damned_institute | Night 44: Staff-only Outdoor Patio

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Night 44: Staff-only Outdoor Patio

[from here]

Easing the door open as silently as possible, Sheena breathed in the fresh air. It was a bit on the cold side, but that was alright; she wasn't going to be outside long and, to be honest, it was refreshing.

Leaving the door open just a crack behind her, the ninja stepped fully out onto the patio. Plastic furniture spotted the area that overlooked the grounds. Moving to the edge, the ninja noted it was specifically the rec field it overlooked, but thankfully it didn't seem like there was anything horrible going on down there.

Turning back around, she assessed the third floor. One of these nights, she was going to get a group together to infiltrate the third floor. She knew another group had already tried, climbing the outside of the walls, but they weren't ninja nor did they have that damn youkai with them. Yuffie, Yukari, someone else maybe... yeah they could do it.

Enough of that. Sheena had places to be, things to raid...

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The door, he noted, had been left slightly ajar. It was with that discrepancy that Lunge slipped back into a lower profile. If something was out there...

Flashlight held up over his shoulder, he eased onto the patio. The bite of the night's chill caught his skin, but if he had shivered he didn't seem notice at all; he was too busy taking in his surroundings. Polished floors, plastic tables and umbrellas filled most of the area- twenty chairs in all, although he supposed there were far more staff than that working at the Institute.

And, as he had predicted, there was someone else here: a young woman, dressed in a short purple tunic of some sort (Japanese, possibly of the yayoi period, but the information was surplus to requirements and he ignored it). Immediately his mind flitted back to the samurai he had seen in the entry room the previous night and he made to switch his flashlight off, but then his eyes caught something interesting. Claw marks.

Claw marks would suggest a monster attack. A special counseling patient is unlikely to have been attacked by a monster. Therefore...

Lunge's finger froze over the switch. He didn't move from the doorway. "Are you waiting for someone?"

Sheena moved her attention from the third floor to the man in the doorway. He was older, like Tiga, and the ninja hoped whoever this man was, he wasn't as uptight and the vice chief was.

"Nope," Sheena replied with a shake of her head. "I'm running solo tonight. Sometimes you get more done that way." She moved to the door that lead to the kitchen and tried the knob with the hand that didn't have golden monster blood on it. Locked.

"Do you have someone hiding back behind you or are you on your own?" The guy really didn't look like combat material to her. And it wasn't always a good idea to be out without someone to watch your back.

Young, but confident. The second the young woman spoke, Lunge's mind set off on its usual series of psychological calculations and deductions. A fighter in the physical and mental sense, and most likely one with a heroic streak of sorts. Practical. Playing the good cop would do for now; erring on the 'inspector' line of attack would doubtless only make him seem more suspicious to her.

"That makes two of us, then," he answered smoothly, lowering the flashlight and turning it off with a soft click. There was moonlight enough to bathe the patio in an ethereal silver-blue glow, more than enough to save him the battery power. "Inspector Lunge. I'm working alone tonight." He nodded at her stained hands. "You were attacked earlier?"

Huh. This guy had to either be new or he thought he could be quick. Or maybe he was a mage. He kind of looked the part of an old grizzled mage that had seen enough battles from the back line. Or maybe he was a scholar, like Raine. Or something. Was inspector something like professor? She'd have to ask Raine later.

"I'm Sheena Fujibayashi," the ninja replied, kneeling down with a couple thin metal pieces in her hand, seemingly appearing from nowhere as she began to examine the lock. She could have just kicked the door down, but figured that loud of a noise outside where she was vulnerable to those damn birds was not a good idea.

"And yeah. Big, golden armored monster with really nasty claws. You probably passed the body in the main hall back by the stairs," she confirmed.

Big, golden armored monster with really nasty claws. A vague memory of passing a similar corpse crossed Lunge's mind, but to be honest he had been more focused on a more immediate threat than that. It was a shame she hadn't seen whatever it was he'd passed by, though- he hadn't had a chance to get a good look himself.

When he looked next, Sheena was kneeling by the door with what looked like a set of makeshift lock-picks. Taking it as a sign that she was comfortable with his presence he moved in closer, hands hanging unthreateningly by his sides. Body language chosen for openness: trust me, I'm a cop. If they were heading in the same direction, there was no harm in accompanying her until her utility wore off- she seemed to know what she was doing with the door, at least. "Are you looking for weapons?"

"Spices, actually," Sheena replied, glancing up as Lunge joined her. "I don't really need weapons."

The pieces of metal slid into the lock, and she returned her attention to the door. It had been a while since she'd picked a lock, but some skills a ninja never forgot.

"I guess a knife would be nice to have around, though. Is that why you're up here?"

Spices...? Realising that his expression had probably spoken for him before he had the chance to put them into rather less obvious words, he allowed himself a room to pry a little. At least he'd been right about her being a fighter of sorts, although just how that worked was still a mystery; her physique, though athletic, betrayed little in the way of physical prowess. Perhaps she was one of the 'magic' users he had heard about from L. Now that would have been interesting.

"That's right." Lunge rearranged his features into something more akin to quiet curiosity. "Why would you need spices?" Then, quickly, to counter-balance what was potentially an overly-probing question: "Is there anything I could do to help?"

