damned_institute | Night 41: F11-20 Hallway

The door was opened slowly as Yousuke peered in. He had to blink for a moment, because he wasn't quite expecting the appearance of the girl on the other side. It should have been obvious, seeing as their clothes were taken from them when they were brought here, but it hadn't clicked with everything else that was going on.

So Naoto did have breasts. Huh.

He made a desperate attempt to look anywhere else, turning around to close the door behind him. "S-should I leave it open a bit for him too?"

"If you would," Naoto replied, giving him a bit of an odd look in return. That better not have been over what she thought it may have ... Well, so long as he kept any commentary to himself. "Aside from him, I'm expecting someone else to come by briefly to drop a radio off. I assume it won't take any longer than a short minute or so."

She made a vague gesture with a hand, welcoming Yousuke to sit wherever he wanted to-- or continue to stand, if that's what he wished to do. It didn't matter to her. "I didn't see you respond on the bulletin, so I'm not sure whether you're aware, but Adachi-san is here as well. I'm uncertain if he will be coming, but just in case..." Naoto trailed off to catch any reaction Yousuke might have. "... As he is from Inaba, I didn't think it would do him any good to leave him out of anything."

If Naoto had been trying to derail Yousuke's current train of thought, then she'd succeeded spectacularly. He went visibly pale, flashlight falling from his hand. He bent down quickly to scoop it up, trying to think up any way possible to cover for his obvious distress. If Naoto thought it would be okay to bring Adachi to meet with them, then she couldn't know that he was the murderer either. So much for the slight hope that they'd be able to work together on this.

"Y-you want to bring him here?? Are we supposed to just tell him about, you know, everything?" Remember, Yousuke, this is Faildachi we're talking about now. She doesn't know him as anything else. Just Doujima-san's blundering, big mouthed partner. She's going to think he's perfectly harmless, damn it all. "I mean... isn't that a little risky?"

"I don't know," Naoto admitted, and obviously this had been bothering her. She stared at him, attempting to figure out why he'd react that badly to the news (it was just as shocking to her, of course, but to respond in such a manner was nearly pushing it to over dramatic). "I realize there are several topics we would be reluctant to bring up in his presence, however..." Naoto paused, unsure of what sort of conclusion they should come to regarding this.

"... However, he has a right to know about the situation and on-goings of the institute," she finished off with, slowly and unsure. "That much, at least, and what we decide to do is what I wish to cover among us. I can't say how useful Adachi-san will be should he further accompany us, but we cannot leave him in the dark, either."

Yes we very well can leave him in the dark! We can and we should! Yousuke was still pale. He walked over to the bed opposite Naoto's and sat down rather hard on it, staring at the floor so he didn't have to see his friend looking at him. They shouldn't tell Adachi anything, just let him flounder around on his own and hope he fell a deep hole somewhere.

But he couldn't say that. "Yeah... I suppose we should help him with that." Maybe Naoto would give him some really bad advice? Doubtful. Naoto's advice was rarely bad.

Why did the world hate him so?

Well, something was bothering Yousuke, that much was becoming obvious. He didn't normally act like this, not around her anyway, which was enough to pique curiosity and concern.

"Hanamura-senpai, is something the matter?" Naoto asked, although the question came off rather aloof sounding. "I don't imagine you have already run into something along the way-- or have you?"

Something was definitely the matter. Unfortunately, that something involved not being able to tell Naoto what the matter was. Yousuke was probably going to go crazy before all of this was over. Maybe that had been Adachi's intent from the beginning.

"No. No, I'm fine. Just... I don't think tonight's dinner sat very well with me." Yeah, that was a wonderful lie. Maybe seeing Adachi's lying, disgusting face would cause him to vomit and make the story seem that much more truthful.

