damned_institute | Night 44: SC Final Prep Area

Okita had listened carefully to the instructions, recognizing them from the last time he was here. It wouldn't be difficult to move now, not when he had Ayumu with him, knowing how fast she was. He had never directly worked with her, having been a public face of the Shinsengumi, but he knew her skills. Anyone who knew of the ninja knew that speed was one of their greatest weapons, meaning she was perfect for this mission.

Moving into the room, Okita kept low, not bothering to draw his weapon for now. They just needed to get the lumbering giants out into the other room and their mere presence would likely pull them out of hiding. He could almost feel the change in Ayumu, the way her focus shifted and sharpened and he couldn't help but smile faintly. This would prove to be an interesting mission tonight.

Stepping to the other side of the door from Ayumu, he scanned the room, looking toward the corner where the creatures had been before. Then, without taking his eyes off the field, he motioned to her and waited to see what would emerge from the darkness.

This part of the building was armed to to teeth not only in that it held the weapons that might belong to any number of patients who were due to have their minds twisted into obeying the institute above all else, but also because it housed a literal army of nurses who were going to make sure that any trespassers didn't take what wasn't theirs.

A strange, unexpected pair of human whispers came from the shadows, and while the words couldn't be made out, it was obvious that what was being said was some kind of order rather than the eerie babbling that might be heard in other parts of the institute.

It was the rarest of the nurses who were most plentiful here, and the deadly silence of the room was more firmly broken by a slight hissing noise, something that an experienced patient might recognize as the sound of gas being released.

Slowly, the noxious fog filled the room, pale green in color as it wafted through the air and curled around the patient's feet and surreptitiously entered their mouths. Just how long could a human hold their breath without a gas mask to help them?

With her every sense sharpened by the intensity of her concentration, Ayumu couldn't help but notice the soft whispers coming from the darkness; though she couldn't understand what they were saying, she could recognize the tone and that instantly set her thinking. From the (albeit vague) description they'd been given of what they were supposed to face in here, she'd expected something a bit more monstrous and less...human. So what was she going to find? A beast with a human mind? A human with supernatural abilities, like something out of a story - or like that...thing, in the hallway outside?

She started to move closer to the source of the sound, slow and wary, but the hissing sound brought her up short once more. It was unexpected, and unexplained, and almost certainly meant something bad for them even if she didn't know what. After a moment's hesitation in which nothing else changed she started to move forward again, but the movement got no farther than a slight shift of her weight.

Her indrawn breath caught in her throat as it burned painfully; she didn't quite cough, but the quiet choked hitch in her breathing was far more noise than she wanted to let herself make. Pain abruptly pricked at her eyes and she blinked rapidly to keep from losing focus as she lifted her sleeve to protect her face as best as she could. Some kind of noxious fumes?

They had no defense against that, if so, nor a remedy against whatever effects it might have, unless their healer was more prepared than he'd seemed. The only solution, then, was to get away from the source - which she assumed was that sound, so back toward the door again. Ayumu could only hope that would be far enough away that the rest of the group wouldn't be affected as well; for now she simply backed up, carefully but as quickly as she could. She could only hold her breath for so long, after all.

Something was wrong. Unlike the previous night, there weren't huge lumbering guards coming at them. Instead, there were barely human whispers and a slow unnatural hiss. Okita moved forward when Ayumu did, but came to a stop when he heard that sound. It was like a snake's warning, or the gentle burn of a candle wick, but Okita could see neither reptile or light here. What he could tell, however, was that there were two of them. Nurses? Something else?

He took another hesitant step forward, just in time to see Ayumu halt and bring her sleeve to her face. For a moment, he took his eyes off the battlefield and instantly regretted it.

