damned_institute | Day 43: Chapel

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Day 43: Chapel

And just like that, the disorienting feeling of blacking out just to wake up in an unfamiliar bed came again. Alkaid had wondered if it would - everything about last night had been different, all the way from the zombies to the eerie emptiness of the Institute to the strange broadcast at the end of the night. Had the Head Doctor been shot? Damn, someone had gotten to it before her. And who was the voice at the end there? It was like she'd been allowed access to some kind of strange mystery that she could not understand, one that had been going on for a long time before she had arrived and would be going on for quite a while in the future, after she was gone. Had these strange sets of circumstances been bugs in this place's programming? Who could say?

The morning's intercom greeting was strange, as well. Federal training whatsit? It didn't seem like this happened very often, from the sound of it, but so much had happened since the last day she remembered that the former Demon Palace Emperor was ready to take pretty much anything at face value.

The room she woke up in was still empty. Wondering where to stick the half-cracked bat that she'd picked up last night, she shoved it under the mattress hastily when she heard footsteps in the hall.

The stupid nurse was the same as ever, though. Some things never changed. "Ahh, good morning, Eileen. It's so nice to see you awake."

Alkaid rolled her eyes at the nurse's chuckle, and shook her head. She didn't care that the NPC thought it was nice, she just wanted to see the rest of the institute already.. see what had changed! "Yeah, it's fantastic. Whatever! Just take me where I'm going and be done with it!"

It was just then that she realized that she was not wanting to devour the flesh of the nurse in front of her. And that the pain on her arm had kind of abated - she couldn't see through the thick bandages they had covered her arm with, but she wondered if her skin was still rotting off like a zombie. Had they somehow cured her infection overnight? Or was the nurse not human, like Alkaid had always thought?

There was only one thing for it: she had to go somewhere else.

"Chapel, sun room, or cafeteria, then?"

"Does it look like I care?"

The nurse sighed, then started walking Alkaid down the hall, up the stairs, and down another hall to the chapel. No one here yet, huh? That was weird. She couldn't imagine that no one else'd show up, but who could say? This place had been turned on its ass.

The chapel was empty so far, and kind of nondescript. She shooed the nurse away, and stood in the middle of the space between the pews, standing akimbo. What would happen today? What would she learn about herself... her situation? How long had she been sleeping? Was she really still going freaking undead, or had that been somehow taken care of?

All this would come to light really soon. She hoped. Geez, too many mysteries!!

[unwittingly awaiting Haseo]

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Whatever thoughts Taura might have had on Homura's opinion, she didn't voice them. For now he didn't pry; a single visit would likely provide all the motivation she needed to assuage any hesitation she might feel on the subject. He'd not heard of a single visit yet that hadn't somehow deeply affected the patient chosen, in one way or another. Taura would be no exception.

"I'm glad you agree. You'll have to tell me what you think of it since it could very well be your first time seeing magic." It was much simpler since Taura wasn't approaching the idea with the same cynicism Brainiac 5 had shown. Despite his own often off-putting confidence, the boy's arrogance in regards to the lack of the gods' existence had even grated on Homura's nerves. "For now, however, I'd like to get some information from you. The name the nurses call you, and your room number. Since there are new patients arriving, you'll likely have a new roommate by dinner. I'll need her name as well, once you find it out."

"That's right," she answered when he said her name, "I'm here." He seemed to be getting some more control of himself now, at least for the moment. Meche loosened her hold on Albedo's shoulders and let him shift away. Had he been sedated? He was moving really sluggishly, and she didn't think it was just from crying. Why would they sedate him? If he'd been out of control somehow that morning--but then again, the nurses didn't have to have a good reason. Not here.

She watched to see if he was going to start crying again, but instead Albedo got interested in the bandage on his arm. That was fine, until he began peeling it off. Meche reached for his hand to try to stop him. "Albedo, try not to mess with your bandages, okay? It's important to leave them on so you'll heal. If it's too tight, we can ask a nurse to redo it." They might be slinging tranquilizers around like water on a hot day, but otherwise the staff did seem to know what they were doing.

Keman ducked his head, embarrassed. Yeah, she didn't want to talk about it. He shouldn't have even brought it up.

