damned_institute | Nightshift 40: M11-M20 Hallway

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Nightshift 40: M11-M20 Hallway

[M12]

There was this 'Avatar' again, the thing that supposedly linked one's consciousness within this video game. Klavier couldn't quite understand how such a thing could help anyone fight, but he was certain that this connection had something to do with how and why Endrance was taken. If this really wasn't something every player experienced, then there was little doubt others might find such a thing interesting, yes? He still wasn't sure how this all worked, but preserving this connection had to be the point of it all. At least in this particular case.

Any further discussion on this or the strange 'Kira' murders was cut short with the intercom announcement. If one could call it that. Herr Doktor's voice and demeanor changed come nightfall, true, but this was stranger than usual. In fact, he couldn't even be sure if it was the doctor. It was far too raspy to identify either way.

This was getting more bizarre with every evening. First taunting then what may or may not have been snoring... and now this strange dilapidated voice?

"Open the box?" he repeated. What could he possibly mean by that? ...Wait. Was this voice even addressing the patient population? It seemed too specific a thing to say to everyone. Could this be a message for Herr Doktor? Or was this a message for a specific party? Maybe someone had managed to do something recently...

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Open the box, huh? The head doctor seemed to be getting more and more unhinged every day. Or was that even the not-so-good doctor? Whatever, it was time to get moving. He was crazy enough without trying to figure out whatever Doc's addled mind was up to half the time. Ken reached toward the dresser drawer, then paused and glanced up at the knock, wondering who the person was--the question was answered when Touya was revealed on the other side of the door.

Well, good thing he wasn't planning on staying in, though exactly what he was planning, he didn't know. And he certainly didn't intend to tell Yue that he was going to be wandering the halls until he found someone he knew. That would only end in the guardian glaring at him and quite possibly insisting that he either stay in or go with them, if they were going anywhere.

Ken slid the drawer open and pulled out his weapon, strapping it securely to his right arm, habitually inspecting it and making sure it was in good order, clean and functioning smoothly.

"Well, I'll leave you two alone," Ken said, taking his flashlight from the desk and moving to slip out the door.

[heading out here (http://community.livejournal.com/damned/603918.html)]

Touya wasn't at all prepared for Yue to be behind the door. The first thought that crossed his mind was, 'Why?' As in, 'Why God, why, am I stuck with him and his brooding looks and superior air?' or perhaps 'Why did Yuki spontaneously change back?' Both were equally important.

"What..." Touya let Ken by, watching him go in slightly stunned silence. Ken wasn't going explain this, then? "What happened?" he finally asked, entering the room. If Yuki had changed back, did that mean that there was something seriously wrong somewhere? Or was it just natural? Touya looked at Yue, slightly worried.

There hadn't been time enough for Yue to ask Ken if he had plans for the evening, and he frowned after his roommate as the man rushed out the door. Hopefully he actually was meeting someone this time and wouldn't return with more injuries. And would return at all, for that matter.

Yue returned his attention to Touya again, now looking mildly puzzled. "What happened when?" With Ken? Or had something happened on his way over?

As the guardian moved to stand by the dresser, his attention fell briefly on the half-eaten package of cookies Yukito had left sitting out on the desk. "Yukito says you can have those, if you're still hungry," Yue added, with a hint of a sigh.

Touya looked from Yue to the cookies and back. This wasn't a time for cookies--Yuki had just... spontaneously changed back! Or not so spontaneously. But why?

"I'm talking about why you're... you instead of Yukito," Touya clarified. "Did something happen? Did you sense something or--"

The young man nearly jumped a foot when he heard one gunshot go off, followed shortly by another. It sounded like something was going on in the hallway. Touya's eyebrows came together and his hand tightened on his bat. Someone was being attacked out in the hallway? He'd just come from there, and he hadn't seen anything!

"Come on," Touya said, hand on the door knob. "Someone needs help!"