Something burned his throat and he choked back a cough, drawing the edge of his sleeve over his nose and mouth. It didn't help - whatever this barely visible smoke was, it was causing his eyes to water as well. He backed up as Ayumu did and then grit his teeth. The others were waiting for them to pull the larger fighters out, but if there were no larger fighters? Well, there was no helping it. He had to draw the enemy out. Letting them stay back and spread their poison was only going to kill them all. "Noxious gas! Two voices audible, unsure about the rest!" he called out so the others could hear. He hated how strained his voice sounded, and worse, how close he was to coughing now that he had nothing to protect his face. But he had a mission to do, and he would complete it. Turning his attention to Ayumu, he brought his sword around and started to move forward. "Draw them out. There's bound to be larger--" His throat constricted and he was forced to lower his head, choking back a harsh cough. Not a good way to start the night. "--prey soon enough. Separate them!"

And so they were defenseless.

While some patients were resourceful enough to find ways around even the strongest of monsters, there were certain things that it was impossible to prepare against, and this kind of gas was one of them. One of the nurses let out a cackle, but once again, it sounded like the sort of gloating laugh a human would make rather than anything supernatural.

It wasn't as if they needed to be drawn out, either. Now that the patients were at the disadvantage, there was no reason to hold back, and so the two nurses raced forward, lithe and quick as they darted across the room. Their uniforms were slightly tattered, but there was no sign of rot, and what stood out most about them were the masks that covered their faces.

The two split up of their own accord, one heading for Ayumu and one for Okita. The idea was to take them down while they fought off the effects of the gas, but it wasn't like that was all these two had up their sleeves.

No, the clinking of chains and a thumping sound made it certain that there was more to come.

Clearly the plans had changed: their orders had been to draw out the larger fighters, but the larger fighters had yet to appear. The sound of movement from the darkness implied that they would, however, so they would have to deal with the immediate threat first. While unable to breathe.

Ayumu had faced worse odds in the past, but not by much. And then she'd had the advantage of familiar ground, familiar tools, and enemies whose capabilities she could match without thinking about it. This met none of those criteria, but she would make do. She always had.

When the nurses appeared, though, her attention was drawn to the odd-looking masks they wore. It stood to reason that the Institute's creatures would have some defense against their own dangers, and if they were able to breathe and move in the midst of this noxious air then it didn't take much of a stretch of the imagination to attribute that to those masks. Which meant those needed to be removed - whether for her and Okita to use, if they could, or simply to disable the opponent who used it.

Those in the next room had already been alerted (though she couldn't spare a moment to be worried about her companion, the clear strain in his voice meant she needed to add priority to keeping him safe) and so she put that from her mind and moved. One hand dipped into a pocket, coming up with two scalpels which she then flung toward the nurse heading for her. They weren't the ideal throwing weapons, and she didn't know whether they would even do damage if they did strike flesh, but hopefully that would be sufficient to slow her opponent at least for a moment.

Without pausing to see, though, she turned her attention to the other nurse, darting over as the knife in her other hand came up - her aim was to get behind the...woman?, to cut through the strap holding the mask in place. With the way her breathing, not to mention her sight, was affected by the fumes, she estimated that she only had the one chance to strike before needing to seek clean air. Hopefully it would succeed at least in part.

The fumes were painful and growing worse every moment. Whatever was in the gas, it was meant to distract and harm and it was doing just that. His eyes watered and while he refused to step away from the battlefield, he knew they had only one shot at doing something before they either had to flee or the orderlies hiding in the background came charging forward to crush their heads. Out of the corner of his eye, he detected movement from Ayumu. The flash of silver thrown at the other nurse being enough to spur him into action, too.

And thankfully, it seemed Ayumu had the same idea as Okita. Get the masks off the nurses. Whatever those things were, it was protecting their face and eyes, meaning it was keeping them from the noxious fumes spreading further about them. Drawing his sword, he charged forward at the woman heading toward him, aiming a slash downward at her chest. He didn't know if it would hit or not, especially with his vision limited the way it was, but he had to distract her enough that Ayumu could get behind her. And if they failed? He'd attack again. Until one of these things went down, he wasn't about to leave this room.

