damned_institute | Day 39: Sun Room [Fourth Shift]

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Day 39: Sun Room [Fourth Shift]

Yue was all too pleased to leave the cafeteria by the time lunch was over, even if he still wasn't satisfied that Fai was properly taking care of himself. It was clear that Touya hadn't accepted the answers he'd been given and intended to find out just what the guardian wasn't telling him, and being watched so closely was beginning to get uncomfortable.

It was clear that the truth would have to come out at some point, especially if they were going to be spending any amount of time together. Avoiding him was entirely out of the question, but at the same time Yue stubbornly refused to consider the idea of just outright telling him about what had happened in the last week. It was a dilemma indeed, and only served to make him even more irritable than ever.

How could he admit any of it? That he was weak and crippled, betrayed and altered by his creator? That he'd almost broken the promise he'd given in exchange for Touya's power? The latter he couldn't help but be reminded of every time he saw this Touya, who had only just gone through it, and would remember it even more clearly.

Fortunately Yukito was staying silent for the moment, although he could feel his other self's disappointment at being unable to speak to Touya so far, and it didn't make him feel any better.

In the midst of all this Yue was rather dismayed to realize that the nurse wanted to lead him to the music room, of all places: that was the room where he'd met the Sakura-who-wasn't-his-Sakura the week before, and needed neither the reminder nor the inevitable noise in that room. He abruptly halted in his tracks and refused to continue on. The nurse seemed initially disappointed, but finally agreed to let him stay in the Sun Room instead; the guardian found a corner in which to stand, arms folded across his chest and lost in his own ~~brooding~~ thoughts.

[for Sokka]

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Ah! The boy, Akihiko it seemed, had gotten hold of a cat first. Well, it was fair enough. He'd held one earlier and he was likely to annoy it by messing with its ears too much again anyway. He smiled back at the friendly greeting, pleased to have sat with someone who didn't mind the company.

"Leon," the boy replied with a smile of his own. Akihiko was a funny name, he decided after running it through his head a few times. He wasn't going to say as much, though. Everyone was from different places, after all.

"Nice to meet you," he said, with a nod. The cat managed to wriggle out of his arms, plopping onto his new acquaintance's lap. "Looks like it likes you," he laughed.

"I'm surprised it ran up to me. I'm more of a dog person, and, well, most cats can tell that. Though Koromaru - sorry, our dog back home - never really chased cats." Huh. And there he was, stuck on the dog again. Was he really missing home that much?

Akihiko shook it off. "So, where're you from, Leon-san?"

That was a pleasant change from the cat he'd tried to chase down earlier. He'd like to believe that they could feel some of the similarity in his genes, but he didn't even know how that would be possible - especially here where he didn't even seem to be Felpool anymore.

Leon turned his eyes away from the animal as he was addressed again. 'San'... He'd had something like that added to his name before. It must be common wherever several of the patients were from, and it most likely meant that Akihiko wouldn't be familiar with his world at all.

"I'm from the planet Expel. I doubt you've heard of it." It was still considered underdeveloped, after all, and planets like Earth weren't to make contact in order to let it progress on its own.

Wait. A different planet? Akihiko couldn't help looking surprised for a moment. He'd heard the rumors, of course, but, well...his mental image of people from other planets was the sort you saw in the kind of science fiction movies that aired at 2 AM when you couldn't sleep. So speaking to an actual person from another planet was a surprise.

"I'm afraid I haven't...what's it like there?" He tried to keep the incredulity out of his voice. "I'm from Port Island, Japan, here on Earth. I...well, I'm guessing you probably haven't heard of it either, huh?"

"It's less technologically advanced than Earth. Even this version of Earth, to a degree..." Leon paused, wondering if he should be mentioning things like that. If Claude said this was the past, then perhaps he shouldn't give away too much. "We're further advanced with Heraldry, though," he continued with some amount of pride. "That's like magic, really. I'm a heraldric scientist, so I study both."

Then he grinned. "I have heard of Japan, though. Maybe not that particular part of it, but it seems like there's a good number of people from there. Maybe it's important somehow."

Akihiko nodded at the first part of the statement. It was, well, still a little weird to actually be talking to someone not from Earth, but the planet sounded interesting. "Ah, that's interesting," he said. "So you study this - Heraldry, wasn't it - back home?" Science hadn't been his strong point in school, but this magic thing had piqued his curiosity.