[from here (http://community.livejournal.com/damned/631395.html?thread=53324131#t53324131)]

F15. He couldn't forget the room number if he tried, so it wasn't like he was all that worried about getting the wrong room. But just barging in was out of the question. Hospital or not, it was still a girl's room. She could always be changing or some--

...DAMMIT. His stomach felt even worse now. Come on, man. Get a hold of yourself. Besides, the door's open a crack. She wouldn't be... Oh wait. He could hear Yousuke-senpai's voice inside. So he was already there. Okay, well that was good.

He hesitated a moment before finally speaking up. He didn't open the door just yet. "N-Naoto-kun?"

It took a bit, but once they went down the right hall, the room was easy to find. Not so much because Adachi was certain that he had the right room, since he wasn't, but because Tatsumi was outside. Well, if he didn't have the right room, then he could always tag along with the delinquent until they did.

They were the weirdest little group of friends, weren't they? Kind of funny to watch sometimes. "Oh, hi, kid..." he said almost hesitantly. Shirogane, he was pretty sure didn't know anything important. Tatsumi hadn't said anything to him on the bulletin, so he didn't know one way or the other if the kid knew or not. If he was in the same boat of random knowledge as Hanamura, then that might make things more difficult.

But then Misa would definitely come in handy, if that was the case. "This the place?"

"If someone you know is around here, it probably is," Misa said, nodding towards Kanji. She had to admit, the kid looked like the type that her parents had always warned her about. She was a little nervous, and as much as she tried calming herself down, it wasn't working quite as well as she would have liked. "Um, hi," she said, trying to smile a little bit.

"Yes, come in," Naoto called out, now that Kanji had finally arrived ... along with two other voices. She barely recognized one of the murmurs as Adachi's-- which, for some reason, surprised her, as she wasn't expecting him right off the bat-- but the other one ... it was a female's voice, one she didn't know. Why was there someone else here?

Her puzzled expression in the direction of the door didn't last for too long, though. "Don't stand out there for long."

Already?? If Kanji was outside with Adachi acting like nothing was out of the ordinary, then he didn't know about their future either. That meant Yousuke was on his own for certain. Wonderful.

But who did the other voice belong to? Someone else? Someone not a part of their group? Was Adachi dragging another patient into this mess just to hold something else over him? That bastard. And he couldn't even warn her. He couldn't warn anyone that they were in the company of a murderer, and he just knew the man was going to be looking at him and talking to him with that phony voice and that phony smile all the while knowing...

Yousuke's face took on a green tinge, and he focused his attention on the floor.

Honestly, Kanji hadn't bothered reading that bulletin post again after his last response. There wasn't really a need to, so he was actually pretty damn surprised to see the guy here at all. "You're... uh..." What was his name again? It was that scrawny cop, the one always hanging around senpai's uncle. The name was kind of escaping him at the moment. "...that guy. What are you--?"

He did a bit of a double take when the girl spoke up. He actually hadn't seen her immediately, but when he did, the hairstyle was the only thing that popped out at him. Rise-chan? ...No. Actually, looking closer, she looked nothing like her. She was a hell of a lot quieter, too. He didn't say anything in response to her other than a puzzled look. At least until Naoto said they all better get themselves in. Probably a better idea than just standing in a dark hallway.

He finally just opened the door to the room and went in. It was actually a lot easier to go through with walking in with all these other people here. Not sure why. Though it didn't make looking at Naoto any easier. (He wasn't going to get embarrassed every time he saw her now was he?!) "Hey," he said to both of them, quickly focusing his attention more on Yousuke than Naoto or her shirt. "Didn't know we were inviting so many people. We waiting for anyone else?"

He guessed this meant they weren't going to be talking about the TV world or anything. He'd probably have to hold off on talking about the stuff Akihiko-kun had told him during lunch now, too.

Why wasn't he surprised that Tatsumi didn't remember his name? Figures. Oh well, Adachi couldn't complain. It meant that he was in the clear for this kid, too. Hanamura was all that was left to worry about.

So when Adachi followed Tatsumi into the room, he was pretty sure he'd be safe. Hanamura was looking down at the ground, not glaring at him, and he didn't look too happy. He knew how things stood, then. Good. Maybe that'd teach him not to stick his nose in where it didn't belong. Unlikely, but maybe the kid was still capable of learning something.

