damned_institute | Day 42, Afternoon: Morris Park

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Day 42, Afternoon: Morris Park

With the early morning’s embarrassment out of the way, Depth Charge had decided to devote a chunk of the day to familiarising himself with Doyleton: its ins and outs, the stores, the street names. Anything that could prove useful if he ever managed to escape- that, and having something to keep his mind busy after the incident in the used car place. Not only had he looked stupid, he’d looked careless and stupid, and neither of those were looks he really wanted to go for.

Finally he drew his circuit of the town to a close in a run-down park just off of Kelley Street, and boy did it ever look like slag. There was something oddly refreshing about it after the squeaky-clean stroll he’d taken around Perfectville, and anyway, he could hear the sound of a stream in the distance. Good enough for him.

The paper bag he’d been given on the bus was starting to feel irritatingly heavy to him, so it didn’t take long to pick a bench and sit down to eat. Depth Charge opened it up. Ah-hah. There it was. His old adversary. The orange fruit.

What was it Mori had done? Peeled the top part away? With the care of a ‘bot picking the wires on a ticking bomb, he began to strip the outer layer off of the fruit. So far so good. At this rate he might even be able to eat the slagging thing...

[What light through yonder window breaks? Tis the East, and Lugnut is the sun!]

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"I don't mean your eye, girl," Evangeline said; that kind of weak insult wasn't going to throw her off of her game, and the accompanying glare was if anything an encouragement. If she'd just collapsed in on herself this wouldn't be very interesting, now would it?

"I meant that face of yours. Just what are you thinking about, hmm?"

Momo was about to say something about being called girl, but she chose not to. For all she knew, this child before her could be centuries old, like shinigami, or something else. Just because Momo didn't take insult to being treated the age she appeared to didn't mean the same applied to everyone else; Hitsugaya was a prime example of such.

"The past," she replied just as evenly as before. "This place holds meaning to me. What business is it of yours what my thoughts are focused upon?"

"Business?" Evangeline laughed. "You were closer the first time. This is my hobby. I like to hear the stories behind melancholy faces like yours."

They were the only stories worth listening to... or at least, all worthy stories were of that type. What she'd said was far from being strictly true; there were plenty of reasons a person could look depressed that she didn't find the least bit interesting. What she really liked was people who reminded her of herself, in some way or another.

Folding her hands before her, wishing she had the long sleeves of her kimono top to slid them into, Momo considered whether to tell this child anything about herself. The incident seemed so long ago and the people involved, save herself, were gone.

"My story is not very interesting," she replied. "What is your name?"

So now all of a sudden she was asking the questions? Evangeline wasn't a big fan of reciprocation except when it worked in her favor; that was, when she got something in return for something she had her own reasons for doing anyway. It wasn't like she'd never cut a deal, but random people trying to get things out of her rubbed her the wrong way. Still, her name was something she wanted to be known eventually anyway...

"Evangeline," she answered. "But you should know well enough that all that matters is whether I find it interesting."

Evangeline - a Western name. At least the name fit with the girl's appearance.

"I don't believe it is, but you are right; I don't know you, Evangeline-san," the shinigami replied. "I am Hinamori Momo."

She decided not to offer her rank, though if she decided to speak of the past event associated with this location, it would become apparent that she was in a militaristic organization.

"No," Evangeline agreed, "You don't." More like it was the understatement of the decade. No one knew anyone here, unless there were others like the Scarecrow, and for her, with her deceptive form and outsize reputation, the difference in treatment was especially keenly felt.

"So how about it?" she asked, most of its light, mocking quality falling out of her voice. "Care to see what I think?"

There was a hint of implied threat there, that Evangeline might find the girl wanting. Whether it was a genuine warning even though it ran counter to her purposes, or simply some small artifice meant to encourage Momo to speak by giving the illusion of challenge, though, wasn't clear.

"No, I don't care to see what you think, but the events are far enough in the past and you are not someone associated with them, therefore I am willing to speak of the," Momo replied.

