this far away. "There's no point pretending this isn't something else cooked up by End of the World."

She crossed her arms over her chest, challenging Utena to prove her words wrong. Yes, she was curious about the explanation for this place, and the mental institution fit with what the nurse had said to her. But it wouldn't do to show that to Utena.

"I dunno. That's what I thought at first too, but it's just so different from everything else so far. Why would the rules just suddenly change so drastically?" Utena asked Juri, not surprised that the other girl probably didn't believe her. It took a lot for Juri to believe in anything, which she supposed was probably a good thing, but it was frustrating sometimes. "And Himemiya didn't look like she was supposed to be the Rose Bride, either. She was wearing the same clothes as everyone else here, and she didn't have her glasses or her hair buns done up or anything." She almost looked like a ragged ghost. Utena left that last part unsaid, not sure how much sympathy Juri would have for Himemiya in such a state.

She paused, then admitted, "Although, I did find my duelist uniform in my closet for some reason. That's what made me sure that this was something to do with the stupid dueling game at first. But even with that, it still doesn't make much sense combined with everything else about this place."

Juri had a good guess why the rules might change, and she was standing right in front of her. "You really don't know? That's surprising." Of course, it did sound odd that the Rose Bride was being treated the same as the rest of the people here. "If your uniform is here, then it's likely that most of the rules are still the same." But were there suddenly more duelists or fewer? Juri didn't like being treated the same as everyone else. She was used to her privileges.

She glanced down at their hands, wondering momentarily about the rose seal rings. Her own hand was bare.

"Okay, well what if that's true then? What are we supposed to do? Wait around until you get some sort of letter explaining what you need to do while I'm left in the dark with Himemiya waiting for something to happen, like usual?" Utena asked, her eyes narrowing a bit. Utena still possessed her own Rose Seal, though she didn't know why any more than she knew why her uniform had been in the closet. "I don't care if this is still the same game or not. I'm not going to just go along with it either way, especially since it seems that Himemiya is being hurt more badly than she was before. I'm going to find a way out and I'm taking her with me. And anyone else who wants to escape as well."

For a moment, Juri seemed to look right through Utena, or past her. Then she narrowed her eyes. "I don't see anything wrong with escaping, but you and the Rose Bride are hardly the company I'd chose. Have you seen anyone else we know here?" She wasn't trying to be unreasonable, but she didn't trust Utena's word at the moment.

But then again, since when was Utena Tenjou a liar? She could be tricked, quite easily at times, but deliberately lie? No, that wasn't her way. Still, Juri wasn't prepared to commit to doing anything involving the Rose Bride until she'd had a chance to see what was what. Escaping here was all well and good, but doing it with the Bride would probably land them right where World's End wanted them.

"I need time to get my bearings," she said, more to herself than Utena.

[OOC: This sinus infection is really sapping my energy. Sorry so slow.]

Even though she wasn't particularly close or friendly with Juri, the other girl's comment about her and Himemiya stung a bit. "No, just you and Anthy Himemiya so far," Utena answered, putting a bit more emphasis on Himemiya's name to contrast the formal title that Juri was using. "I've run into a couple helpful people that I didn't know before, though. Seiya I told you about, and there's also the girl I woke up with, Naoto. Maybe you should talk to her sometime. She said she was a detective, and she's at least smarter and and more analytical than me, anyway. You'd like her, I think."

Utena nodded at Juri's additional words. "We both do, definitely. But I'm going to try my best to get the basics of this place down quick so that I can start figuring out what to do faster. I guess it'll be kind of like cramming for a test, only in this case, the grade is pass/fail, and fail means never getting out," she said, flipping open her notebook and looking down at the scribbled copy of M.E.'s notes.

Why did Utena maintain that silly idea that Anthy Himemiya was a real person? Juri shook her head in furious denial, then grit her teeth. No, it wasn't that unheard of. Even Miki had worried for the Rose Bride's sake, and others had even thought themselves in love with her. There was no point looking down at Utena for falling for the same delusion. Well, no point in Juri showing her contempt for the idea.