It was already apparent that these two patients were tenacious. Then again, hadn't that been obvious from the start? One of them had found the key to make it this far, and who knew how long that had taken?

Not the the nurses really cared. For now, all they had to worry about was making sure that these two didn't last long enough to get their hands on anything valuable. Eventually their bodies would give in and they would pass out, at which point they could move them elsewhere, but until then it was a battle of endurance.

While the one nurse did see the scalpels coming at her, it wasn't exactly easy for her to dodge. Luckily, the flimsy instruments didn't do much -- while she ended up with a couple of nicks on her legs, the scalpels then clattered to the floor.

Her partner wasn't doing quite as well. Having to go up against a sword when she wasn't equally armed meant that she was stopped up short, forced to halt and then jump back a step or two. While Ayumu was busy sneaking up behind her, the other nurse ignored the minor wounds on her legs and used the blur of the gas to move around behind Okita, intending to knock him out while he was focused on her companion. Once she got close enough, she raised the flashlight she was holding and swung it toward the back of his head.

Two more had entered the room, but there was no time to look that direction. Ayumu merely made note of their presence, peripherally aware of the large chain-draped men emerging to deal with the new arrivals. So those were the ones she and Okita had been intended to draw out, then. Apparently the plan had reversed, and not in their favor - was it possible to draw the creatures back out into the other room? Had the fumes reached that far?

For now, though, what she needed to focus on was the enemy directly in front of her, as she forced herself to ignore the burning in her throat and eyes and her body's demands for clean air. Giving up was failure and failure was not an option. When the nurse jumped back from Okita's attack, it brought her all that much closer to Ayumu, and she took advantage of the chance.

The kunoichi slashed up at the mask's strap with the knife in her right hand, as with her left she slid a pair of surgical shears from her pocket and stabbed at the nurse's body, aiming for where the kidney would be on an ordinary person. Hopefully these creatures were as human as they appeared and still had the same weak points.

The nurse halted and leapt back and Okita was about to give chase when he noticed something through the haze of pain and the strange fumes. Humans had an uncanny ability to tell when they were being watched. Perhaps it was an instinct left over from when they were still prey animals or maybe it was something else, but right now, he knew he was in danger. The scalpels had hit the floor, meaning their target was still on the move. No, not on the move. Behind him!

Ducking down, he spun around and brought his sword up to block, catching a glimpse of something coming down where his head ought to have been. Well, if she thought to hit him, he'd just have to return the favor. Putting a little more force into his swing, he tried to bring the blade up against the woman's wrists and take off her hands.

Or so he hoped. His vision was clouding over thanks to the gas, and his lungs were screaming in pain. Not only did they want air, but they wanted to expel the gas already poisoning him - and something else. He could feel it, sitting at the back of his throat, but he had to ignore it for now. He heard Homura's orders and if the others were coming in the room, then he and Ayumu had to hold the nurses until Kenren and his team could get what they came for.

It happened so quickly that the nurse hardly knew what to think of it. She felt the very gas she had been unleashing on these pesky patients start to clog into her throat, and she immediately held her breath as she lunged after the mask as it went clattering to the floor. She gathered it up in her hands and was about to return it to her face when she felt a piercing pain in her lower back. Her shoulders jolted in surprise and she only barely held back a yell.

Now that she was injured and also fighting against the effects of the gas, the results of this fight seemed much less certain. Still, she wasn't about to give up that easily, and she clung onto the mask for dear life as she swung herself around and then swiped her legs across the floor in the direction of the female patient, intending to knock Ayumu to the ground.

The other nurse had to deal with the frustration of Okita dodging away from her attack, and the darkness in the room made it hard for her to follow his movements. Luckily, she was fast enough that his sword just bit into her right arm rather than actually lopping off any limbs. She hissed in pain and then angrily sent a kick at his torso -- when the hell was the gas going to knock them out, anyway?!