She turned more toward Evangeline to center her limited sight upon the girl. "That is, if you don' mind potentially becoming bored very quickly." Momo did not find herself to be a very good storyteller.

Too much dramatic buildup. Like she'd said, there was a fair chance she'd just end up bored, so there wasn't any need for all of this lead-in. The story would stand on its own merits.

"You'll know soon enough if I am," she said. "Let's hear it."

Now, how to start?

"The first time we were brought here for these town excursions, I was tracked down by a superior officer from back in Seireitei," Momo began, feeling oddly detached from the beginning of this uninteresting tale. "Instead of focusing on the fact that we are all trapped here while a war rages back in Seireitei that all shinigami are sorely needed at, he chose to publicly dress me down, berating me for my involvement with my former captain's betrayal, going so far as to call into question whether I was even worthy of my rank."

The vice captain sniffed, a muscle in her jaw twitching for the briefest of moments. "I did not take kindly to that and unwisely chose to let my emotions get the better of me and heatedly argued against his assessment." She paused. "He then struck me across the face."

The rest, she wasn't so detached from. Momo still hadn't fully laid Signum to rest in her mind, hadn't properly grieved for her friend. It was hard to talk about her, but the shinigami closed off the deeper emotions and continued to speak. "A friend of mine that I met here, an old knight, witnessed my superior's behavior and did not approve. Without hesitation, she stepped between us and struck him in the stomach for his actions toward me."

Momo's eyes strayed to the spot in the park where the incident occurred. "The staff interfered then and forced apologies from them both."

Ah, one of the shinigami. With the menagerie their hosts had assembled nothing really came as a surprise, but Evangeline was curious about the militant bent of Momo's kin. Did the armies of death wage their wars against the living, or the dead...?

Or against each other? The existence of hierarchical command and the betrayal she spoke of implied that whatever metaphysical order they might belong to, they were not flawless expressions of its design; death where this girl came from was stripped of the absolute nature most human thought attributed it. An uncertain fate. A... Evangeline laughed her strange, not-quite-childish laugh. "A mere child, beset by all the pains and vicissitudes of meager human existence, as the face of inevitability, the arbiter of the most supreme fate... the world may be an evil place but you can't say it doesn't have its sense of humor."

"So," she continued, tone sobering a little, "Which are you remembering? The dressing-down, or the friend?"

Momo turned her gaze back to Evangeline when the girl laughed. She certainly didn't sound like she looked. No human child would have those words.

"Both," she replied as her eyes narrowed in the slightest. She slowly brought Evangeline's spirit threads into focus. "I would like to say more the latter than the former, but I would be lying."

She raised an eyebrow as she relaxed her eyes, allowing the spirit threads to slip away. Another vampire. Had she not seen Alucard's spirit threads, she would not have been able to identify the hollow-like threads curling around Evangeline. Bringing a knuckle up to stop the small trickle of blood coming from her nose, Momo said, "I am curious, Evangeline-san. Are you normally able to walk under the sunlight or is that an effect of the institute?"

"Then is it his doubt that still bothers you? Or your own?" Evangeline asked. There was still a slight smile, but...

It fell completely when Momo asked her question. The implication of the question was obvious; she knew Evangeline for what she was. But... no, not so fast. She'd obviously been here for a while, enough to know there were vampires around. Just because Evangeline kept running into people who wouldn't take her seriously didn't mean there weren't a clever few who might hear her making some speech, think she mustn't be human, and start fishing for an admission.

Or that so-called Hunter could just be spreading her identity around. Or maybe, as Evangeline had first thought, she could just tell.

"What," she asked, sounding a bit annoyed, "You have some kind of dead people sense or did you just figure it out yourself?"

If Momo was bothered by the loss of smile and the annoyance in Evangeline's voice, it did not show. The girl being a vampire and not human oddly enough made it easier for the vice captain to relax. If somehow she inadvertently caused harm to the vampire, she wouldn't feel as bad about it.

