damned_institute | Day 51: Breakfast

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Day 51: Breakfast

Yuffie Kisaragi, indomitable bouncing ball of sunshine and unfathomable ebullience, was tired. It'd been a long night full of gibberish and getting nowhere fast.

"Can't I—"

Plucky, who had been busily loading a plate full of French toast and bacon, tittered. "I'm afraid not, Hanna, darling. A chat over a nice, hearty breakfast would do you a world of good, don't you think?"

"Aaaaactually—"

"Come on, let's find you a seat. Plenty to choose from this morning!"

For a long moment, Yuffie seriously considered doing something—anything—to act out. Punch her nurse, rub jam in an orderly's face, climb a wall and hang off the ceiling, jump on a table and parody Loveless… A ruckus like that would definitely jolt her back into gear, right? Sedation aside. And it'd turn Plucky's good day right on its head, which was always a bonus worth shooting for.

But, by the time she'd reached a decision—and it was an epic decision, a really awesome one; everybody'd appreciate the genius, she was sure—she was already alone. Her breakfast tray had been set down neatly by the nurse, who had left with an infuriatingly winsome smile.

"Wow," Yuffie muttered. Shaking her head, she picked a chair at random and threw herself into it. She kicked back, one arm slung across her eyes, to wait. For what, she wasn't totally sure. Some moron to decide that she looked like good company? That was how it usually went.

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"Depends how we wanna look at it," Yuffie said to the ceiling. "I mean, on the one hand, I did a totally good deed. Two, maybe! 'Cept that second one, that might be a matter of opinion… Anyway. On the other hand, I didn't get what I went out for." Story of her life. "I also didn't get eaten. That's always a plus, right? Yeah."

She dropped her arm, raised her head, and peered across at the SOLDIER. Ex-SOLDIER, whatever. Yuffie hadn't figured that he'd come gatecrash her table... No way would this be a plain ol' social call. What did they have to be social about? If it wasn't for Cloud—and Aerith, she reminded herself—they probably wouldn't have gone anywhere near each other in the first place. Not with the intent of being entirely civil, anyway.

"So, uh." She scratched her cheek, nails catching lightly on the thin scar she'd gained from Faker Blake-slash-Yuri. "What's up? Need something? Got news? Both?"

Yuffie, doing a good deed? Zack was half-tempted to just start laughing, but he realized that wouldn't be the best way to start off their conversation, especially since he had a few pretty important things to discuss with the girl. The moment that she started talking about it being a matter of opinion he was pretty much convinced that she was lying through her teeth, but he decided to humor her nonetheless. "Is that so? And what would those be?" Unless she was going to keep him in the dark, but then why bring it up at all? Oh, right. To be obnoxious. He wouldn't put it past her.

When the girl questioned why he was there, Zack leaned back in his chair and smirked as he brought a forkful of sausage to his mouth and started gnawing on it. "Both, actually. The news is..." He paused, letting the fork settle on his plate again. There was no easy way to say this, which was why he decided to do it quick. "Cloud and I searched the whole female block for Aerith—or any sign of her—last night. We didn't find anything. I asked a nurse this morning and she said she'd let me know for sure about her after breakfast."

He could have moved on to ask about the rings, but he was courteous enough to wait so that Yuffie could let all of that sink in. He was sure the girl had already started to assume the worst, but things were getting more and more certain as time went on. Why reunite them just to take her away again? Was that just Landel's MO?

He didn't believe her.

He totally didn't believe her.

"Thanks for the vote of confidence, jerkface," she said, brightly. "First up, I healed Tifa's face. Broken noses are no picnic, but you probably know all about that. After that I hung around with an old acquaintance, who I'd healed… wow, jeez. Must've been over a week ago now. His flashlight was on the blink." Yuffie herself never carried one in the first place, but hey, she had a giant shuriken and an assortment of smaller, but equally sharp and pointy, objects to make up for it.

When Zack dropped his bombshell, Yuffie's smile practically teleported off her face. Her jaw clenched. It wasn't a surprise, but… it still hurt, that she'd been right. "… I'm sorry," she muttered. "You n' Cloud, you know what this means, right? What happens when people vanish here?"