Then Adachi glanced over at Naoto, and tried not to stare because holy shit. She must've gone to some pretty extreme lengths to pass for a guy. He almost admired her for it, except that it was even more fucking insulting than it had been before. That asshole on the bulletin was right. The rest of the police force were idiots.

After a moment, he stepped aside so that Misa could come in, then cleared his throat and gave everyone else in the room a lazy smile. "Sorry, I ran into her on the way here. She was scared and needed someone to travel with, and I wasn't too sure where your room was, Naoto-kun, so she helped me out. It should be okay, right?"

Misa turned on her brightest smile, flashing it at everyone in turn. "Hi. I'm Misa, and I hope I'm not interrupting anything. It's just like Adachi-san said, only, well." She let out a quick, nervous laugh. Argh, why aren't my eyes working right? It would be so much easier if I could tell who everyone was already so there wouldn't have to be introductions.

"I kind of mistook him for someone I know, with it being dark and the two looking a lot alike. But he was really nice, and really, it's a lot safer not to travel by yourself at night here, or so people have told me," she explained. "And he was really nice and calmed me down when I was feeling pretty scared."

She nodded once more, moving mostly out of the way of the others, but staying by the door just in case. Eavesdropping when Light asked was one thing, but - unless they were plotting something against him and she just didn't know that - eavesdropping on other people was something else. But, who knew? It might be interesting, either way.

There was a long minute after Adachi walked in where Naoto began to feel awkward, mainly because this would be his first time seeing her like this. He didn't even know until a while ago ... Something in the back of her mind almost wished he had stayed oblivious, but what could she do? Nothing, not with these clothes. She really hated these uniforms, especially when she could almost feel the three of them trying to divert their eyes elsewhere.

At least there would be someone in here who wouldn't, whether they were a stranger or not.

"No, everyone-" Including an unexpected guest, "-is here. As I told Hanamura-senpai, I may be getting a delivery, but it shouldn't interrupt matters any longer than a moment or so."

As Adachi introduced the guest in question, Naoto turned towards her, eying the girl until the both of them finished speaking. "... I suppose it isn't any trouble. If you're unfamiliar with the institute, then perhaps this could be beneficial for you." Again, she gestured around the room, in case they needed the invitation to pick out a spot. "I am Naoto Shirogane."

Then, she cleared her throat. "Now that we're able to get this started, there were a few topics I wanted to clear up; most of all, what you all know about where we are, the possible time discrepancies, and..." One thing Naoto really wanted to cover were their Persona and if they could be used at all-- especially since Mitsuru's team could-- but unfortunately, now they were going to have to save such a topic for another time. "Well, what we decide to do."

The possible time discrepancies? Naoto knew about those?? He'd have to wait and ask her what she knew at a later time. Adachi would be watching him like a hawk for any slip-ups to use to his advantage.

Should he lie about what he knew? It wasn't much, and even if he did, the others were bound to cover for him. Naoto had been around a couple days at least. But... the idea of giving information to Adachi... One of Yousuke's hands clenched the edge of the bed and he swallowed bile.

He started by addressing Misa. That took a bit of the edge off the situation. "I'm Yousuke Hanamura. And... I don't know a whole lot, just what I managed to get from people over lunch. Multiple worlds was brought up, but I didn't get much of an explanation. And the monsters at night." He looked at Naoto. The question of whether or not they were shadows was obviously in the air. "Have you seen them?"

Now... now he had to lie, and hope that Adachi didn't say anything. "As for time discrepancies... I don't know about you, but it was mid-November last time I checked. About the, uh, 16th."

Aw crap. They were all supposed to be introducing themselves for the girl? For crying out loud... "Uh. Yeah, hey," he turned to her so she knew it was meant for her. "Kanji Tatsumi."

Now that that was over with, he turned back and looked between Naoto and Yousuke, looking a bit lost already. "Multiple worlds? Didn't hear anything about that. All I heard about was the whole monster thing. And the rest of what you told me before, Naoto-kun."