"Why would you buy things the day after a holiday?" he asked, almost apologetically. "Where I come from, most of the people are too busy nursing the after-effects of too much merriment to even think about going to the market." Not that they would anyway, he finished silently. They'd send their slaves to do it for them. But he didn't want to mention that bit. He was trying to cheer this woman up, at least a little, and starting off with 'hi, I'm from a place where your species have been enslaved by elves for centuries' probably wasn't a good idea. At all. "And what's a credit card, if you don't mind me asking?"

The boy gave her a crooked grin and shook her hand. "Nice to meet you, Daphne."

Almost imperceptibly, Kaworu roused when Otacon confirmed his knowledge. He sat with a little more purpose, and looked at Otacon rather than through him. But then Kaworu shook his head, and his expression was once again reflecting the persistent hush that Otacon had been noticing.

"I don't know where he is, or what it is that happened to him after I asked him to kill me," he explained unflinchingly. "I think I am destined to be separated from him now. It is the price of the decision I made for his survival." Kaworu looked the palms of his hands. Was he truly dead? Pretending it was so left him feeling more free than he ever had. He had no goals. No desires.

Ha! Amazing. The contrast between talking to Wright and talking to Edgeworth was astonishing. He was almost sure the prosecutor wouldn't have simply sat there and taken his word for it. He had to wonder just how long that one worry had been playing on the other man's conscience for him to be placated by a simple answer like that.

Regardless, Klavier let out a very honest laugh at the playful jeer, letting a huge smirk smear across his face. "I suppose that's true. I'll try to keep that in mind before we start signing up for clubs together."

"Town...? No, I was stuck in this semi-hell," Alkaid said, looking disdainfully at the Westernized chapel around her. "Showing a couple of noobs the ropes of this place. It was so quiet and dark, it was kinda eerie. Nothin' like normal. Oh, and the zombies were there for some reason, just to mix it up a little. Haha."

It had made her worry, in a way. Not that the great Alkaid worried about anything, but only hearing two other alive people besides her immediate group had shaken her normally-solid foundation.

But any more talking about the zombies and he might start asking about her obvious injury, so she'd talk about Shino some more.

So she wasn't his girlfriend, huh? So even the plebeians had some hope with this guy! That was a good thing. Even so, she felt the serious need to comfort Haseo, 'cause talking about it obviously made him nervous, what with the clearing his throat and the tone of his voice and everything. "Well, even if she isn't, you caaare about her, don't you?" She poked at his shoulder, hoping to urge an answer from him. "You wouldn't have whaaat? This is total news to me, so you gotta tell me all about this Shino person."

The right foot? You mean the one that was eagerly chewed upon by zombies the night before? No. Even Aya wouldn't advise starting on that foot with such considered. This was a conversation that needed to happen and it was going to. Timing came in secondary, if Aya even considered it at all. The sooner they got past this nonsense the sooner they could start trying to function like a team again. If it was even possible, still.

Aya listened carefully and kept his face schooled other than a slight narrowing to his eyes. Hallucinations...

Their work wasn't something that someone could stay in and hope to stay whole. Not unless they had something to anchor them and even then, that was iffy. He'd...seen it happen. And Yohji had already shown something of the sort with that woman from Schreient.

"What happened to you?" Maybe to an outsider it would have sounded flippant, voicing a question like that in such a manner but Aya was anything but the sort. He was watching Ken. Ken who had always had his emotions on his sleeve, his emotions etched in honest lines. How much had that changed?

It really wasn't a church; they didn't even have a staff pastor much less mass or any other bits that made up religion. This was just a decorated room. And it definitely didn't have any proper relics or artifacts or other items of power. Still, if enough people, even - especially? - desperate, trapped people, gathered their faith in one spot, perhaps a miracle could really occur.

"No, no, it's not a bad thought at all," Yukari said with a gentle smile. "Hope is a very powerful thing. You may not always notice it, but when a people have none, it's absence is sharply felt." A lot of meaningless rituals served the sole purpose of creating hope where there otherwise was none.

"And it certainly much quieter than the Cafeteria, or even the Sun Room," she agreed. "So, were you praying anything in particular, or just a standard 'give me the strength to survive this madhouse' plea?"