Yue's frown deepened at that; he was fairly certain he'd told Touya he couldn't transform voluntarily anymore, but it was possible he hadn't been paying attention at the time. And it wasn't something that the guardian particularly wanted to repeat, since the fact only irritated him more.

Before he could say anything about it, though, there came the sound of gunshots not too far away - and of course, Touya wanted to go to their rescue. When he was already injured, and armed only with a bat.

Without pause Yue crossed the room and caught up to Touya, but not to help. He instead took hold of the young man's arm and shook his head once, sharply. "Don't," he ordered, voice quiet but firm. "Tonight's the night they set brainwashed patients to fighting other patients. If someone has a gun...they'd have all of their powers as well, against those of us who are still crippled."

The hallways with the rooms were supposed to be safe, though. Had something changed? Perhaps that's what the cryptic intercom message had meant.

Touya immediately froze when he felt Yue's hand on his arm. That was... unexpected. Yue had touched him during the transfer, but Touya hadn't thought that Yue would actually go so far as to restrain him physically.

He looked back at the guardian, clearly torn between staying with Yue and insisting that they help whoever was being attacked. "I can't just stand here while they're attacked and possibly killed...!" Touya said, his tone wavering slightly. Yue had a point--they were both injured, so the potential victim in the situation could very well turn out to be one of them. Touya wasn't going to risk Yue and Yuki's lives, but what he did was his own business.

"What if it's someone you know, or I know?" Touya asked. "What if it's Ken?"

Yue himself wasn't happy at all about staying in the room when there might be something he could do, but his priority was - had to be - Touya's safety above all others. No matter who it was. "And how would we help them if we rush out there and get hurt ourselves?" he asked, a hint of tension clear in his usually-controlled voice. "Wait a minute."

His hand tightened slightly on Touya's arm as he shook his head. "There's nothing we can do right now." He hated to admit it, hated it more than the other could likely know. It went against everything he was, but he was slowly learning to face his changed reality in this place no matter how much it hurt his pride. "Someone out there is very powerful." Enough so that he'd likely provide a mild distraction, at best. It wasn't any magic that he recognized, but there was a lot of it.

Touya remembered, perhaps a little too late, that Yue kept referring to himself as 'crippled' by the loss of his powers--and Touya understood that. He didn't know much about Yue, but if his purpose was to be a guardian and his power to do so was taken away, he probably didn't know what to do with himself.

But Touya hadn't lost anything that he hadn't willingly given away. He probably couldn't understand what Yue was trying to get through without knowing. Stripped of his wings and possibly betrayed, Touya had a feeling that Yue's current attitude and mood was worse than usual. But Touya still didn't know how to fix it.

He looked back at his hand on the knob. Yue was a guardian, but without power. Perhaps if he could protect one person who wasn't himself... Touya's hand left the doorknob. Yue was right--Touya couldn't fight someone who Yue deemed 'very powerful'. He could barely fight something Yue ruled over.

"You're right," he said, staring at the door. "I guess we'll have to leave once... whoever or whatever it is, is gone," Touya turned back and offered Yue a small smile. "And you'll know when that is."

"I will." There was an unintentional note of relief in Yue's tone, a bleedover from his other self; they were both of a similar opinion in this matter even if Yukito was more demonstrative of it.

The guardian hesitated for a moment before he glanced down, releasing Touya's arm again as though he'd forgotten he was holding onto it. "It's strange, though," he observed, turning away abruptly. "They've never stationed anyone so close to the rooms before that I know of. Normally this is the safest place in the building at night. Perhaps something has changed."

And if their rooms were no longer safe, what would they do? It wasn't a pleasant prospect.

Touya looked down at his arm when Yue did, as though wondering if there was something on it he should be worried about. But then Yue just let go of it and turned away from him. What the heck was that about...?

"Maybe something to do with that weird announcement?" Touya proposed, leaning his bat against Yue's desk and crossing over to the bed. If that guy was as powerful as Yue thought, they might be here a while. He sat down. "I couldn't even tell if it was the head doctor guy or someone else."