Gawd, Cloud. He couldn't be taking this very well. They'd only just gotten her back; why had she been snatched away again so soon? Why'd she been snatched away again at all? It wasn't fair. It was anything but fair. And Yuffie… Yuffie wished that she wasn't getting so used to it.

So Yuffie and Tifa had spent part of the night together, huh? That made Zack wonder what Tifa thought of the ninja girl, and he'd have to ask her at some point. They were clearly friends, especially if Yuffie had given up time and energy to heal her, but he was still curious.

There was another question brought up by that story, come to think of it. "Heal?" he asked with a tilt of his head as he started to cut up his "french toast." He didn't know why it was even called that, but it looked delicious! "How'd you manage that? I heard that Tifa got a materia... was it a Cure?" If that was the case, then Tifa should have been able to heal herself, but maybe she'd been too out of it for that. A broken nose was not fun, though he was eager to hear the story behind that injury. It had to be an interesting one.

Helping out someone who didn't have a flashlight did sound genuinely nice, and Zack was impressed. Chances were that there had been some sort of ulterior motive involved, but that wasn't necessarily bad if it hadn't harmed the other person. There was no polite way to ask, and so he only nodded and let the subject drop.

It was hard to see how much Aerith's likely disappearance struck Yuffie, though Zack also wasn't too surprised by it. The flower girl simply had a way of making a mark on people; he couldn't deny that. He'd seen it in Cloud, too. But when the ninja mentioned something that sounded particularly cryptic, Zack frowned and leaned forward in his seat.

"No," he said, shaking his head. "What is it?" Whatever it was, it couldn't be good, but he still needed to know.

Yuffie shook her head. "Nah, it was a Limit. It's nothin' fancy, especially not here, but it comes in handy." Oh, did it ever come in handy. She might not be able to work wonders with it, but she'd saved Sagara's life. A bit of tiredness and nausea was a small price to pay for something like that. "Tifa's materia… er, I think it's an Ice." Basic, but again, better than nothing. Things were looking up!

… In that respect, anyway.

No amount of materia would change the fact that they kept losing people. Who'd be next? It was—no. No. Yuffie kicked herself sharply in the ankle. What good were those kinds of thoughts? None. They were bad news, and they had no place in her life. Staying positive all the time was impossible, even for the best and the brightest, but stupid doubts… they had claws. Geostigma was gone, but the memories weren't.

"They don't get to go home. They're out there—here, y'know? In this world. They believe all the Institute's lies; they're living all the Institute's lies." Yuffie bit her lip, looking out across the cafeteria. "They come back to visit, sometimes. Sure, it's better than if they were dead, but…" She looked back at Zack, shrugging one shoulder helplessly. "I can't think of any wisecracks," she admitted.

So she also had a healing Limit, huh? Zack figured it wasn't that rare, but thinking of his own was just going to push salt into the wound. He'd found the strength to use that one from meeting Aerith, and now she was gone. Now he wished he hadn't asked in the first place.

"Ice, huh?" he remarked, doing what he could to focus on something else. "So we just need Fire and we'd have a full set." Not that there was much of a chance of that happening. Another annoying thing to note was that because of the fact that they were sharing the materia among so many people, the chances of having a useful one on hand for the specific monster you were fighting was pretty slim. Ice would have probably worked well against that brainwashed patient last night, for instance, but he and Cloud had only had a Thunder.

When Yuffie explained what Aerith's fate was, Zack dipped his head down so that he was staring at his food instead of the girl's face. She was right that it was better than death, but it still rubbed him the wrong way. That world out there wasn't theirs. Even if Gaia had taken a lot of hits since his death, if what he'd seen the other night was any indication, it was still home. He doubted that Aerith wanted to be away from it like this.

The idea of her visiting was a troubling one, too. He wanted to see her again, of course, but like that? Not so much. Sighing, he gave a clearing shake of his head. "Thanks for the heads up. I'd rather not get ambushed with something like that." And really, it was probably for the best that Yuffie didn't have a witty comment this time around.

