Day 46: Sun Room

[human-sponge.livejournal.com]

Peter woke up suddenly, his body twisting in the bed and then forcing him to catch his breath in pain. Pain, which was coming from his middle because of the thing that had scratched him last night, and after that...

After that, Zach had jumped in front of him like some kind of martyr, like the exact opposite of everything Sylar stood for, to take the next hit for him. It got pretty fuzzy after that, so night must have ended right around then.

The man let out a pained grunt as he straightened himself up in bed. For some reason, he got the feeling that he'd slept in. There was no way for him to really tell without a window in the room, but he just knew. The fact that Sam's bed looked long since vacated was another clue.

Sam, but was he Sam again? Had the brainwashing worn off, as he and Roland had hoped, or was he going to have to go through this nightmare for even longer? He didn't know how long he could handle "Zach" and "Harrison" before he started going batty himself.

Pulling himself out of bed, Peter lifted his shirt and saw that he was tightly bandaged. The scratch most likely wasn't nearly as bad as the bite that "Zach" had received, but it still smarted. He let his shirt fall and then had to deal with a nurse chiding him for sleeping through the morning announcements. Not that Peter really cared at the moment. He was too busy thinking about last night and the fact that in a way, he now owed something to Sylar. Except it hadn't been Sylar. That was something he was sure of now.

Lost in his thoughts, Peter reached the Sun Room right as the rest of the patient populace was trickling in from breakfast. Sighing to himself, he headed over to the bulletin board and then saw a note written in familiar yet unpleasant handwriting. Holding his pen in a vice grip, Peter scribbled out a reply and then stalked over to an armchair and fell into it with a huff.

While Sylar was maddeningly frustrating, there was one good thing about the fact that he was himself again. It meant that Nathan was too.

[For Spock!]

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[thatdamnedninja.livejournal.com]

Yuffie took a deep breath as she sat up, almost like she thought she could shoo out all the frustration and bitterness of the past few days just by sighing loudly enough. Which she tried, promptly, to little effect.

"Take a seat," she patted the couch-space next to her, staring out across the Sun Room. There was Cloud, all wrapped up around — Aerith?! A-Aerith. Yuffie gawked, scrubbed her eyes once and shook her head, and still she saw the Flower Girl. The board… So, it hadn't been a lie. Somehow. But she'd have to make sure, later, because That Night was still fresh in her mind. The ghost and the whispers, and then the blood and the Masamune and—

She snapped back to herself. "Urk… It's, um." Okay, this spacing out thing? Had to stop. She resumed searching, eyes flashing dangerously when she picked him out (wasn't difficult; the guy stuck out like a Razor Weed in a field of daisies). Psychoroth, the Silver General. "That's the guy," she said. "Behold the Hero of Wutai."

[degozaruyo.livejournal.com]

Kenshin sat as he was bidden, but he could see that Yuffie's attention was, once again, elsewhere. She was staring at Cloud and the young woman he was currently embracing like she'd just seen a ghost. Perhaps she was. This place did have the rather nasty habit of bringing those who ought to be dead back to life. That could explain why Cloud looked so thunderstruck as well. Kenshin imagined that he himself had worn a similar expression when he'd been visited by "Tomoe" weeks ago...

No, he couldn't let himself be distracted. This wasn't the time to be dwelling in the past.

The man that Yuffie was pointing to did stand out fairly easily. He was tall, with long hair that was an improbable shade of silver and slightly haughty green eyes. Even from this distance and wearing the patient uniform, Kenshin could tell that he was not one to be taken lightly. Not by any stretch of the imagination. "And yet he is not a hero to you," he observed. "What did he do in your homeland that deserves so much hatred?"

[thatdamnedninja.livejournal.com]

Yuffie pulled one leg up to her chest, dropping her chin onto it. Not once did her eyes leave Sephiroth. "Back when Shinra used to rule the world, we in Wutai were the only ones with the power and courage to resist, even for a little while… We lasted ten years, and then they smashed us into dust. Strength, pride, dreams; we lost it all, and I've spent nearly my whole life trying to build everything back up again. He was their greatest general, and the strongest SOLDIER in the world."

"That's only the tip of it all, though. Eventually, ol' Psychoroth realized that he was just another tool, and he went ballistic. Developed a mom-complex, massacred a village, got himself killed, came back, and decided that he hated life enough to destroy all of it. He almost did, too. We—AVALANCHE, that is, did I ever tell you about them?—managed to kill him again just in time, but this guy seriously has a problem with staying dead." She paused for breath, and to rub gingerly at her throat. "You followin' all this so far?"

[degozaruyo.livejournal.com]

Kenshin was silent for a few minutes, taking in what he had just heard. He thought he understood Yuffie a little better now. She was a daughter of a proud, noble country, defeated now but still defiant. Even if her other countrymen had surrendered, she wouldn't. That was easy to comprehend, and he could understand Yuffie's hatred towards this one particular general as a symbol of the people that had conquered them.

The rest of it wasn't so easy to understand.

"It's...a lot to take in, yes, but this one thinks he might have the general gist of it." Sort of. "Do continue."

[thatdamnedninja.livejournal.com]

For once, Yuffie was glad for the wait.

It wasn't very often that she put any of this stuff in to words, even less so with people who weren't AVALANCHE. Almost everybody back on Gaia knew this story—they didn't know it, because the details were personal and like hell she had any obligation to share—anyway, and more importantly, they had context. Materia, the Lifestream, Shinra, the grosstarded politics and politicians, Sephiroth's giant space rock…

Speaking of, she finally tore her eyes away from the general. One more second of staring at his ugly mug, and she'd feel like revisiting her uneaten breakfast. "Have to backtrack a second." Her gaze flicked surreptitiously back to Aerith, just for a split second. "About halfway through our planet-saving, butt-kicking journey of revolution, something… happened. I dunno. Aerith went missing; she ran off, and we followed her halfway around the world. Just when we finally found her, Sephiroth, he…" Yuffie shook her head. "Dropped down from up high and murdered her. In cold blood. There was no point to it, no fight, nothing. Just a few seconds to stare, and… That's when I realized just how much he needed to die."

Abruptly, the little ninja pulled up short. She sat up, looking around with a sheepish grin on her face to hide the dry sting in her eyes. "There's a bunch more to the story, and a whole lot of other stories besides, but that's the gist of it," Yuffie said, waving a hand. Her tone dropped back into the usual teenage lilt and slang "Rude says that he doesn't even remember going crazy, so me'n the others, we're in a bit of a pickle."