If Lunge hadn't had that momentary expression on his face, Sheena would have been quite suspicious, but as it was, she'd expected her words to lead to confusion.

"Oh, they're for a project I'm working on," the ninja replied.

Click.

With the lock releasing, Sheena smiled to herself. "Umm... I don't think there is, really."

She then tilted her head as she stood up and secreted the metal pieces away. "Well, I need to check the cooking equipment in here, too, to see if they work and check the water source to make sure it's drinkable. If you want, you can help with that. You don't have to, though," she added on with a smile.

A 'project'. Lunge's eyes glinted for a fleeting instant as he processed the information; spices, drinking water... that she was attempting to produce some kind of food or drink was obvious, but he was betting on some kind of alcohol. Good. Something trivial that wouldn't result in giving a potential threat the upper hand. There was always the possibility she was lying, of course, but suspicion could only get one so far before practicality had to take precedence.

The woman stood up again as the lock gave way, and then the lock-picks were gone, Sheena's hands moving too nimbly for his eye to keep up with though he suspected they had vanished somewhere up her sleeve or into her obi. He returned the smile with the usual calculation, all the while fighting back the (completely illogical) impression that he was looking at some sort of ninja. "That's fine. I'd like to get a look at what kind of equipment is available here myself."

Flashlight switched back on and back to the wall, he eased the door open a fraction and peered into the room with a caution that would have made his old police academy proud. "Clear." And with that he stepped straight past Sheena and into the kitchen; it was, after all, in his nature to take charge, and she had left an opening for him...

[From here.]

It was no surprise that the patio was deserted. This wasn't the most frequented area, and Sora got the feeling that some of the other patients might have been distracted by that... stuff back there. It made him uneasy to think that people might be in danger, but people here were always in danger. It was tough to answer calls for help when they were coming from every direction.

He sighed, taking in a breath of the night air as he glanced around the empty patio and recalled the time he'd been attacked by a lightning bird out here. He did not want that to happen again, and so he was quick to turn back toward Tsubaki, who had turned into their tour guide for the evening.

"Where from here?" he asked with a tilt of his head, doing his best not to rush her even though he was fighting the urge to look around him for any signs of danger.

Tsubaki thought it’d be hard for anyone not to be affected by what went on at night, whether or not they were drawn headlong into a dangerous situation like the three of them just had. As much as she was prepared for some kind of peril, she could guess what Hokuto was feeling. “Mm, it’s a part of me,” Tsubaki confirmed calmly. And hopefully it wouldn’t wig anyone out, because she didn’t think it’d be a good idea to recall the transformation yet, when it also took effort just to do. With her free hand, she patted Hokuto on the back of the shoulder. Assuring, she said, “Let’s go.”

For his part, she could see why Sora was a trusted leader in the club; it wasn’t simply his long stay that made him a good person to have around. He didn’t seem fazed by the events of the night, and Tsubaki followed suit in taking up her rear position again without complaint, trusting in Sora’s capabilities to carry them forward.

When they came out onto a patio just as her mental map had promised, she was quick to look to their left, searching the darkness for the outline of a door, one that would lead them to the second room over from their destination. Or so she thought, anyway, but she had to trust in the accuracy of the maps other prisoners had worked hard on. “There should be another staff area beyond here, and then a locked door leading to the kitchen,” Tsubaki replied. She didn’t think it was wise to linger too long, herself. Open areas like this weren’t safe, and although she couldn’t see much beyond the lip of the patio, she sensed the ground level would have its own trouble. Casting a look beyond the tall, lumpy silhouettes of closed table umbrellas, Tsubaki glanced over the unfamiliar stars and the eerily blank moon.

There was too much they didn’t know and couldn’t guess about this place. Too much by far.

During the day, this might be a nice place to eat and relax... if you didn't know what Landel's was. At night, it was just creepy--every umbrella seemed ready and waiting to spring to life and attack. She'd never actually come across a haunted umbrella, but well, she'd had a lot of new experiences here! And if she tried to anticipate what was coming, maybe she'd be a little more prepared.

Although just getting even more paranoid was also a possibility. Seventeen's too young for a heart attack, right?

"We should hurry." Mostly, she didn't want to linger in one place too long. Especially not here.

So, had Tsubaki been this way before, or had she just committed those maps to memory or something? If it was the latter, then Sora was seriously impressed. He could usually only figure things out by going somewhere himself, and he tended to remember the path once he'd done it. Which was why it was good that he was finally making his way to the kitchen, since it sounded like it was a pretty popular area for supplies.

Not that he wanted to go on a lot of supply runs, but it was necessary sometimes.

Taking Hokuto's words to heart, he nodded to the two girls before heading through the door that Tsubaki had picked out and then toward the next one, which he was surprised to see had already been unlocked.

"Looks like we got lucky," he announced, "but that might mean that someone else took all the stuff before us." He hoped that wasn't the case, since then it would have meant that they'd braved that weird hair for nothing! There was only one way to find out, and so he moved through the unlocked door and into the kitchen.

[To here.]

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Night 44: Staff-only Outdoor Patio

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