damned_institute | Day 44: breakfast

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Day 44: breakfast

Yuffie had died.

No, really. Seriously. She had actually died. Bleeding all over the place, making a horrid, sticky mess and scaring the hell out of Suzaku; she remembered it clearly. Kind of. Sort of. Through the blood loss, the pain, and the visions. Through Aerith's voice whispering in her ear, Cloud's stricken eyes, and her own panic. As bad nights went, it had been Bad, capital B and all the trimmings, and oh, god. She sat, trembling on the edge of her bed, eyes closed and hands pressed hard over her racing heart. The by-play between Landel—Landel!—and Lydia barely even sunk in. There was nothing in the whole world, any world, that could prepare you for something like…

Had it all been some kind of hallucination?

Had she imagined the whole thing?

No… She didn't think so. Nightmarish or not, Yuffie knew reality. But if it had been real, how was she alive now? That kind of pain wasn't something you could just cook up, was it? She thought about it all the way to the cafeteria, drifting behind her nurse without focus or intent. Maybe if she tried to stay clinical, tried to step back… But she'd never been good at that when things got personal. And every time she closed her eyes or blinked, she swore that the scenes played back to her, like an overused commercial on a crappy channel on a crappy TV, in a run-down dump of an inn that smelled like mothballs and yesterday's breakfast.

The scent of blood and damp, rotted wood clogged her nose. Disgusted, Yuffie shoved her bowl of cereal—handed to her by a clucking Plucky—off to the side so that she could melt into her chair, palm heels scrubbing against her eyes. Too much. This was… Too much. She couldn't even paste a plastic smile on her face to make herself feel better. Her usual shield, the white noise of inane babble that could filter out almost any crisis, was in tatters all around her. Five minutes, she gave herself.

Five minutes (not) to think, five minutes to get her act together, because there was no way she could let herself shatter here. No way…

[Closed to Sheena]

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Artemis sat in front of his french toast and fruit, notebook open, pondering what new information he'd received last night via the intercom. He had to admit, glumly, it wasn't much. Perhaps it would make more sense once more people had replied to various reports on the bulletin, but for now Artemis was both disappointed he hadn't been in the hallways to witness what was happening... and very glad indeed.

Between the explosions, the hallucinations, and the screaming over the intercom, Artemis had spent most of his night both taking notes and huddling close to Haku. The night where the walls had begun to pour blood had been enough to tell him that the patient rooms were not safe anymore. He wasn't sure if this hypothesis still held true or not, but it was one he didn't particularly want to test.

But this morning, the head doctor was back, or so it seemed. And tired or injured. By this IRIS system? Artemis' suspicion of the AI was growing, and he was not pleased by this fact. If IRIS was an enemy of the head doctor, it certainly wasn't a friend to the patients either, or so it sounded. If anything, Artemis was now convinced that this... battle between forces had caught the prisoners of the institute in the middle. Most likely, it had never been about them--only about the two sides, and neither seemed innocent anymore.

Not that Artemis had ever believed in dichotomies.

[Surprisingly free! Get him while you can, no limit! ♥]

For all of his worries, the night had passed...well, relatively uneventfully. All the talk from the History Club had left Hanatarou convinced that something dangerous was going to happen, but all they'd done was meet up in a hallway and then take a detour that apparently took a lot longer than he'd expected, since the night had ended before they got anywhere.

It didn't make him feel all that much better, though, since if they hadn't done whatever was intended to happen (he was fairly certain wandering the hallways wasn't the goal) Homura was probably going to want them to try it again. Which meant he'd have to make his excuses to Hitsugaya again, unless he somehow managed to avoid the captain for the entire day. Well, unless they decided he really wouldn't be helpful on the errand after all, which wouldn't surprise him in the slightest.

His thoughts distracted him enough that he barely paid attention to his nurse guiding him to breakfast, and allowed her to put some food on his tray and lead him over to a table without really paying attention. He dropped heavily into the seat, staring distractedly at his breakfast before realizing there was someone else there as well. Not only that, but it was someone he actually knew.