"It's possible." Even though Touya sat down Yue remained standing, folding his arms across his chest as he considered, frowning thoughtfully. "It was certainly different from any that I've heard before, but I don't know what would have changed."

Not that he really paid that much attention to what the other groups were doing at night, apart from what was written on the board. It was possible that someone could have found or done something - but was it progress toward getting out of the place, or trapping them more thoroughly?

"But if the rules have changed, I'm not sure what we'll find out there," he added, looking even less pleased. "It could be even more dangerous now anywhere in the building."

"Sounds fun," Touya said wryly, laying back with his hands behind his head. Even if Yue wasn't going to relax, Touya was still moving rather slowly. But the exhaustion was slowly lifting, thankfully.

"If things are more dangerous, we'll just have to run faster," Touya said with a small smirk. Not like that plan of action would actually work, but it was something at least. "We can't just sit here, though, and wait for somebody else to find a way out. We need to move forward."

Yue had once felt that strongly about escaping, but - somehow that had been lost over the last few days. Between everything that had happened, had dragged at him and tried to pull him into giving up out of despair, he'd been starting to give in. And yet he hadn't even realized the extent of his growing apathy until faced with Touya's untouched determination.

"Hn," was all he replied, though, gaze sliding sidelong and away from Touya as he suppressed a flare of guilt. He shifted a little, trying to adjust wings that weren't present, and after a minute added, "Are you feeling less tired tonight?"

Hopefully he would be. If people healed faster here, it seemed right that Touya would likewise recover more quickly than he had at home.

"I'm fine," Touya replied, his tone somewhat edgy. "But you don't think we're going to get out, do you?" he asked, looking directly at Yue. Most likely, he wouldn't look back, but Touya stared him down nonetheless.

"It's pretty obvious," he continued. "You didn't even open your mouth, and you looked away from me. Then you changed the subject." Touya had an uncanny ability to tell things about people--even when he'd just met them. He didn't even notice it, half the time. It just seemed natural.

"Yukito can't lie to me, and neither can you. Sorry," he shrugged. "That's another thing you two have in common."

"...I don't know." There was a pause before the admission, which was given grudgingly and with Yue still refusing to look at Touya even though he was well aware he was looking at him.

He shouldn't have been surprised that the evasion had been noticed, considering that this was Touya. At the same time, though, he realized that he'd been considering this Touya separate from the Touya he'd known, if only because of the shared history that was lacking.

The guardian sighed softly, casting a wary glance toward the door at the sound of the scuffle in the hallway; he was still uncomfortable at the idea of just waiting for it to end but his reasons still stood. "People have been here for weeks and there seems to be no progress. Unless those who have "disappeared" somehow managed to find their way back home."

"Everyone else doesn't matter," Touya said firmly, standing up and moving into Yue's line of sight. He glared at the guardian for a moment. He wasn't going to let this go by. He wouldn't let Yue go on thinking that everything they did or were going to do was pointless. It would drag him and Yuki down.

"...you haven't stopped fighting though. If you had, you would have told me to stay in my room and just be safe all night. Every night. Instead the first thing you told me I needed was a weapon. If you didn't think there was any hope, you wouldn't have put me in danger like that.

"Screw 'there seems to be no progress'," he finished.

What he said was true, and Yue couldn't deny it. His first impulse had been to protect from inevitable danger - danger that would be encountered in the hallways, not while cowering in dark rooms and waiting for the end to come.

Or we would have given in and left with them, Yukito whispered, with distinct sympathy. They had already chosen not to believe what the Institute told them, and wasn't the futility of escape just another one of them?

The guardian's expression softened just a little, as he couldn't help but meet Touya's eyes. For a moment Yukito smiled both in acknowledgement and encouragement, but then Yue straightened and cleared his throat quietly. "Where did you want to start, then?"