He stared at Yousuke for a second before continuing. "Erm. I was talking to someone before who said he was from like two years ago or something. Wasn't sure how serious he was being. And didn't know that was happening to everyone else. So... You really don't remember anything after November, Yousuke-senpai?" That was freaking weird, man. So people were going through time jumps for real? Even Yousuke?

"Um. Last I remember was, uhh..." He had to pause to consider the date. It wasn't something he usually paid attention to. Like he stared at his calendar all day. "...It was early December. Like the 2nd or 3rd, maybe."

Adachi was pleased when Misa filled them in more on what had happened, from her point of view. Hook, line, and sinker. She was sharing the bait, even. If this had been fishing in the Samegawa, he might've even been able to catch that damn Guardian fish everyone kept talking about. Luck was really on his side, wasn't it?

Well, not entirely. His eyes widened some when he heard that bit about monsters, even though it wasn't entirely unexpected. That TV world was a deathtrap, so why couldn't this place be dangerous? That was the game that that doc had talked about, huh? This could be interesting, especially if he somehow arranged for Hanamura to have an accident. But so far, the brat wasn't saying anything he shouldn't.

"Time discrepancies?" he echoed once Tatsumi said his part. "So that's what it was. I didn't wake up until after lunch, but I met Hanamura and the things he was saying sounded kinda funny. Last I remember, it was early November. The 5th, I think. But he mentioned that Nanako-chan was safe, so I'm guessing this means he wasn't dreaming it?" Adachi gave a sigh. "What a relief."

Of course, he'd never actually said that, but since the brat hadn't backed down when he'd mentioned rescuing Nanako, he'd assumed that that had gone down perfectly fine for them. Well, sucked to be Namatame, but now he had the problem of just how much further ahead Hanamura really was. They couldn't have really found him out, come after him, and put him in jail in a week and a half's time...could they? But Tatsumi was from even later than that, and he wasn't acting the least bit strange. Was Hanamura the only one who'd found out, or was it only a few in their group?

Not like he could find out here and now.

"But, uh...what do you mean, monsters? I didn't hear anything about that."

Misa listened quietly as everyone else spoke. It was clear that they all knew each other, but there was something being left out of the story. She almost wanted to ask what it was right away, but.

"Hm...", she finally said, after a few minutes. "I've heard that the time weirdness applies to a lot of people, too, so it's not just you guys. And, well..." It was almost instinctive by now to twirl hair around her finger when she was thinking, or was feeling a little nervous.

"Sometimes people disappear from this place and come back. Matsu - er, sorry, my other friend that's a detective - said that I'd been here before now, and from later on. He didn't say how it worked, just that it happened sometimes. The bad part is that sometimes people disappear and don't come back. I don't think they die, they just seem to vanish, like some kind of magic trick. It happened to my boyfriend," she went on to explain.

"Misa-Misa doesn't know a lot about the monsters, though, other than that they're here and that they're dangerous."

A part of Naoto was hoping there wouldn't have to be differences between them when it came to the timeline topic, but now she realized that was wishing for too much; if there was something to be thankful for, though, the differences weren't too vast-- a little over a month, at most. So that put Naoto at the earliest between all of them. Which also meant, should anything have happened, she wouldn't know about it; given how their case was going, a lot could have occurred within that amount of time.

... And if Adachi's words were anything to go by, something did, and just within the span of a few days for her.

"Nanako-chan?" Naoto suddenly sounded uncharacteristically surprised, peeling wide eyes away from the older detective to dart them between Kanji and Yousuke. Obviously, she was clueless about what could have happened to the child; the obvious conclusion, given the track record, immediately went to the Midnight Channel and the kidnappings ... the murderer not only knew where their leader's place of residence was, but delivered his own message telling them to stop saving the kidnapping victims. They didn't back down in their efforts, and Naoto wouldn't have put it past them to do something drastic in an already preposterous series of events in order to further get their message across.