At least it seemed like their underlings were getting into the swing of things, even though it also sounded like they were being joined by even more patients. It was like a whole army had chosen to come up here tonight.

The attack had been successful in that Ayumu had removed the mask, and removing the mask did indeed seem to have been a good idea, with the way the nurse had grabbed for it. However, the nurse did grab it, and clutched it so tightly that clearly getting it away again would be far more difficult -- and would take time that she simply didn't have. At least the stab seemed to have struck true, even if her weapon wasn't enough to deal a fatal wound. It was almost enough to make her wish she had a sword of her own. It wasn't her favored weapon, not at all, but in a situation like this it might have made her task a little easier. With a sword in hand that blow might have been something deadly. But the fact was that she didn't have one, and it wasn't, and reality was what she had to deal with, not wishes and possibilities.

And the reality of the situation was that, without her own protection against the noxious gas in the air, Ayumu was reaching her limits. Kunoichi she might be, well-trained and very capable, she was still human. She still needed to breathe, and her vision was blurring, an effect of both from the gas and the lack of air. With her attempt to obtain the mask for herself failed, she only had one more thing to do. Homura's orders were to retreat as soon as she was able, but in this situation she simply couldn't just leave. No matter what the demands of her own body, the defenseless healer and his companions were entering the room, and if she didn't keep her own opponent occupied the nurse would be free to turn on them. That couldn't be allowed.

As the nurse counterattacked she didn't quite manage to dodge; with her vision blurring she only had instinct and training to rely on, and the nurse moved faster than she'd expected. Worse, though, as she stumbled she was forced to draw in a breath, and choked as the gas burned deep into her lungs, her vision blurring into narrow incoherence. Almost by instinct she shifted the stumble to take her toward the nurse, swinging the shears still clutched in one hand toward where she should be. If Ayumu was going to fall, she intended to take her opponent with her, and with what strength (and consciousness) remained attempt to hold the nurse down in order to keep her away from the others.

Dammit! He'd missed! And he had little air left to do anything in besides curse his failure mentally. Worse? The nurse kicked him right in the chest, sending him backwards - and causing him to draw in a breath of that poisoned air. It was only by sheer force of habit that he kept his hand on the hilt of the sword, drawing it back with him, sliding the blade out of the woman's arm. He hadn't lost his weapon. Not yet anyway.

But what he did lose? Was his ability to breathe. The pain in his chest coupled with the gas snapped something inside him - like a string pulled far too tightly. And try as he might to force the coughs back, he couldn't. Doubling over, he felt his lungs spasm, his torso tighten and try to force both gas and disease out of his body to no avail. He could hear the sounds of the battle continuing around him, but he couldn't move with the coughing wracking his body. Worse yet, he couldn't...see.

Either your enemy dies, you die, or you both die.

That voice jumped into his head over the pain and the desire to simply pass out and let the night carry him away. Yes, of course. I will not fail you. Drawing on the last of his strength, he gave himself over to the demon that guided his hand in battle and felt his purpose force his body into one last ditch effort. Raising his head, Okita stabbed forward where the nurse should have been, intending at best to stab her through the chest and at the worst, slow her down so she couldn't go after his companions. It was likely Ayumu was going to do the same with the woman she was fighting, but unlike her, Okita wasn't in any position to grab hold and use his own body weight to drag the woman down. This was all he could do, and he threw himself forward even as he felt darkness fall over his consciousness.

Edited 2009-11-04 14:58 (UTC)

The nurse hadn't expected that Ayumu would pitch forward onto her like that, let alone have her sharpened weapon held in front of her as she did so. She was speared with it, slightly above her collarbone, and she pulled in a painful breath of the fumes as they both crashed to the floor, the patient half-conscious and on top of her. Feeling the blood pooling out of the wound, the nurse frantically fumbled with the mask she was still holding and eventually got it up to her mouth and took deep breaths with it. Still, her hold on it was tenuous, and there was no way she had the strength or energy to shove the body off of her at this point. Right now all she could do was focus on keeping her breathing clear.

