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damned_institute2009-10-07 10:04 am
chainsaw-royal.livejournal.com) wrote in damned_institute2009-10-07 10:04 am
Nightshift 44: F-A Block Hallway
[From here]
Hime peered out into the hallway. It was mostly empty; it seemed she was one of the first to come out of their cells. While this presented the problem of wandering alone without the cover of the herd, this also gave her a chance to scout out the population as they left their rooms. While Hime had confidence in her fighting abilities, she had no delusions about taking on whatever horrors lurked here by herself. Besides, she needed to find people who could fight; the basement did not sound like the kind of place one explored on their own, or even with just one other.
Recalling that all the patient rooms filtered out into the main hallway, Hime headed that way.
[To here]
Hime peered out into the hallway. It was mostly empty; it seemed she was one of the first to come out of their cells. While this presented the problem of wandering alone without the cover of the herd, this also gave her a chance to scout out the population as they left their rooms. While Hime had confidence in her fighting abilities, she had no delusions about taking on whatever horrors lurked here by herself. Besides, she needed to find people who could fight; the basement did not sound like the kind of place one explored on their own, or even with just one other.
Recalling that all the patient rooms filtered out into the main hallway, Hime headed that way.
[To here]
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It was dark. More importantly, Yuyuko couldn't see. Was this how it had been when she had still been alive...? She couldn't remember, but she supposed it must have. Having a real body- or rather, this imitation thereof- was actually pretty inconvenient...
The ghost felt her way along the wall. She wasn't sure exactly what she was looking for, but her dinner had to have come from somewhere.
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Luckily for Yuyuko, help was on the way whether either party knew it or not. It was just as the ghost was feeling her way along that Yukari came out of the F1-10 hall, flashlight leading the way. The youkai was similarly accustomed to night-vision but had been here long enough to learn to do without. Also an unaccustomed habit she'd picked up was actually looking both ways when entering the halls; she was never quite sure what might be lurking in the dark and mistakes were much more... permanent here. Flashing around her flashlight like that, she thought she caught sight of a familiar head of hair and upon further inspection it seemed to be more than just some random pink-haired woman wandering the halls.
"...Yuyuko?" called Yukari, approaching the figure. What was she doing wandering around in the dark? The youkai was slightly wary, as she had heard tell of creatures that took on the appearances of others here though.
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Even if she couldn't claim not to be surprised, though, she could still act that way.
"Yukari~" the ghost called excitedly as she whirled and launched herself headlong at the youkai. Unfortunately, she hadn't heard those stories about shapeshifters.
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Well, it certainly seemed like Yuyuko, but there wouldn't be much point in mimicry if she didn't. On the other hand, the doppelgangers were supposed to lure one to somewhere private before attacking, so Yukari was relatively safe in this hallway for now. She'd just have to keep it in mind that if they ever got far away from the rest of the population, Yuyuko might jump and bite her because she was some horrible monster in disguise. Or because they just hadn't fed her enough.
"Did you just wake up with the night?" asked the youkai. If so, she missed dinner and Yuyuko would surely appreciate doing something about that. She probably would anyway.
[[And posts like that last one are why I really shouldn't be tagging after midnight -_-]]
"It's been..." Yuyuko, as was her wont, quickly became very, very lost in thought. "...there was lunch, and dinner."
Hadn't the lunch been late? She didn't really know what the meals were usually like around here, though...
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"It's awfully dark out, don't you think? There's no moon within these shadowy halls to light our path," she pointed out, as if that was the only problem with wandering around in the dead of night here.
Since lunch? It was surprising that Yukari hadn't seen her. Well, she hadn't exactly been on the lookout for the ghost, but to not have spotted her... oh, well, she was here now, and that was what mattered. Even if it did had perturbing implications, what with the Princess of the Dead missing. Yukari could just imagine the look on that poor gardener's face.
"Has anyone told you about this game?" Seeing as how Yuyuko was just as ageless and prone to not-dying as Yukari was, the youkai so no reason to treat as anything but.
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"Not a thing," she said, as though she'd been waiting specifically for Yukari to explain it to her. She'd been able to tell something of the character of this incident from what she'd seen so far, but Yukari would probably know more... and if she thought there was fun to be had from it, as well, Yuyuko was especially inclined to listen.