"I came very close to losing it completely," Ken said frankly, watching Aya in turn. "For the longest time, I thought being in Weiss, what we did, was nothing more than a necessary evil. I hated it. I was afraid, fucking terrified, every time we went out on a mission. I knew what we were doing wasn't right, neither were the people we were going after--but I never thought that justified what we did, not completely."

How else could he explain a descent that he didn't completely understand himself? It had taken him years to fall to the point he had finally hit--and just when he thought he'd gotten himself back, somewhat, to the way he had been--he'd found himself in this God forsaken place and the descent had started again, in its own way.

"That changed. I changed. I began to enjoy the missions, I wanted to kill, tear, rip--it made me feel alive. Everything else couldn't even begin to compare. When Weiss disbanded and we all went our separate ways, I went out looking for fights, with drunks, street brawlers, yakuza thugs--I didn't give a shit. I barely ate, slept less, and sometimes I tried to keep track of Yohji. Somehow I knew he was as bad off as I was. You stayed with Kritiker. Omi became Persia. And finally he decided he needed us back, probably where he could keep an eye on us." Ken snorted. "When he sent you to find us, I agreed to return to Weiss without even a second thought."

This was exhausting. Really it was. But he wasn't done yet.

"Yohji took a bit more convincing, but he returned as well. He'd been seeing visions of Asuka for the last few months, I think, and the drugs and drink probably only made it worse. The two of us were completely fucked up, and to balance it out, we were assigned two new kids, straight out of training. Kyo and I had already been...acquainted. Sena was never meant for it, but he had a relationship to our next target. Mamoru decided that the kid could be used to draw her out. It ended bad all around."

There it was again, that confidence he'd felt from her earlier. Teresa genuinely didn't seem even a little phased at the prospect of running into her own nocturnal demons. Was she another one of those types who enjoyed a challenge, or was she really as strong as she seemed to be making herself out to be? Kibitoshin would have been willing to believe either.

Nonetheless, he persisted. "Maybe not normally, but while you're here you have your powers weakened. You wouldn't be a match for one of them, not alone." Wait a second. Did that come out wrong? He flushed, as if suddenly hearing himself for the first time. "N-not that I'm saying you're weak! Not at all! I bet you're really powerful! But... but... well, you just need to be careful."

He must have still been around the Sun Room while she'd been processing the news about Armand. Good -- any decent commander kept track of his troops, on duty or off.

"I don't believe in magic -- but I didn't believe in zombies, or brain transplants with no symptoms and no scars. Or stranded gods, time travel, aliens. What's magic to all of that. Besides, my creators never though five-space math was a requirement for a soldier, but wormhole jumpships still jump with me onboard." Her grin was wry, but honest. "If it can avoid some of the poking and prodding, I'll convert. I get so tired of medical tests." He wouldn't know why, though, so she continued in a low rumble. "I was an experiment -- designed as a soldier from the claws up." Her fingernails were pink-painted and anything but claws, but she waved them all the same. "So they ran a lot of tests -- to see how we turned out." And then to extend her lifespan, which made the endless rounds of enthusiastic specialists more personally useful but no less irritating.

"I'm in F-8, and they call me Katherine Jackson. Or, er, Kitty." She wrinkled her nose at the nickname.

[sorry for the delay! I was gone all day today. DX Would you like to backthread any or just leave it as is?]

Weird voice...? Ritsuka vaguely recalled not hearing the Doctor's voice over the intercom that morning, but he didn't remember any weird voice. He'd slept in though, so maybe that would explain it. But something definitely had happened and it seemed like he'd missed out. "Changed? Changed how?"

He hated not knowing and asking Anise would be faster than checking through the myriad of notes plastered helter-skelter over the bulletin. At the very least he'd have an idea of what to look for. Some days he just didn't feel like sifting through the seemingly millions of notes on there, looking for the one that might pertain to him. He liked reading, but even he had limits. "I heard people talking about something happening here last night, but I didn't hear what. Do you know?"

A familiar scent - missing it's pair. Mori shifted his weight slightly back when he caught wind of his friend, but didn't look back over his shoulder to confirm. Soon enough he would come over, Mori was certain of it. It was a relief to see Hikaru alive and well because if he was okay, that meant Kaoru survived the night, too. Mori was curious as to where the boys had gone, but considering he, Tsubaki and Mitsukuni hadn't been able to get much beyond the toy store, he was glad the twins hadn't been in town. There was no way he could have gotten to them in time to protect them from the horrors that had been sprung upon them.