Like turning Nanako into a victim in all this, but Naoto was hesitant to voice her thoughts in fear of them becoming true. Instead, she simply stared at Yousuke expectantly; if there were anyone currently in the room who would be able to carefully word what was going on without giving themselves away, it was him. If he could even say.

"A- ah, yes," she continued slowly, collecting herself again. "It was the night of November 2nd before I awoke here." She didn't feel the need to explain in any further detail about the date; they would have known what happened then.

"It sounds ludicrous," Naoto began with her next explanation; so far, none of them had gotten a detailed enough one of anything here. At least she was good with this. "however, yes, it sounds as though the idea of multiple worlds is a fact here aside from the varying times. You'll have a difficult task on your hands should you try to find any two people from the same time and place. Apparently, there's different versions of Earth alone, and on top of it all, countries and planets any of us would have never heard of. It's ... baffling," as much as she didn't want to admit so, but she knew saying it wasn't would be pushing it. "yet a truth we must accept. I've had what Amane-san explained to me as well, a few days ago." Which piqued the young detective's curiosity, actually. At a later, more appropriate date, maybe the older girl wouldn't mind answering a few questions.

"I won't dwell on that for long," Naoto continued, her voice going from thoughtful (and perhaps, if barely noticeable, a hint of puzzlement, as if she hadn't thoroughly understood the idea herself yet) to firm and more serious. She could explain this next topic much better. "Yes, everyone will tell you about these monsters; I regret to say it's all true. Some pose more of a threat than others, but needless to say, all of them are dangerous." She caught Yousuke's look, and she knew what it meant-- but she couldn't say part of the answer out loud. "I've seen one." Naoto then made an unconscious effort to hide any signs of her injury thanks to it-- nevermind it wasn't even that obvious with the t-shirt on-- by crossing her arms. "It was..." How to say it? "Different."

A simple response, but with any luck, Kanji and Yousuke would catch on; that monster was no Shadow.

"We are safe in here, but wander out far enough, and you may find one. That is the reason weapons are in high demand, according to the many requests on the bulletin, and many insist on not traveling alone. I ask the same out of the rest of you, as well."

Yousuke got the hint. No shadow. He supposed that was both a good thing and a bad thing. It would suck knowing that whole matter with the TV still hadn't been resolved, but at the same time they at least knew how to deal with shadows. They were a familiar enemy.

He didn't like being looked to for an explanation. At least he wouldn't be giving anything away to Adachi with this. The bastard would already be fully aware of what had happened to Nanako. All the same, his wording would have to be careful. "Nanako-chan was kidnapped," he began simply. "November 5th. They managed to find her soon after, but she... might have suffered some sort of trauma. They weren't really sure what happened. But she was doing better last I saw her!"

That was a lie. Nanako would get far worse before she got better - her heart stopping completely. The effects that had on them... there was no reason for him to mention that. It was better to let them think she'd be all right.

Naoto's responses to their questions only confirmed what he'd already heard, but it hit harder since Naoto was the one saying it. There were really monsters? And different worlds? Here he'd thought jumping into TVs was crazy. He wasn't going to ask about what could possibly be next. He might jinx himself.

As far as traveling alone was concerned... Adachi was a big boy. He could take care of himself. Yousuke voted to leave him alone the first chance they got. Otherwise... he hoped he didn't end up having to pair off with him often just so that no one else would be left where he could harm them.

Edited 2009-06-03 04:52 (UTC)

Like he figured, Naoto was on top of everything and several steps ahead already. And she'd managed to explain everything pretty good, even though it was a kind of weird thing to talk about in the first place. Different timelines? Different versions of Earth? Different planets all together? Man, this was waaay over his head. Kanji honestly had no idea what the hell to make out of any of that. There was no way to make sense of it.

Which was why he was plenty resolved not to even try making sense of it. He never figured himself to be all that smart in the first place, though it was mostly cause he was just lazy. As far as he could figure, trying to think of hows and whys was just going to be a waste of time. None of that was important. All that mattered was that was what was going on and they were here and had to deal with it. Bottom line. That was all. And that was good enough for him.