The one that was after Okita was in even more trouble. She had thought that kick would take him out once and for all, and just as she'd been planning to go over and deal with the next group that had filtered in, she instead had to deal with the sharp end of a sword forcing itself into her chest.

She gasped, though it was muffled by the cover of her mask, and the blood that she coughed out pooled up into her breathing space, which only made things worse. Her limbs slacked and she started to collapse, her body still caught on the end of that sword.

The blades had sunk into flesh, Ayumu knew, but it was so hard to focus. Where had she hit? A vital point, or simply a nuisance? It was impossible to tell, and then she'd fallen atop her opponent. She had landed on top of the nurse, who seemed to be staying down, so that objective had been met, but the rest...

She'd been unable to obey Homura's order to retreat. Worse, she'd been unable to help Okita, and didn't even know his status. She'd heard him coughing, a deep, painful sound, had caught sight of movement before she fell, but everything was so dark now and she couldn't see. All of her senses were fading away, her limbs too heavy to move, but at least she knew she hadn't failed completely, and she took that thought with her into unconsciousness.

[moving up from here]

Taura's lungs were starting to complain; she was running out of stored oxygen. But the two fighters down were in much worse shape. She blinked back tears and looked down -- Ayumu was slumped on top of her opponent, and the smell of blood was strong, but Ayumu's chest rose and fell in shallow breaths, and when Taura slid a hand around her waist, the blood was already cooling and sticky. Not Ayumu's, then. Something metal clanked to the floor -- Taura groped for a second but whatever it was (a weapon?) was small and they were both running out of air.

If it was critical, she could go back in. Right now, it wasn't.

She hoisted Ayumu over her shoulder, coughing as the motion provoked an instinctive inhale. Her hands were more than full; if anything else attacked she would have to drop knife or her prize in order to hang onto Ayumu.

But the door was only a few short yards away, and her legs were long.

Edited 2009-11-07 02:54 (UTC)

Something hit. His sword. His sword connected with that nurse's body and slid through her flesh. Even as Okita felt his grip start to loosen on the hilt of his weapon, he glowed with pride. Blind as he was, weakened as he was by gas and pain, he'd still managed to fulfill his mission. The nurses were going down and the others were safe. He hadn't been able to listen to the order to retreat, but then the Shinsengumi had never been very good at retreating.

The nurse was falling and Okita was going with her. It was only through sheer willpower that he'd been standing at all, and now that his attack had succeeded, his mind gave out and he dropped to the floor along with his opponent. He was dimly aware of his head striking the floor and his hand instinctively trying to grip his sword as he went down, but after that, he felt nothing.

Before she knew it, the weight of the patient had been pulled off of her, and the nurse looked up to see yet another intruder now carrying the unconscious one. As much as the nurse knew that it was her duty to stop them, there wasn't much she could do. They moved out of her grasp before she could sit up, and as she glanced over she saw that the other nurse had been felled, though at least that patient had collapsed along with her.

Suffering from two injuries, the nurse was smart enough to know that a retreat was best for now. The gas was doing its job and the two orderlies were also hard at work, and so she disappeared toward the back of the room to deal with her wounds. They had definitely deterred them, and that was something.

By the time the nurse had retreated, or even visibly recovered, Taura was already out the door.

[to here]

[From here]

Homura only need to take a few steps into the room to see how bad the situation was. He held the last breath he'd taken in the prior area, but that would last less than a minute at most, and he could already feel the gas stinging his eyes. Okita and Ayumu were attempting to fight the nurses amidst the fog, but they too only had a limited amount of time before the gas took whatever effect it had on them.