Hanatarou blinked up at Artemis, then glanced around uncertainly. "Er. S-sorry, Fowl-san. I...can move, if you didn't want company?"

Artemis looked up when he was fairly certain that someone was about to be sat in front of him, and was slightly amused to find it was Hanatarou. Perhaps the nurse had observed them speaking before, and in Artemis' professional opinion, Hanatarou probably needed a little push when it came to social interaction. He smiled to himself, wondering with private amusement when Hanatarou would realize he was sitting across from a prior acquaintance, and continued making notes in his journal.

"Not at all, Hanatarou," Artemis said once the healer finally spoke. The boy closed his journal and put away his pen. "I was simply going over the intercom incidents of last night, since I seem to have a spare moment free of appointments."

He smiled reassuringly and took a sip of his juice, hopefully conveying his intent to actually eat instead of work. "How have you been? It's good to see you in one piece, especially after the events of two nights ago."

Two nights ago. Right. The zombie...things. Hanatarou poked at the syrup-soaked bread on his plate with his fork, trying to decide if he was hungry or not. He hadn't eaten much the day before (or...well, for a while now) but at the same time he felt kind of like his stomach was tied in knots lately. The reminder of that night didn't help much, either.

At least Artemis didn't seem to mind him being there, but then, he'd been that way since the first night they'd been assigned together. Maybe he was just a really polite person. "Oh. Yes. Um." Hanatarou cleared his throat quietly and examined his glass of juice for a moment before taking a cautious sip. "You're...feeling better, too? It's been a couple days since...er. I last talked to you." Although maybe he shouldn't have brought that up.

"Yes, I am," Artemis said brightly, smiling at Hanatarou again. "I am quite satisfied with my prognosis, actually. I've met someone who I believe can help me understand what I'm going through right now and possibly even relieve some of the pressure. I have nothing to complain about."

The boy watched Hanatarou pick at his food, frowning a little. "You seem a little nervous," he observed--though perhaps 'a little' was a bit of an understatement. "Do you typically eat this little?"

Hanatarou certainly was a little twitchy, and from his experiences working with him and Hitsugaya, it seemed as though this was the norm. But there was 'being a little twitchy' and there was 'having an anxiety disorder brought on by running for one's life every night, manifesting as an eating disorder'. But perhaps he was getting a little ahead of himself.

"I must say, breakfast isn't as terrible as it usually is," Artemis said encouragingly. "Perhaps they've hired a new chef."

Hanatarou nodded a little, looking slightly cheered by Artemis' enthusiasm. He wasn't quite sure just what the young man had planned, but as long as it would help him, that was good. It wasn't as though there was much he could do, as had been proven well enough the other night, so as long as someone was able to...

He gave a guilty-looking little start at the comment on his eating habits and took a larger swallow of his juice as though to prove he could eat something. He knew that he should be, especially with the amount of healing he'd been doing lately - after all, he'd be even more useless than usual if he ended up passing out from hunger or something. (And hadn't Sora been giving him a look the night before like he'd wanted to comment on his uneaten dinner? He hadn't said anything, but...)

"I just...um. Haven't been hungry lately...?" he offered, with a somewhat weak smile. Artemis certainly wouldn't want to hear all about what had been going on lately, with the hair ghost and the people who kept sitting with him at mealtimes and all that. He did pick up his fork again, though, as he attempted to change the subject away from himself. "The intercom, last night, do y-you know...um, what was going on?"

"No, not yet," Artemis said, straying away from the subject of Hanatarou's eating habits. It was possible it was making him even more nervous and unable to eat.

"However, I've come up with a few theories. Most of which... are not the most encouraging things I've ever thought up, I'll warn you. Well, depending on your point of view, I suppose."

Some patients weren't counting on outside help or distraction. Artemis had, at the very least, appreciated the distraction Alec Doyle posed to Martin Landel. But while something else was occupying Landel now, that thing was also making life miserable and in some cases, unlivable for the patients as well. Was it all IRIS? Was it Landel losing control? Or was it Alec Doyle back from the dead and done playing around? Each option posed seemed worse than the one before it.