Edited 2009-04-20 04:39 (UTC)

Touya blinked, then smiled back. Yuki was in there somewhere, which he supposed was the source of the smile. But more importantly, his words had gotten through to both of them and Yue seemed willing to start in again.

"Don't look at me," Touya said with a small laugh. "You know this place better. What have people been aiming for lately? Any place in particular?"

"There are several options that I've heard of," Yue began, returning to his usual neutral expression with a small effort. "I wouldn't suggest the basement or outside the walls without a larger and better armed group, from what I've heard of it. They both seem quite dangerous, and therefore possibly promising."

He paused then to consider, frown deepening as he did, though not out of any apparent irritation. "I'd found a door in the library but haven't been able to investigate further, but to get there would require passing through the Sun Room, which tends to be one of the best-guarded areas at night. Or we could simply gather supplies for tonight, upstairs."

Alright, now they were getting somewhere! The basement sounded good, if people thought it was both dangerous and promising. Same with over the wall.

"If it's something to look into, then we need a larger, better armed group," Touya agreed. "We'll find one and go down there. Or over the walls. Whichever. It can't be that hard to find allies.

"Tonight, though, supplies sound like a good idea. What sorts of things do you think would be helpful?"

Yue shook his head slightly and moved back over toward the desk, retrieving his journal from the drawer and pulling out his maps. "I've not explored the second floor very much," he admitted, tracing a fingertip over the route he'd followed in the past. The last venture hadn't gotten very far at all before they'd encountered the brainwashed patient with a sword. Before that, though...

The guardian tapped a fingertip against one of the rooms on the map. "I've been to the so-called 'patient possessions' room, but nothing else in this corridor. There seem to be supplies of varying kinds up there, though, judging from the amount of people who were also heading that direction."

He paused there, though, eyes narrowing slightly as he lifted his head, looking as though he were listening to a sound only he could hear. "He's leaving," was all he said, before abandoning the map to glance warily out the door.

"Then we'll do that," Touya said. "Maybe do a sweep of the whole floor, see if there's anything interesting up there." Like a weapon that might be a little bit better than a bat. He could hope, at least. Medical supplies, in case of injury while away from the patient block, would also be useful. So would survival-type articles like ropes or extra batteries or water. They'd have to make a kit of some kind.

When Yue announced that the powerful person was leaving, Touya stood up and moved closer to him, waiting for the final verdict. "Is he gone? What about the other person?"

"He seems to be." Yue frowned at what he could see of the scene in the hallway now: he didn't recognize either the fallen man or the man dragging him to safety, but there didn't seem to be anyone else involved. As for the brainwashed patient he'd sensed (if that was really what it was, which seemed most likely tonight) there was no sign at the moment.

He glanced back at Touya again and shook his head slightly. "There's only one injured person, and someone else seems to be tending to him." Even if he'd had all of his powers, healing was never one of them, so there was little for him to do at this point. "I can't sense anything out of the ordinary at the moment." Although "ordinary" for here was entirely relative, of course.

"Alright then," Touya said, picking up his bat and shouldering it. If the injured person was taken care of and the threat was gone, then there was no reason to just stand around here.

"Let's head out, then. If he's gone, we just have to avoid him now." Which Touya hoped Yue could help with.

It seemed best to move now, before whoever-it-was decided to return, if he was planning to. Yue nodded slightly, but paused a moment before leaving. If they were going to be looking for anything that might potentially be interesting...

He stepped back into the room long enough to strip the case off his pillow, then hesitated and took Ken's as well. His roommate was gone and probably not intending to return, and if he did - well, there were other rooms and other pillowcases and they seemed to be replaced daily anyway. Yue just remembered how awkward it had been when he'd been upstairs the last time without a carry-bag.

In order to keep his hands free Yue almost absently folded the pillowcases and tucked then into the waistband of his pants, heading out without another word, only a slight nod in Touya's direction as he moved out again.

[going here]

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Nightshift 40: M11-M20 Hallway

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