Since there were only the two nurses immediately in sight, Homura would focus on them first. He motioned to Nataku, unwilling to exhale to speak, pointing first to the boy then to Ayu. You join her, he silently ordered, intending to assist Okita. He then motioned to his eyes, then quickly made a loop with his finger, indicating the area around them. Be aware of what's around us.

Homura wasn't expecting only the nurses to be around.

Making the fight four against two just wasn't fair, and though the male nurses were far from intelligent, their small brains could at least grasp that basic concept. It helped that they got frequent instructions from their female counterparts about how to handle this kind of situation.

The point was that they were ready to start lumbering toward the new pair of patients immediately once they entered the room. The two female nurses who had filled this room with gas relied on reflexes and smarts, but these male ones were all brawn. Luckily, they had been fitted with their own masks to ensure that they could handle the environment.

Not caring to hide their presence, the chains they wielded dragged across the ground behind them as they started toward Homura and Nataku, intent on getting in their way before they could screw things up.

Nataku followed Homura into the room with Hanatarou's sword in hand. The weapon was unfamiliar, as alien as the sentiment with which it was given, but he had thanked the other boy all the same, surprise warmed by sincerity.

Now the war prince held the last breath he'd taken outside the door, nodding once, sharply, as he understood Homura's orders. His eyes burned and watered but for the moment they were clear enough to make out the scene before him. They had seconds before the gas became too much, and that would have been difficult even if there weren't more creatures to contend with now.

Huh, Nataku thought. So these were the big guys. They weren't really all that big, were they? At least, not by comparison to the last guy he'd taken down.

Nataku bolted for the closest one, trusting Homura to make the best judgment of where he would be needed now. Thanks to the warning he remained weary of those fists but he came in as close as he could dare before he launched himself into the air, sword ready to slice into the monster's throat if he connected.

The orderlies revealed themselves almost before Homura had completed his hand motions, and silently, the demi-god cursed their presence. Ideally he and Nataku would have been able to lead them back into the other room, where the air hadn't been so polluted. But the monsters might not follow, and that would leave Okita and Ayumu with far too much to contend with on their own.

Homura was forced to take a breath as he stepped forward to meet the other creature. The gas did little to relieve the burning in his lungs, however, and even he had to hold back the urge to cough. The way the battle had changed was not in their favor. They needed to end things quickly, and Homura could only think of a single way for such a method to succeed.

"Kenren, Taura, Hanatarou!" Homura called out the names as quickly and loudly as he could; with the contaminated air, he couldn't afford to have to repeat himself. "Come inside and grab anything of value. Move quickly!" He brought his sword up even as he coughed, slashing at the massive creature's gut. They couldn't kill the monsters quickly enough with these one on one fights, but there was a way.

"Okita, Ayumu. As soon as you can, get out of this room." Homura knew how Okita felt about such retreats, and Ayumu likely shared the attitude. But his orders left no room for questioning, and his plan wouldn't allow for hesitation. Whatever the gas would do, Okita and Ayumu had to escape before those effects took hold.

As a stark contrast to the nurses who ordered them around, these orderlies didn't believe in the art of evasive action, and so when Nataku came in with a sword and slashed away, his hit struck true and blood spurted liberally from the transformed man's neck. This didn't seem to fell it like it should have, however, though it was definitely thrown off balance. It let out a groaned cry of pain as it stumbled toward the small boy, flailing its arms around and consequently sending the chains it held swinging toward Nataku in a powerful flurry.

It was a similar story when it came to Homura. His strike wasn't dodged, and dark blood spilled from the orderly's torso and onto the floor, and yet all the man did in response was swing a fist right toward the patient's solar plexus, not intending to take such a wound without repaying it in kind.

Both were unaffected by the gas, and didn't seem to mind keeping these newcomers busy until the fumes knocked them out for certain.

The creature should have died from that first strike, but Nataku knew better than to depend on that. The moment his feet touched the floor again he tried to dodge back out of the way but his eyes and lungs burning. One of the chains caught him hard across the jaw while he breathed in a lungful of noxious gas and another connected with his side before he manged to back out of range.