"For all we know IRIS could be gone, though," Artemis said. "It sounds as though Landel has returned. Whether this is good or bad, though, remains to be seen."

"Does it matter who's in charge, though?" Hanatarou blinked a little, looking mildly confused but still curious. And while he was thus distracted, he absently scooped up a bite of the eggs on his plate and put them in his mouth without thinking about it. "I mean, no matter who's talking, we're still here...right?"

Although Artemis clearly knew more about things than he did, so maybe it did matter. He'd been here longer, and seemed pretty smart as well, so it could be that he was just making himself look foolish by asking that question. Just in case, he ducked his head a little, staring down at his plate as he began cutting up the bread with the syrup into little pieces.

"It matters to the overall mystery of the thing," Artemis explained. "You would approach a cat in a different way than you would approach a horse, wouldn't you?

"Also," he continued, eating as well. "Should we happen to kill the head doctor, we now know of a failsafe that has been put into the system: IRIS. Whether or not IRIS would continue the operation of the institute after the good doctor's death remains to be seen, but the odds are good. Which means that the second-in-command must be dealt with as well. If she is, in fact, the second-in-command and not simply a virus that was inserted into the system by the late Alec Doyle or yet another adversary we have yet to see," he said, arranging pieces of french toast on his plate to represent each of the entities he spoke of. He poked the unnamed one thoughtfully.

"You see Hanatarou, by keeping track of the pieces on the board, the players on the field, it's virtually impossible to be blindsided."

Someone who could kidnap people from various places and not only keep them trapped, but limit their powers to keep from fighting back, was probably far more dangerous than a cat or a horse, and for a second Hanatarou paused and frowned slightly as he tried to reconcile the mental image conjured up by the analogy. He finally shook his head a little and took a bite of one of the pieces he'd cut.

That was when he realized he must have been hungry after all, since as Artemis was speaking he'd somehow managed to down half the bread without even thinking about it. Maybe it was a good thing he'd decided to sit there, since it kept him from thinking about other things.

"It sounded like he did die the other night, though, and then the...that IRIS took over," he pointed out, with a thoughtful frown. "So why is he back now? It didn't sound like he was feeling well this morning, either. And he had the...the nurse, Lydia...? She wasn't there yesterday, either." Keeping track of all these pieces must involve a massive headache, since he thought he was starting to get one.

Artemis nodded, finishing off his toast and beginning on his fruit. "Yes, I heard that report, and I do believe it. It's what led me to believe that IRIS, the failsafe system, was Landel's creation--a thing to carry on for him while he was away. And yet..."

The boy frowned, furrowing his eyebrows in deep thought. "You forgot one thing, Martin. You forgot that I never give up. That made me question if IRIS was really the failsafe Landel thought it was, or if it was a program with a subroutine installed that Landel didn't know about. Something installed by Alec Doyle, or someone else. Whatever it was, it wasn't doing us any favors last night."

Artemis stared deeply into his juice glass, nearly completely lost in his thought processes and theories. "He sounded injured today, yes. Which makes me wonder if someone killed him... and then he brought himself back to life. Somehow. But it took time, so IRIS was activated--subroutine unknown to Landel."

"...brought himself back to life?" Hanatarou echoed, eyes widening a little as he gave a light shudder. He didn't like that idea at all, even if he'd read stuff on the bulletin board before about people who'd said they'd died before coming here. It was just...wrong. That kind of thing only messed up the balance between the worlds, though all things considered - Landel didn't seem like the kind of person who cared about that.

He finally shook his head a little, picking up his glass of juice to cradle it in both hands. "I can tell you know a lot more about this than I do, Fowl-san, but it still seems like we're missing a lot of information." A lot of this seemed to be based on guesses and suppositions, but it wasn't as though he was one of the smarter shinigami or anything, so he could just not know some things. "I mean, um. I don't even know why we're here, or why the two people are fighting over this."

"Neither do I," Artemis admitted with a smile. "We do need more information--and that seems not to be coming forthwith very quickly. However, one day perhaps we'll find the answer."

Hanatarou was right--right now all Artemis could do was speculate and make theories. Nothing was concrete, nothing was for certain. Not until the next clue. Or the one that would break the case wide-open. Doubtful that would come anytime soon, though.