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"Well, first of all, we're playing with a handicap," she decided to point out. "You may not have noticed, or assumed it was because of the body you're wearing now," she noted that Yuyuko had both feet firmly on the floor now, even if her head was still in the clouds, "but the person in charge has left us as weak as humans. I've only a sliver of my normal abilities."
In demonstration, a gap opened off to one side, growing in size until it reached a few feet across, at which point it wavered and collapsed in on itself.
"It's quite inconvenient," she concluded, before smirking a little, "but that just adds to the challenge."
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"It's more like you to rush in at the end and change all the rules," the ghost noted instead. "Trying something new?"
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"Anyway, I'm sure the nurses have been calling you something besides your real name," explained the youkai, idly wondering if it had the same double meaning as hers did. "During the day, they pretend we're someone else, someone normal and that our memories are false. At night, however, they acknowledge who we are and let us roam the corridors with any number of other dangers. It's an interesting duality."
The accented border of night and day was not an original concept, but that didn't make it any less appealing. Some concepts were ageless and had a universal resonance.
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Yukari had her barriers and, more importantly, their negations, in the workings of the world, but Yuyuko dealt with, and preferred, more distant borders, not so easily crossed.
Or, as it was, crossed quite easily, but only once...
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"It's certainly quite the incident though," she continued. "People from entirely different worlds have been spirited away to this place for who knows what reason. I suppose we just haven't reached the final stage of this game though. Apparently only a few have even seen Martin Landel, the doctor behind this event."
While at least they knew who was responsible, it didn't help if they couldn't confront him. At this rate, nothing would be resolved. If only that red-white was here to recklessly power through the restrictions and restore order by force.
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"A doctor, hm~" Yuyuko mused. "A very rare youkai, isn't it? We might be in for some trouble~"
The ghost waited a few beats before seeming to remember that Yukari had said something else intriguing. "Different worlds?"
Really, Yukari had never told her about anything like this before. Keeping secrets wasn't very nice. Unless she'd forgotten...?
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Which was more along the lines of man; it was the humans who believed themselves more than they were. Most youkai knew far better what they were and where they stood.
"From places even I've never heard of," she elaborated. "There's one claiming to be guardian of the universe, another who comes from a pair of twin worlds that each wax while the other wanes, a boy from an alternate version of the Outside World... it's all very fascinating."
She left off the galactic robot assassin; she couldn't recall if she'd explained robots to Yuyuko before, or even if she had, there was a fair chance the girl would ask again.
"Every one of them has their own fantastical story, even if not all of them are willing to share," she continued. "I could spend years talking to them all."
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The look didn't abate as Yukari began to describe the vast variety of people she'd met here. Yuyuko was sure it was all very interesting, but it begged the question of what exactly they all tasted like.
"Is that what you want to do?" the ghost asked of Yukari's final declaration. Spending years away from her home would be unusual for Yukari, so far as she could remember, but it wasn't as though they hadn't the time to spare.
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"I'd prefer to secure passage back first. This place might be interesting to visit, but it does have its downsides," she continued with a shrug. "There's a lot of violent, ugly death that seems to serve no purpose other than the doctor's entertainment. It's not natural."
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The ghost pondered Yukari's last statement silently. It was unusual for her to be so concerned with things outside her own realm... and it made her wonder what, exactly, Yukari had seen here.
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A few things factored into Yukari's concern for people were not in Gensokyo. First and foremost was that they were not in Gensokyo, which would normally be a transient state, but due to the unusual circumstances was actually significant. While normally the youkai could care about anything and everything and thus was only limited by what she wanted to care about, here the purview of her abilities was more limited than the scope of her preference; she was limited by what she could care about, besides pointless worrying about things she could not change or for that matter even know about. That being the case, she was considering those around her in this strange place more and more to be within the realm of her domain rather than strangers she met in passing. Unlike the Outside World, which she could ignore as she chose to, this place and its people were before her every day. And if these patients were to be likened to the denizens of Gensokyo, then the happenings of the institute were nothing less than a full blown incident, one not of the youkai's causing.
"There's also the matter of my own ability to suffer violent, ugly death," she mused. "The opportunity has presented itself several times already. As much as I like your realm, I do prefer having the option to come and go rather than stay as a permanent resident."