Bringing up Nanako was kind of a kick to the stomach. It was only yesterday that she had... died. Actually, died. Thankfully, she'd managed to recover, but it didn't change the trauma of the whole thing. She was still over there, back home, and she wasn't exactly in the clear yet. Yousuke had kind of glazed over the details, for good reason, but now wasn't the time to be focusing on the negative. Kanji nodded his head in agreement. "Yeah. She's looking better now. And she's pretty strong, you know? Nanako-chan'll be able to pull herself through." At least he sure as hell hoped so. "'Sides, if senpai's not here, it means he's back home and taking care of her, right? And everyone else, too. We probably don't gotta worry about anyone back home."

That was what he'd like to think, anyway: Everyone was fine. All he wanted to have to worry about was this stupid place and how they were going to get out. "Anyway, if it's really that bad here, we should probably think about getting weapons and stuff, too. Probably won't be able to get too far if we gotta worry about things crawling all over the place." And with the way Naoto of all people was describing it, these things sounded dangerous.

Adachi just nodded at what was being said about Nanako. Of course she suffered trauma, he wanted to say. She was thrown into a fucking television by someone who thinks it's not a deathtrap. Or, aw, does that mean the kiddies let her get hurt before they managed to get her out? How sad for them. Figures they'd slip up eventually.

To his credit, he did feel just a tiny bit bad to hear Hanamura's account of what had happened to her. Much as he'd prefer it if the brats all died during their heroic escapades, Nanako was different than the other people Namatame'd picked out. She was so young that she wasn't judgmental; not like everyone else in Inaba, at least. Adachi liked that. It was one of the few things left that he saw in the world that hadn't gone to shit. She was too young to understand it, probably.

But even if she'd sort of endeared herself to him, it didn't mean anything (that he would admit) and it didn't change anything. Namatame had made his move that night and upped the stakes, but Adachi had already sent two warnings to his partner's nephew. If Dojima hadn't happened to intercept the second...

Things weren't the same here, though. What Misa said was more interesting to him. People just vanished, huh? Not in the same way as they did when they got stuck in a TV, probably, but still nice. He needed to cover his trail. There may not be any TVs around here, but if Hanamura happened to get killed by one of those monsters, he could always write it off as a disappearance. Where did he sign up?

"You gotta be kidding me," he finally said, then paused. "...You're not kidding me, are you?" Adachi rubbed at the back of his neck. "Geez, talk about a shitty situation. I'm sure as hell not going anywhere alone after hearing something like that," he added, not entirely needing to force a shudder. He'd be stupid to not be worried about getting attacked by one of these monsters, so he'd just need to be careful. So what if the comment was partly pointed at Hanamura, who would know why he said it?

"But even in a situation like this, I can't say I agree with you kids getting weapons. I mean, there's plenty of adults here. We should be able to protect you, right?" The police are on the job, except that it was just one policeman (as far as he knew), who everyone thought was a bumbling idiot, and it wasn't like he would try that hard to protect and/or save them.

Misa had gotten very quiet, just listening and trying to soak everything in. There was definitely a lot more to this place than she'd thought, and it sounded like some bad stuff had happened to everyone else, too. She had to bite her tongue hard in order to not say the first thing that came to mind: 'Don't worry, everyone. I'm sure Kira will take care of whoever it was that kidnapped Nanako-chan. Kira hates people that hurt innocent people! So just trust that it will all be okay.' To be quite honest, if she'd had the faintest inkling about what was going on, and she'd had her Death Note, she would have written the culprit's name herself.

"About the disappearances here? Yeah. That's true, as much as I wish it wasn't. People coming back after that..." She swallowed the lump in her throat, but couldn't entirely keep her voice from quavering as she said, "That's true, too."

Misa paused again for just a minute. "But I think...I think if people can defend themselves against the monsters, or against letting a friend disappear, it's the right thing."

Night 41: F11-20 Hallway

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