damned_institute | Night 44: Main Hall, 2-West

[sorry for the slowness!! >__>]

There was definitely a curse here, even if its location was no l onger permanent. If any of the patients looked behind them now, they would notice that the stairwell through which they had just passed had been nearly completely obscured in a strange, creeping black.

Quite literally creeping: a substance had slowly woven its way inward from the walls, a darkness that met and intertwined in the middle and closed off one escape and was working on the others. Even though the patients were certainly walking towards the end of the hall, floor definitely passing under their feet, the exit appeared to remain the same size. The same thing that had blocked off the stairwell was working its way inward to close them off altogether.

(And was it just a little strange that a place where there probably ought to be other patients passing through seemed quite empty except for them?)

Eyesight could only tell a person so much; it was her other senses Tsubaki depended on, and at first, the shiver at the back of her mind was more than enough to guide her. And then she could see it--a sense of blacks on blacks, an advancing of movement like a noose being strung tighter and tighter.

There was something out there, something alive or something just made to target them… Nothing good. She knew that, at least.

Sora was right to start moving, because Tsubaki was sure they were better off to go, and sooner rather than later. “Let’s head straight up!” If they kept on their path to the kitchen and got out of this hallway, maybe they could get out of range. The hospital’s stronger foes seemed to have zones of some kind, didn’t they? The majority of confrontations happened in one specific area, and if this was an enemy of some kind…

Hokuto narrowed her eyes; what was this, an Endless Hallway? She looked at Sora, awaiting orders; she'd never actually experienced anything like this before (and the anime scene she was thinking of was probably very different). Getting out of there made sense, except she had a feeling that trying to run would be like trying to actually get somewhere on a treadmill.

Instinctively, she kept quiet. Whatever was causing this probably had a very good idea where they were, but there was no way she would assist in pointing out her own location.

Too bad fighting blindfolded isn't as easy as in the movies.

Their situation was quickly growing more and more suffocating, but Sora knew better than to start panicking at a time like this. It was best to just focus on where he wanted to be, and that was the kitchen. If they could beat out whatever was trying to close them off -- or at least run away from it before it was too late -- then that was good enough for him.

Tsubaki seemed to think that the right direction was straight ahead of them, and if she was going to assert that with such confidence, then there was really no reason for the boy to question her words.

"Right," he said with a firm nod. He wasn't going to let this psych him out or anything, especially since the institute had conjured up way worse things for him in the past. He broke ahead, trying to move quickly without leaving his teammates in the dust.

Their situation would soon become quite literally suffocating if the patients did not move quickly: as they drew closer to the exit, they would realise that it was not further away but closing in. And if they came close enough, they would realise that they recognised the substance weaving shut their escape, that they were in fact quite familiar with it.

Though probably not in this context. Dark black hair was sprouting from the ceiling and walls, thick swathes of it looping towards the centre of the hall until all the exits were completely obscured by it. The regular dimness of the Institute at night suddenly seemed bright compared to the strange opacity of this darkness; depths of hair absorbed the beams of flashlights, slithering over itself and glinting distractingly in the light.

And now that the exits were blocked, it was creeping along the walls, the ceiling, the floor: as if it sought to encircle them completely in its masses, smother them with the rage soaking into the air.

It was one thing to become involved in a fight, and yet another to be ambushed completely, with no idea who or what was targeting them. It was the assassin’s way to know his or her enemy; the hospital tried its hardest to take that advantage away, as if the last couple of nights’ surprises weren’t proof enough of that.

Tsubaki could only do her best while they tried to escape, but unfortunately her options were few in that regard. All she had for a weapon was a single scythe from her primary weapon mode, and with a quick, steadying breath, that was what she set her mind on materializing. She jerked her head to send her hair flicking up… and with a flash of light starting at the tip of her ponytail, the blade emerged first, followed by an extending line of chain links. In that split second, she got a better look at the twisting mass growing ever larger and blocking out the last vestiges of natural light all around them--was this something sentient? Something like the weird texture of the hall the night before?

Either way, it didn’t look like it was going to stop with their possible escape routes.

As she snatched the scythe’s handle from mid-air, the golden-yellow light dispersed, leaving her in opaque darkness again. But Tsubaki already had sense of their direction, and she spun on her heel, sending her scythe zipping ahead of her, high over the heads of her two companions’, towards the blocked off corridor they were trying to get to. Like the slick black strands that were moving as if with an independent mind of her own, her weapon form, too, was like an appendage of her own human body, and the scythe came arching down at the curtain of hair with a hiss of chains. If it could be cut…

Hokuto's jaw dropped at Tsubaki's method of weapon-summoning; THAT was a new one. I wish I could do that! Her shovel was definitely inadequate for this, but it was all she had; she used it to strike back against whatever came her way, trying to clear her own way through.

Sora was surprisingly fast; she tried to keep up, even if she quickly found herself mostly failing. The adrenaline surging through her kept her close, at least; one of the worst things that could happen to them right now was getting separated.

In a way, the fact that they couldn't really pinpoint what this was all about was actually the worst part of it all. Sora liked when he had a specific target that he could focus on, but all this seemed to be doing was closing them in and sucking out every last bit of light that they'd scrounged up. Unless the batteries in his flashlight were just dying a normal death, but he was pretty sure that wasn't the case.

He saw the way their path was blocked off, but in his case it wasn't so easy to just summon his weapon and hack through it. (What was that stuff, anyway? Was it... really what he thought it was? But no way, that was just too ridiculous, too bizarre.) His Keyblade only came to him when he was definitely in some sort of danger, and this claustrophobic thing didn't seem to count.

The last thing he'd expected was for Tsubaki to suddenly conjure up a weapon of her own (speaking of bizarre, had it come out of her hair?), and he stared with awe and some amount of admiration as she used the scythe to swipe through the... stuff.

It didn't take long for Hokuto to jump in (a shovel wasn't quite as efficient, but it was still helping), and Sora found himself balling his hands into fists as he realized that he had no way to pull his own weight.

Still, he was the leader, and so lead he would! The moment he saw a bit of opening in that oddly hair-like barrier, he threw all caution to the wind and barreled through it, muscling through whatever resistance it offered until he broke through into the next part of the hallway.

[To here.]

Night 44: Main Hall, 2-West

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