"Yeah, it does seem like there's a lot of people here from Japan. I wonder why? I mean...it's not like every single person from the country has some kind of special power, or ability. It might just be a coincidence. Though, well, it's still kind of weird," he said, scratching the back of his neck a little.

"I'm a master of it," Leon pointed out with a grin. Then he looked a little more modest. "Well, technically. There are people who've been studying it far longer than me and there are always new things being found out about it..." He waved a hand a bit as though to say that these technicalities weren't all that important.

The issue with Japan was an interesting one, though. The young mage scratched at his head a bit, unconsciously brought on by Akihiko's own actions. "Perhaps it's just some supernatural hotspot. Are there any... odd phenomenons there that you're aware of?"

"So...if I have questions, I'll be asking the master?" He asked the question with a grin, tempered with a look that stated it wasn't all joking. "So, what is it, exactly? You'd said it was like magic, but how?"

He raised an eyebrow at the mention of odd phenomenons. You nailed it. "It's possible. And..." He looked around - he didn't think Mitsuru was up and around, but one never knew.

"There's one odd phenomenon in particular. We call it the Dark Hour. We don't think it happens here, but we were investigating it at home."

"Well, when I say 'like' I really mean 'is,' since most people seem to know that term better." Leon waved his arms around with a bored expression. "I cast spells."

When it appeared that his guess seemed to have struck home, the boy looked momentarily smug. This became rapt interest as Akihiko went on, however. "It doesn't happen here? So it's specific to where you came from." He pondered this a moment, and you could practically see the cogs spinning in his mind as he tapped his chin with one finger.

"Has it been happening for a very long time? And is it something that might affect people across the millennia? There are those here that claim to be from different time periods in Japan, so that's something to take into account."

"Ah, gotcha. Say, question about that, if you don't mind? Does it take a special item for you to cast, or can you just do it? I know that's gonna sound weird, I'm just curious." It would be handy if it was possible to summon without an Evoker. It would spread that ability around.

He turned to Leon, thinking. "Well, we haven't seen it happen here. I suspect it may be specific to where we came from, but it's entirely possible it could happen. What you would notice is the moon changing color. It's normally white, right? Well, in the Dark Hour, it's yellow, with a green tinge."

The harder part was trying to figure out how to explain the rest of it. "There was an explosion about ten years ago. The Dark Hour started then, to my knowledge. If we aren't able to stop it, well, it could affect people across time, but it wouldn't affect anyone before 1999 or so, I don't think."

"Well," Leon reached around awkwardly to where he had his journal tucked in the back of his pants. He always kept it near him, even now that he'd finished making a spellbook out of it. Especially now. "It's easier with a conduit like this." He flipped it open to reveal the spells and diagrams within. "But it's possible without as long as you're well studied."

At the mention of the moon, Leon tilted his head. "I thought the moon on Earth could turn yellowish at some points. Didn't they call that a Harvest Moon or something? I guess that's not what you're talking about. Expel has two moons. One of them can appear greenish sometimes." A sudden change in color would be abnormal, though. He'd have to keep an eye out for that. "You haven't seen this happen here, though?"

He looked thoughtful again. "That might not be the connection we're looking for, then. Even if people are from later, when that might have affected their timeline, that wouldn't explain those that claim to be from at least a hundred years prior."

Akihiko looked down at the complicated-looking diagrams in the book. On the one hand? If there was a chance of figuring all that out so that fewer of them needed an Evoker...but on the other, that stuff looked like the physics homework assignment from hell. He wasn't a bad student, but, well, Mitsuru was the top student in their grade, their leader always managed top exam scores, and Ken was just plain bright for his age. Any of the three of them would probably be able to manage that kind of thing with less work than it would take for him.

That's if it was even possible to summon a Persona with that kind of array, he realized. It did take a certain amount of psychological shock to awaken one in the first place, and to summon them after that. "Wow. That's some impressive-looking work, Leon. How long did it take to make all those arrays and things? I guess, too, it'd take a long time to study that much. I was just, well, curious."

Yeah. Curious. Not trying to figure out how we can all use our powers with only one magical device - and did I mention that using it requires us to shoot ourselves? Yeah.