"You know, Hanatarou," Artemis said, smiling as he speared his fruit. "I'm glad I can discuss this with you. Most of the more intellectual types are more concerned with punching holes in my theories, rather than listening. You're a very good sounding board--very good at listening to people."

"Huh?" Hanatarou blinked a couple of times, startled, then glanced around as though expecting maybe someone was sitting next to him and he didn't notice. After all, it wasn't as though Artemis could be really telling him that, right?"

He finally set his now-empty glass down and shook his head. "Um, I don't have anything useful to say, b-but, er. If that helps...?" He certainly knew very little about the voices on the intercom or the deeper meanings behind them - he was just a healer, after all.

And where did all of his breakfast go, anyway? Somehow his plate was mostly empty by now...he couldn't have eaten that himself, could he?

"Behind every genius are the people who will listen," Artemis said, pointing a finger knowingly at Hanatarou. "Everyone who has an idea needs someone to listen to it."

Normally, that was Haku. But Artemis didn't want to bother Haku with his theories or thoughts. Not when Haku was recovering from severe injuries that, while they weren't his fault directly, he still felt responsible for. And it would be another few days before Haku could even stand, let alone--

Wait.

"Hanatarou?" Artemis leaned forward. "Could I ask a favor of you?"

It didn't really make that much sense to him, but Artemis seemed to believe it. Hanatarou just nodded a little, deciding it was best not to argue, and managed a small smile. Even if he was just saying it to be nice, at least Artemis was being nice.

He picked up his fork again and started poking at the remains of his breakfast, trying to decide if he was still hungry or not, but paused at the question. "Um...yes?" he replied, glancing up with a mildly startled expression. "I m-mean, er, if it's...something I can do..."

"It's definitely something you can do, Hanatarou--and quite well, according to my own first-hand experience.

"You see, when the attack by the undead happened in Doyleton, my bodyguard and my friend was severely injured while protecting me. He was resting all of yesterday, and I suspect he'll be resting for a few days more unless he gets special attention.

"I suspect you know what I'm asking of you," he finished, folding his hands on the table. "If you had the time, I mean. If you have a previous assignment, I wouldn't want to take you away from it, but I'm limited in my movement until Haku is able to walk again."

Which was a nice, professional way to put it, but in Artemis' mind the sooner Haku had color in his cheeks again and was standing up, the sooner Artemis could breathe freely again. No doubt he'd be scolded for worrying so much, but he was scolded enough by Haku--and never harshly enough to discourage him from worrying.

"Oh - you need a healer?" Hanatarou perked up visibly at that, his smile still small even if it was definitely genuine. Artemis was probably somewhat desperate for someone to help his friend, to be asking him, but...it was actually something that he could do, albeit in a limited fashion.

"I, um, don't have any assignments for tonight yet..." And if he kept avoiding the bulletin board and the other shinigami, he hopefully wouldn't have anything to interfere with what he needed to do. "But I'd be happy to help no matter what. As much as I can, at least," he added, lest Artemis get his hopes up too far.

Artemis' expression relaxed, clearly happy to have found someone to help Haku's condition. And the sooner Haku had been helped, the sooner Artemis would feel better.

"Thank you, Hanatarou. This means a lot to me. Whatever you can do, I would appreciate.

"You remember which room I'm in? M47?" Artemis said, reminding Hanatarou in case he didn't remember--which Artemis wouldn't blame him for. So many assignments, so many meeting places...

"I won't be going anywhere, so you can take your time as well."

Hanatarou nodded a little, grateful for the reminder even if he wouldn't say anything about it. "I'll be there as soon as I can after the doors unlock," he promised, looking more cheerful now as he finished off the last of his breakfast. "It's not that far from me."

It was nice when he could do things to help people, especially when it was someone who'd been as nice to him as Artemis had. Although if "Haku" was the person he remembered, he still kind of wondered - it wasn't as though they'd assign a girl to room with a boy (he didn't think so, at least) but still...

Oh, well. It wasn't important.

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Day 44: breakfast

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