"His doubt means little to me anymore. It is the change in the way I view his words now that forces self-reflection," Momo replied. "And no, I don't have a dead person sense like some others here have, but I can see your soul if I have cause to look." She left the fact that she had cause unvoiced; the vampire most likely would not appreciate rhetoric.

Well, that was certainly an explanation. She usually wasn't all that easy to spot for anything but human, supernaturally speaking; her undead qualities were tied to her magic and went dormant when her magic was fully suppressed, as it had been at Mahora (full moons excepted), and was during the days here. Peering straight into her soul would probably do it, though. It was a funny thing, the soul...

"Then yes," she answered Momo's previous question in a hasty, still annoyed tone, trying to get this detour out of the way. "The light I can't touch is a more figurative kind."

"Then you are unlike the others like you that have been trapped here, as far as I can tell," Momo replied. She then mused, "I wonder if your power is sealed like the one I've spoken to before..."

Momo then blinked, catching herself. "But that is none of my business. My apologies. Please forgive the slip of tongue." Alucard had a very unique case. Surely, he was the only vampire of that type.

"Everyone's is," Evangeline interjected testily, but studied the shinigami closely. If she had some idea of how powerful the others here originally were, it would be good information to have. Being able to separate out the wheat from the chaff before the lid blew off the Institute would be useful, to say the least.

She didn't know if the quick reversal was an honest apology or an attempt to hide something, but she wasn't having any of it.

"Of course, everyone's is," Momo echoed with a small nod, brushing Evangeline's scrutiny off. Not everyone is layered in the same manner as the shinigami or Alucard.

Not having any of it. Why did people have to go and agree with her when she didn't want them to? Everyone was either too spineless or not spineless enough around here. What a pain.

"No, you meant something else, didn't you," she said rather than asked. "Who did you speak to before?"

If Evangeline didn't want people to agree with her when she didn't want them to, perhaps she would be better off presenting herself as someone worth bothering with when such a silent disagreement arose.

"Yes, I did, but you responded in a somewhat defensive manner, Evangeline-san," Momo replied. "I decided that it was best not pursuing a matter that, as I said before, was none of my business and that had also set you on edge, as slight as that may be."

The shinigami paused as she considered whether to answer the vampire's question. "And the one I spoke to called himself Alucard."

"Alucard." Evangeline said with a disbelieving laugh. "Real name of Seppet Dlav by any chance?" Talk about stupid.

But, no... if the Scarecrow of Oz was here, Stoker's Dracula or some name-inverted relative could be too, couldn't he? Especially when she considered how many vampires were supposed to be here.

"So his power was sealed twice?" She asked, contriving to make it sound as obvious as possible. She hated having to ask questions like this, like she was some kind of petitioner. And the idea was a familiar one; back at Mahora, there had been two seals on her power. And even then she hadn't been fully suppressed... it would have been a mark of pride, if it hadn't been a result of her humiliating defeat by Nagi in the first place.

"Yes," Momo replied with a bit of an amused smile. "He was not the Dracula written of in novels, but the one that inspired them."

She paused a moment and cocked her head. "I believe there were more than two seals on his power, as the blood curse that van Hellsing-san placed upon him was quite extensive, but that is conjecture. He never spoke of it." Momo had learned what she had through personal interaction, observation and the conversations, more like heated arguments, with Integra.

"That old and he couldn't even take a little sunlight?" Evangeline asked, openly gloating. It wasn't especially fair considering how things worked around here but it had been no small struggle to overcome her weaknesses in her youth so she was hardly going to feel bad about her superior position.

"So how do you know all this?" she asked, since information was her interest here, beyond simply filling time.

"Oh, no, he could go into the sunlight, under the right conditions, but Hellsing-san never explained what those conditions were. She was rather secretive, though understandable," Momo replied calmly, not reacting to the gloating.

"And my first roommate here was Sir Integral Wingates Hellsing - the current holder of his seal."

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Day 42, Afternoon: Morris Park

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