"If we can learn enough, maybe we can all get out, or back anyway." At least at Ohtori, she'd had some status. Here she was just one of the crowd. Juri didn't like that at all.

"That's the hope I have," Utena answered, trying to lighten the mood with a little smile when Juri's expression turned a little more sour. "So far the best thing I can think of doing is finding metal. Seiya said that there are people who are able to make swords here. How, she didn't say, but they're out there in the institute somewhere. I know she said something about people with powers, so maybe that's got something to do with it."

She wasn't sure what Juri would think about the idea of powers. Heck, Utena wasn't even quite sure how she felt about it. But, again, what reason would Seiya have to lie? She couldn't think of one. The other girl had seemed too sincere to be lying. Besides, was it so unbelievable compared to the usual?

Juri's hand closed into a fist all on its own at the idea of a sword of any sort. "Someone is making swords here? Well, at least we could have something familiar in our hands to use."

She didn't seem to react to the mention of powers, her mind running ahead to what she considered more practical matters. "I suppose someone has a forge somewhere. We'd need decent metal..." Then she drew herself back upright. "You seem to know a lot about our situation. All this is from just talking to a few people?"

Utena nodded. "Seiya knew a lot, yeah. She was more than willing to explain things for me in simple terms." She showed Juri her notebook, open to her hasty copy of the bulletin board guide. "And like I said, this stuff was on the board, too. I spent the rest of breakfast looking at what seemed to be the big important notes like this. It's great that all this has been put up for us, though it also makes me sad that some people have been here long enough to come up with all of this."

She looked out at the rest of the Sun Room, still in awe of the sheer volume of "patients" that had been dragged in. With all of these people here, shouldn't someone have figured a way out by now? That worried Utena about her own chances to get anything done. She shook her head after a few moments, however. It didn't matter how many failures had come before. All that mattered was that she was going to succeed. She had to.

"This does look a little bigger than End of the World's fencing game, doesn't it?" Juri reluctantly admitted. She didn't like conceding that Utena was right about this, but she wasn't stupid either.

"If there are so many people here, why only three from Ohtori?" And how had they been taken away from there? It just didn't make sense. And things that didn't make sense made Juri unhappy. What she wouldn't give for a fencing foil in her hand right now. Exercise was wonderful for relieving stress.

Utena was glad to hear Juri siding with her for once. She wasn't completely on the wrong track, then. She still didn't have an answer to her upperclassmen's question, though. "Beats me," she said with a sigh. "I guess it might be because we're supposed to all be from different times and places. Still having a hard time believing that that's possible, but it's the only thing that explains why Himemiya was acting so strangely last night when she was fine just the night before. I'm not sure what to think, really."

The thought of different times suddenly made Utena wonder. "Hey, Juri?" she asked, suddenly looking more curious. "What all was going on right before you woke up here?" As far as Utena knew, there hadn't been a duel since she had beaten Touga (although she kept having this nagging feeling that she was missing something whenever she thought about that), and the only things of note that had happened since had been Nanami's brief cowbell obsession, the return of Juri's friend, Shiori, that one party that Nanami had thrown for Touga, and her and Himemiya's decision to move into the Chairman's Wing.

That was an odd question. Juri didn't move a muscle, but seemed to go inside herself as she recalled. "You and the Rose Bride had just moved into the Chairman's Wing. Miki was the last person you dueled. It looked like it might be a quiet time for a while." As quiet as it ever was around Ohtori anyway.

Juri didn't particularly want to go, but she thought it must be near lunchtime. Her stomach claimed that it was. She still had questions for Utena, but perhaps there'd be time later. If they were stuck here, as Utena seemed to think. If they weren't, then the questions weren't important, were they?

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Day 39: Sun Room

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