"It's normal for it to look kind of yellow sometimes, yeah, and I think you're right about folks calling that a harvest moon - at least I've heard the term. But, well...a lot more changes during the Dark Hour than just the moon. The world around you - the normal world, I should say - looks a lot like this place does at night. I still don't think the two are related, though," he said, scratching his chin.

"For one, night here lasts a lot longer than the Dark Hour does. For another...yeah, I haven't seen the moon change. And...you're right. It couldn't have affected anyone's timeline from any time before the accident. Especially not if they're from that far back."

The young mage straightened up a bit at the praise, smiling. "It took me a good few days, whenever I could get the time to work on it. And yeah, it does generally take a lot of studying, but aside from that it also takes natural talent." He'd heard of some artificial means - runes and somesuch, but that was a different matter entirely as far as he was concerned.

The issue involving the moon was an interesting one, though, and he pondered it some more. "Is there anything else you can think of? Anything before that incident?" Japan sure sounded like an interesting place regardless, and Leon idly wondered if he'd ever actually get the chance to visit it. He had a feeling that if Claude took him there in the future it wouldn't quite be the same.

"Days? I...wow. I'm really impressed. I think it would take me a lot longer than a few days to figure out how to make something like that, even if I did know the methods of making one. You must be really talented," Akihiko said. The words came out before he really thought them over, but they were true nonetheless. He also took the note about studying to heart.

"Hm...nothing that I remember. There was..." It was still difficult to mention it, even after this many years. He swallowed hard, then continued. "...a fire when I was a kid, but the investigators ruled that it was some kind of electrical issue that started it. So I don't think it would affect anything."

There was one more thing - his Persona - but he kept quiet about that for the moment.

It had been some time since Leon had gotten any heartfelt praise from anyone outside the adventuring party, so Akihiko's words only caused him to brighten further. Of course it would take most people much longer than a few days to craft a spellbook, but Leon was always revising his old ones and writing up new, more powerful ones along their journey. This was actually several steps backwards, though it worked well enough for him here.

The boy nodded at the mention of the fire. Any traumatic notes to the story weren't missed, but he didn't dwell on them, since he was more focused on trying to figure out how that might have fit into the grand scheme of things. "No, that's still wouldn't be far back enough. I mean, it's possible that something was tampered with at some point, whether in relation to this dark hour or not, that affected multiple timelines - even past ones, but it's also possible that the phenomenon was caused by something else on a grander scale connects some of the other patients here." He shook his head now, sighing. "But then this still only covers one country on a single planet."

The teenager hummed to himself, scratching his chin as he mulled everything over. He didn't think it was anything on the Kirijo Group's end. Mitsuru had come clean about it all, and she really wasn't the sort to hide anything else after revealing things the way she had. The question then became what, exactly, happened.

"You're right. Hm...I'm wondering if something maybe happened in the future that's affecting the past - something ahead of what I remember, which is 2009. Some kind of...I dunno, something in space, maybe? Physics accident? They launched this thing they called the Large Hadron Collider a year or so ago. There was all this stuff on the news about how it could cause black holes and all that. Maybe it actually did?"

Well, that was certainly an idea. "I'll have to ask my friend," he said with a frown. "He's... we're, rather... actually from a good distance in the future, apparently. It doesn't make much of a difference in my case, because of the difference in planets and all, but he's from Earth, so it's possible he might have heard something about it."

If there was any connection between their worlds at all. Weren't their people apparently from all different variations of Earth? Would an incident like this span all of them?

"Huh. How far - if you don't mind my asking, that is," Akihiko asked. "And if your friend knows anything, I'd be interested to talk to him myself. You're right about the fact that stuff might be different, especially that far in the future, but anything that might be a clue to getting everyone home's worth looking into, right?"

He made a mental note to poke around on the board about that, as well as talking to Mitsuru once she was up and around again. In the meantime, it was food for thought. And speaking of food, it looked like the nurses were starting to mill around, escorting people to dinner.

"Oh gosh. I don't remember the exact date." Leon thought hard, but there were too many numbers stored away in his head and Claude couldn't have mentioned it more than one. He sighed in frustration. "It was a good several hundred years ahead of this time at least. I'm sorry I can't give a more approximate answer."

The nurses were indeed starting to come around, and Leon stood as the cat finally hopped down from his lap. "I'll speak to you some other time, I'm sure." He bid farewell with a weak smile.

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Day 39: Sun Room [Fourth Shift]

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