Thankfully, he seemed alright, since he wasn't speeding up to them with any urgency.

Mitsukuni introduced him and Mori bowed, keeping his position at the end of the pew even as Hikaru came over and plopped down. He seemed to be in high spirits despite the night. Tilting his head back, Mori imagined Kyouya - all stern and businesslike - asking Sen for cheeseburger vouchers in payment for early morning hosting. Somehow...he didn't think Kyouya would do that. There was no profit margin in commoner hamburgers. Looking down at his friends just as Mitsukuni asked his question, Mori shook his head and let the conversation flow along. Sen seemed confused about Hosting, but he was sure one of the other boys could explain it.

"I agree, it does merit further investigation," Edgeworth said, underlining a few words of his notes. "To be honest, the unconsciousness is more believable to me than any actual procedures being done. It matches with my own brief experience in the infirmary a few weeks ago. I suspect I was under heavy sedation the entire time, as I remember very little."

He nodded in agreement with that second statement; there was really nothing to say to that.

"That's fair," he said, nodding. Anything else he would have said was cut off by the jarring noise from the intercom. "That voice is definitely from a machine," Edgeworth said, jotting down the message. "I'll look into it further - and speak to Franziska later - and get back to you. Merci beaucoup, M. Javert."

He needed time to think and with these free shifts, he would have time to do so. His nurse seemed concerned about the lack of food, but Kio had told her he was fine. He had made his decision. He wanted Soubi to rely on him for once, to do something with him. His hands balled into fists, but he calmly asked for the Chapel. It would be quiet, it would be enough.

The long rows of pews daunted Kio. He'd never been in a church before, but some found solace here. He scanned the room, trying to find someone to talk to. Her blonde hair stood out immediately and a smile blossomed on his face. At least someone he knew who hadn't vanished. He wanted so badly to go and hug her, but he didn't. There was something holding him back, though he did approach her slowly. "Ophelia-kun?" Kio gave her a small smile. Maybe she was busy.

[I'm cool with wrapping things up a bit!]

"You don't know?" Anise looked surprised for a moment, then realized what a mess the bulletin was. It was probably hard to find the important messages among the sea of check-up posts. Anise tried to read everything on the board, but she supposed some people might skim past the good stuff by accident.

"There was a weird conversation on the intercom last night. Somebody posted a transcript of it on the board somewhere. It sounded like somebody confronted the Head Doctor... and maybe hurt him, too," she explained in a whisper. If it was true, then that was good news, probably. That bastard deserved whatever he got. "People are saying it was that radio man who did it. You know, the one who died?" She studied the kid's expression, wondering if he really did know. How long had he been at the institute, anyway? If he was a new patient, that bit would probably just fly over his head.

Anise sighed, crossing her arms as she thought hard about the events. "And then the Head Doctor didn't show up for morning announcements today... And the Head Nurse didn't do them, either. It's weird, right?"

The smile almost turned into a sneer as she turned more toward Kibitoshin. How... amusing that he believed her to be unfit. Perhaps he was the weak one. Then again, he was only human.

"I am accustomed to fighting without utilizing my youki." An understatement if there ever was one. Teresa had only ever felt the need to release her youki once a year, if only to remind herself that she hadn't forgotten how to do so. "I am no whelp that rushes foolhardy into battles. They did not make me Number One for my looks."

Kibitoshin couldn't help but give a hurt look at her response. There was just no pleasing some people!

"I didn't say you were," he answered ruefully, "I just said that you might be at a disadvantage." Nevertheless, all the rue in the world couldn't have stopped him from dropping his gaze into his lap as quickly as possible. Maybe he was overreacting. Just because he hadn't been able to handle one little terrifying doll-monster that didn't mean she couldn't. He wasn't exactly the greatest of-

N-no! Stop right there! It was that kind of thinking that let Franziska walk all over him, and he'd promised her he'd try harder! In the end, though, he just shrugged. "Better safe than sorry. It's really dangerous out there."

Ah, just the one she had been hoping for. Ophelia gave him one of her familiar false smiles. "Good morning, Kio. It's good to see you made it through the night," she said, inviting him to sit with her. She was tempted to look back and see if the unfamiliar warrior was watching her or not. "No nasty bites from the walking dead, I would hope?"