He fought hard against a fit of coughing, swallowing blood and slowly rising nausea. His grip tightened on the sword. Homura hadn't given him any orders but he understood well enough; the others were their priority, and nothing could be allowed back there while they raided.

When no further threats emerged, he went after the creature again, this time dodging to the side in an attempt to slice at its arm. Killing it before he succumbed to the gas was unlikely, but keeping it away from the others he could handle for a while.

[in from here (http://community.livejournal.com/damned/746535.html?thread=60841511#t60841511)]

The first thing Hanatarou noticed upon entering the room was what must be the effects of the gas he'd heard Okita yell his warning of: pain pricked at his eyes, and he blinked away tears as he glanced around quickly for something that might be worthwhile. There was a rack of clothing nearby -- odd clothing, nothing he recognized, but wondered at -- but he doubted that was anything Homura would consider "of value." Farther into the room the gas was likely to be stronger, though, and there was the matter of the four History Club members fighting against creatures that he didn't particularly want looking in his direction.

He caught a glimpse of what looked like a rack of weapons on the other side of the room, but what really caught his attention was the beds with what looked like medical supplies. If the members of the group (including him, now) were being poisoned by gas, they'd need a remedy. And it would make sense that the nurses would keep an antidote nearby, in case they fell victim to their own attack. Could those possibly be...?

If not, though, it couldn't hurt to gather the supplies anyway. Whatever was in this room, as well-guarded as it was, could be highly useful. Even the clothing, perhaps, but...he didn't think that was quite as important. So, instead, the healer hurried over to gather up what he, at least, thought was valuable.

Taura took a deep breath and followed Hanatarou in -- the gas was everywhere, but she could still see clearly. And what she saw was a calculated two-pronged fall-back-retreat strategy; that, and a weapons rack across the room.

Hanatarou darted off to the side, but the medic wasn't heading towards the monsters, so she split off on her own. She crossed the room in a few short bounds, the gas blurring her vision badly enough that all she could do was grab for something solid in a section that had no glinting edges in the hand that wasn't holding the knife.

Then she turned and lunged back for the door, dodging a length of spinning chain and squinting through the dark and the blur to look for Hanatarou.

It was almost impossible to see anything with the way his eyes were watering, but Hanatarou managed to fumble his pillowcase out and open and shove whatever he could into it. The makeshift mask didn't really seem to be doing much for him, other than reminding him not to take a breath, so he hurried as quickly as he could before turning back toward the door again.

The others were fighting, but two of them seemed to be down - did he need to stop and help? They were probably hurt, or overcome by the gas, and that was what he was supposed to be here for, wasn't it? He started to edge toward them carefully, keeping a wary eye on the fight in progress lest he be caught up in that, but wondered if he'd be able to do anything before he was affected by the gas as well.

Hanatarou was edging towards the door as she headed back. "Go, I'll catch up," she yelled, or would have, if a cough hadn't choked off the second word. She exhaled short and sharp, wasting precious air, and tried again. "Out!"

Kenren was still moving, and so were two out of the four that had come in earlier. Which left two -- she pointed to one dark shape on the floor and hacked out one more instruction. "Kenren!"

[jumping up to this thread]

Hanatarou froze at Taura's shouted order, flinching a little at the sound of her cough, and gave one last glance toward the people he could see lying on the floor. It looked like she was going to deal with them, and Kenren was heading that way too, so - good. As long as they could get the injured people out, then he could get into the cleaner air in the other room and meet them there.

That was decided, then. With a worried look in Nataku's direction, he tightened his hold on the pillowcase and scurried back toward the door. Hopefully he'd picked up something to make his presence worthwhile.

[back to here (http://community.livejournal.com/damned/746535.html?thread=60923431#t60923431)]

Night 44: SC Final Prep Area

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