damned_institute | Night 45: Main Hallway, 1-West

[GERONIMOOOOOOO]

If ~~Kurobear~~ Aiden used his ninja senses, he would've been able to notice 'hell' charging towards him at full speed, which--oh no...

Chise inwardly swore at her unwanted ability of absolute clumsiness as she tripped over an invisible bump in the floor and barreled into the man with a loud shriek.

A ninja Aiden was not, especially when he ended up trying to call to see if a staff member would answer him and explain what was going on. The last thing he'd expected was to suddenly have a shrieking girl plowing into his side. A ninja might have been able to stay up, or hell probably dodge the tumbling girl entirely, but the gym teacher? He went crashing to the floor, dazed and angry because of it.

"WHAT THE HELL?!" he barked, pushing up before he knew who he was dealing with and trying to get his head straight.

What. A. Crash. Her personal score-card of crashes(into people only) had gone up by 1. She lifted herself off of the man and fired off thousands of apologies per hour.

"ImsorryImsorryIm so SO sorry Mr. Kuro!! What are you doing out here? Shouldn't you be back in your room? OH! Could it be that you're yourself again?" Hopefully the latter was true. It'll make her mission easier to complete.

The yelling stopped. On a dime. Aiden knew those apologies anywhere. He'd gotten them for everything from forgetting to bring something to class to... well, getting run into as he just had. Problem was that this wasn't girls' volley ball practice or anything close to something they'd have been doing in gym.

"Calm down," he ordered after he'd given his head a shake. Definitely the first time she'd taken him down before, but that wasn't important. "I'm trying to figure out just what's going on. You're who should get back to your room," he told her as he got to his feet.

He still didn't confirm if he was Kurogane the ninja or 'Aiden' the P.E. teacher, but since he said that he didn't know what was happening, he could either be: a)'Aiden' or b)a guard to send people back to their rooms.

"N-No! I refuse to go back, not until I complete my mission ~~which was suppose to be done two nights ago~~, and I won't let you stop me!" Armed with a flashlight she positioned herself and held up her arms in defense in case he decided to attack her. It was a perfect rendition of a tiny lamb against a ferocious grizzly bear.

[ooc: trying to find a writing style that I'm comfortable with]

Mission... nnn...

Aiden ended up with a hand to his head again, not because of being disoriented, but because of the situation he'd found himself in. He kept forgetting how Chelsea was here, mostly because her personality was pretty much the same in most cases. The talk of missions and sudden stance of defense proved that this, unfortunately, was not one of those cases.

Ignoring her a moment, Aiden gave a glance around the hallway. Still no sign of any faculty, nurse or otherwise. While that still bothered him with all the chaos that seemed to be going on, it would help in dealing with the girl. "Where's your room? If you got lost I'll take you back there," he told her, wanting more to help before having to move to force. He knew she wasn't herself, and being in the hallways like this with no supervision could get her hurt or worse.

[crashing the party from here (http://community.livejournal.com/damned/756289.html?thread=62518081#t62544705)]

Now they'd finally hit the main hallways, and Sanae figured they were making pretty good time, which was good because he had the idea that they'd probably get held up in the Sun Room; something was always lurking around there.

As they walked down the hallway, he noticed a young girl and an older man engaged in what looked like a one-sided but heated argument, which was definitely an odd and unusual sight, especially since the girl looked...almost as if she was preparing for a fight.

Neku was still trying to wrap his mind around what'd just happened as Mr. H led the way further down the dark hallway. He found himself checking just to be sure there were no giant cat monsters following them. Nope. You're just being a paranoid weirdo. Way to go Neku.

It was easy to keep following Hanekoma though, since he seemed to know where he was going. The barista paused when some really tall angry guy and a tiny little girl were arguing, but personally, Neku didn't feel much like getting invested in other people's problems. At least not right now. It wasn't that he didn't care- okay, so maybe that was part of it - but they had their own stuff to worry about without listening to a shouting match between some weird old guy and a toddler.

"You...you don't remember? But I gave you my room number a couple of days ago and you still don't know it?" Did the crash caused him to forget everything that happened at the institute? She didn't mean to hit him that hard. "And I'm definitely not lost, so no thanks."

Realizing that arguing with the ninja was a waste of time, she grabbed his arm and began pulling him into the previous hallway. If she proved to him that she wasn't an ordinary student, maybe he'll remember his true memories.

But before they could move, two more people appeared; a middle aged man and a boy.

"Uh, h-hello?"

Had she? Aiden wouldn't have seen there would be any reason for her to tell him her room number, but whatever. Even if he didn't know (or hell, possibly didn't remember), it didn't change that he would be taking her back to her room.

"Look, it's dangerous for you to be out of a room. Whatever's going on here, it isn't normal," he told her, then so as not to sound hypocritical, added, "I only left to see if I could figure out what was going on, but there's no one here..." he just about looked up and pick a hallway, and room, at random so they could deal with this elsewhere when the girl decided to grab his arm and pull at him. "Hey! What are you doing?!" he snapped and tugged his arm back quickly on reflex. She wasn't usually so forceful... or forceful at all save for apologies.

He nearly scolded her, but her attention had gone elsewhere, and looking up he found the two. A man and... someone familiar. He stared first, then shook his head and muttered a quick swear. He hadn't thought there would be more from the school here. "Don't tell me you're in this together?" he sighed, looking down at Chelsea first, then off to the boy, "Sora, go back to your room. This isn't recess."

"Hi..." Sanae gave a wave out of courtesy--it was a little awkward getting noticed like that--and was about to drag Neku off in the right direction when the older man suddenly addressed the boy...but not in the way Sanae would have expected.