So the zombies had been here in the building too? Haseo couldn't even begin to consider all the uneasy possibilities brought forward by that revelation... and he kind of hoped Alkaid's comfort with the idea was a front of some sort, though it wasn't like he was about to go challenging her over it. Especially since the drugs made it so tempting to just resign himself to putting up his own practiced facade of indifference and try not to think about what he'd been forced to do in order to just make it through the night... and what might occur if it happened again the next time the lights went out.

Rrgh, but then Alkaid grabbed hold of the Shino topic and dragged it right back into the open, and more than ever Haseo wished that for once she could just leave something alone. He would have preferred not having to relive those scenes in his mind at the moment- he'd done it enough without one of the victims continuing to press it and insist on more information about the other. Then again, he'd already made the error of letting it go with Atoli, and that had... not turned out particularly well.

"About six or seven months ago she was the assistant guild master of the Twilight Brigade... it's not really a secret or anything," he muttered. Surely even if she didn't read the boards, she'd have seen the Arena match where Ovan was blabbing about being in the same guild... even if talk about Shino had since faded....

"Oh... that Shino, huh. I get it." Actually, Alkaid didn't pay too terribly much attention to other guilds, choosing instead to train herself and become a strong Twin Blade fighter. Being in Icolo hadn't exactly broadened her view of The World, instead narrowing it so that her life had revolved around being the Demon Palace Emperor. And when she had lost that to Endrance, it had almost been as if her purpose in The World had dwindled, and she had done whatever she could to get her position back, and even that had been for naught....

No, suffice it to say that she didn't pay much attention to other guilds at all. But even she had heard of the Twilight Brigade, and a small spark of recognition made her nod. Still, what were the other names associated with the guild? Ovan? ...oh, Haseo was one of her former guild members! Ahhhh, that made sense. She worried about people like Sirius, too. Though it looked like he wasn't caught up in this business, thank goodness.

The nurses were starting to haul people out of the chapel one by one now, so she knew she didn't have much time to continue their conversation. Still, she enjoyed Haseo's company, even when he was kind of being overly reticent about everything for what seemed to be no reason at all, and when he wasn't nearly as happy to see her as she'd have liked, in a perfect world... So she'd stay put until the nurses came to get them. That was the least she could do, probably.

She bit her lip for a moment, then spoke, controlling the slight bitterness in her voice. "Well, if I find anything about her, I'll let you know. It was.. really nice seeing you again, Haseo. Sorry."

Ah, yes, zombies. Kio wondered just how many patients had been hit by the wave and according to Ophelia, bitten. He looked away, slightly embarrassed. "I, uh, I got a sunstroke. My nurse says I was taken back here. I don't really know what happened. I hope you fared better than me."

He sat down next to her, glancing towards the altar. He would find peace in friendship. Not religion.

Oh? So some patients had been in the institute during the night, then? That was very useful information to know. Ophelia didn't know exactly how it would fit in with what she already knew about the night before and the morning announcement, but it sounded important to know, at least. "It really was a nightmare. I was able to keep my wits about me thanks to my training, but really, it was even worse than a usual night here. The things were everywhere!" said Ophelia, putting on a distressed look with ease. "You don't know if anything strange happened here, do you? That is, moreso than usual?" she asked, hoping that the airheaded blonde could provide her with more useful tidbits of information.

"I am aware of that," Teresa replied. Her educed speed in regards to the bats the previous night had told her that much. Still, she was certain she was far more capable than a mere human.

She then gave a bit of a chuckle. "It's dangerous everywhere, Kibitoshin. Is it not where you are from?"

So maybe she was that strong. Kibitoshin hoped so; even if she had been a little rude, that didn't mean she deserved to get hurt. The chuckle caught him off guard, throwing him out of sorts for the question. Come to think of it, she had a point. Even Kaioshinkai, the one place he thought would be safe- it was in another dimension, for heaven's sake!- had been attacked not once but twice.

"I guess not," he admitted, "though I'm just used to being able to defend myself properly." And used to being defended full stop. It was all he could do to stop himself turning scarlet from the embarrassment of it all.

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Day 43: Chapel

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