The barista stopped dead and gave Neku a questioning look. "'Sora'? Is that what they're calling you around here or something?" In which case, that begged the question of how this stranger knew Neku's fake name in the first place and why he acted so familiar with him.

He turned to the other man. "Think you've got the wrong person here, sorry." There was another Sora, wasn't there? He'd seen a post on the board posted by someone who used that name. Maybe he and Neku both happened to be scrawny teenagers with outrageously spiky brown hair; it was dark and easy to be mistaken.

If they were well enough to argue, they were probably well enough to take care of themselves. But when the taller old guy addressed him as Sora when Neku was sure he'd never seen the man before in his entire life, it was a little disconcerting.

He crossed his arms over his chest, the threat of monsters all but forgotten, "I'm not Sora. And don't talk to me like I'm a kid. I don't even know you. Sora's what the nurses called me." He added the last part, though it was more for Mr. H's benefit than the weird guy.

"Which is all the more reason why it's none of your business. I'm not in this with anyone. I don't know her either." He shrugged.

So the ninja did forget everything, which was disheartening to hear. And how could she be in cahoots with the other boy if both of them never met before?

"I'm sorry, but it should be me telling you that since you don't remember what happens at night," she scoffed at Kurogane. Switching her attention to the newcomers, she bowed in apology. "I-I'm sorry that we interrupted whatever it was you were doing before. Mr. Kuro has been...grumpy all day, so please ignore him."

"Nothing happens at night," he barked, having to sigh out even more frustration again. Nothing normally happened at night. That's what made this all the harder to get the girl to understand, given that so many were out in the hallways.

And then there was Sora giving him lip. There was something normal at least, only Aiden wasn't in the mood for it. And here, he didn't have to be the nice teacher that the school made him be. Not that the gym teacher was ever any kind of nice.

"Sora's you're name, kid," he repeated, point a finger at the boy "And don't go giving me that 'other name' junk. That hair's been sticking out in my gym class for more than a year, and it's not something you forget. And you," he growled, dipping his hand and pulling Chelsea up by her collar, "Stop calling me that. It's Mr. Cross and nothing else."

Aiden couldn't help but think that it wold have been better if he'd had to deal with adult crazies that he didn't know. One for three wasn't cutting it just then. Speaking off... he gave the other guy a look. "If you're keeping him from getting hurt, then fine. I'm just his teacher," he told the guy, then again went back to Chelsea, "But you're going back to your room. Now." And with that, Aiden reached down to take her arm and take her back.

But his hand never grasped the girl's arm or any part of her. It had vanished with the rest of its owner, the man gone in the blink of an eye.

Sanae indulged in the amusing idea of Neku in gym class with 'Mr. Cross' running the works for a brief moment before he said, "Nah, no problem" back to the girl. He understood. This wasn't a case of mistaken identity; the guy was just one of those special, 'cured' cases that he'd been hearing about all day.

Their little interlude looking wrapped up, Sanae began to excuse Neku and himself: "Anyway, nice talkin' to ya..." It was just then that the other man vanished, as if he had been using a teleport psych. The barista blinked; this was certainly new. "...okay."

He coughed. "Well, uh, wanna keep going, Phones? It's just a little further down the hall." Sanae glanced toward the girl that had been arguing with Neku's supposed gym teacher. "And are you going to be alright by yourself, kid?" He wouldn't mind a tag-along, but it was Neku that he was being sensitive to here.

And just as suddenly as he'd appeared, the cranky guy vanished. Like, literally just was gone faster than he could blink. It was enough to startle him, though he tried to act as if it hadn't disrupted his cool. Seriously, what was going on?

"Is that normal here?" Neku asked, looking genuinely concerned that one of them might be next to pop out of existence. It wasn't even like when he'd seen Players get erased. The guy was just... gone.

Mr. H wanted to keep going, which... honestly seemed like a pretty good idea. This hallway was weird enough with its monster cats and disappearing acts. He wasn't keen on sticking around to see what else it would throw at them. Leaving the girl all by herself seemed a little cold though. Maybe this was a good chance to expand their world. Show Mr. H that he actually had managed to learn something from his time in the Shibuya UG.

"It doesn't seem like a good idea to go alone, so it's chill if you wanna come with us," he said. Which was as close to an invitation as anyone was likely to get. "Maybe we'll run into your uh... friend along the way."

"W-What's going on? W-Where did you go Mr. Kuro?!" Chise couldn't believe it, just moments ago he was standing next to her and then POOF! he was gone. Nothing. Nada. She had no idea what to do until the others spoke.

"R-Really? You're okay with that?" she replied to the boy while glancing around the hallway for any signs of Kurogane. But wait, she still needed to finish her mission by tonight! Why did she have to blurt out without thinking? She couldn't reveal her secret in front of them. "Wait, I'm sorry but I can't come with you guys right now. There's...something important that I need to do tonight."

Sanae shrugged. "First time I've seen it," he said to Neku. Didn't look like the guy had been erased, at least. He'd have really been worried if that had been the case.

He nodded as Neku made his quasi-invitation to the girl; it looked like Phones had maybe picked something up after all from his Games, learned to trust people a little more--or at least be willing to take initiative in associating with them. It was a good sign; Neku had a massive amount of Imagination, but the only way he'd be able to share the wealth was to deal with people, understand their worlds, and then adapt his own to accommodate.

It looked like their group of two wouldn't become three, however, so Sanae shrugged again and said, "Oh, okay. Shame, but I getcha. Important stuff, gotta take care of that first after all." He turned to Neku. "Looks like that's our cue to carry on, Phones."

[to here (http://community.livejournal.com/damned/759234.html?thread=62787266#t62787266)]

Night 45: Main Hallway, 1-West

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