It was probably better if they moved onto a new subject, though. After taking a bite of the toast, he swallowed and then brought up his earlier mentioned question. "You have the ring, right? Did you hear what Landel had to say about it last night? I only caught bits and pieces of it."

When in doubt, talk about materia. Worked for Yuffie! It'd been a coping mechanism of hers for years, ever since she'd found out what materia really was. The key to her dreams, the source of power… everything she'd needed. Everything Wutai had needed. How much easier would life be here if they just had some more materia? The Ice and Lightning alone wouldn't go too far. Too many people to share them between, and then there were elemental weaknesses and all that fun stuff to consider.

But, thing was, there was materia here. Somewhere. It was there to be found, and that was what counted most. "Hey, y'know… They do have more materia here. I dunno about Fire, but they've definitely got Poison, Added Effect, Transform, Steal, and my Leviathan Summon." Yuffie was pretty sure that it had been her Leviathan; who else's could it have been? They all belonged to the Kisaragi bloodline, and she'd kept the newborn after she'd mastered Godo's old one.

Yuffie was more than happy to let the topic of Aerith and visitors drop. She sat back in her chair, staring idly at her still-full plate of food. One of these days, Cloud was gonna get a visitor, and Zack was, too. Hopefully it wouldn't be Aerith. Hopefully.

She perked up a little at the mention of the ring. "Yeah, and yeah," she said, nodding. "I didn't try it out, 'course; who'd wanna go back to that smell ol' locker? Anyway…" Puffing out her cheeks, the young ninja thought back to the head doctor's last announcement. "Landel was sayin' that if we break the stone, we can drop a bit of blood onto it—it'll solidify into the new stone, or something. Whoever gives the blood gets to be the rings new owner, and where the blood was given determines the new location."

More materia? Well, that was definitely something he wished he had known about before now. Zack eyed the girl carefully, noting the way that she seemed to know which exact ones were apparently around. How could she know with such specificity and yet not have gotten her sticky fingers on them yet? It all sounded kind of suspicious, but seeing how she had decided to bring it up with him in the first place, it seemed like she'd be willing to spill. "How do you know?" he asked. "Where are they?"

He wasn't sure how useful some of those would be, but he could definitely see Poison coming in handy, at the least. And Leviathan? Zack had only heard rumors of that mythical water snake that called Wutai its home, but Yuffie was speaking as if she'd seen it in action. He wasn't going to deny its existence, having seen enough things during his time in SOLDIER that should have been impossible. It was just a shame that he'd probably never get to see the creature for himself.

Zack couldn't really fault Yuffie for not wanting to head back to that locker, but the information that Landel had spilled certainly made things a lot more interesting. So it was a blood offering, huh? It didn't sound like it would take much; just a prick on the finger, maybe, and they could get back to important places (provided they could make it there in the first place). He couldn't help thinking of Aidou's mission to the basement. If Aidou or Sasuke had gotten a ring, that would definitely make things easier. If not, maybe he could attempt to get Yuffie to let him borrow hers (it technically belonged to all of them, right?), but he knew that was a long shot.

"So do you think you're gonna test it out tonight?" he asked as he leaned one forearm on the table and then took another bite of food. "Or did you have something else you needed to do?" Seeing how the girl had spent last night helping out some friends, it sounded like she might have time in her schedule to try the ring out after all.

"You've run into special counselling patients before, right? Y'know, those ones that get all brainwashed up and sicced on any patient that wanders by their post?" By now, there's no way Zack wouldn't have. He wasn't the kind of guy who'd settle for hanging out in his room all night; he'd be right out there in the thick of things. And the thick of things was always the best place to find the crazies.

Yuffie laughed, just shortly, under her breath. "It was a while back now, but I was one of 'em. That's how I got my shuriken." Crackity-crack-crack went Mori's collarbone, somewhere in the back of her mind. She ignored it. "And those were the materia I had. All of 'em mastered, and I'm pretty they're all mine." Which was yet another big black mark on Landel's record. Her stuff was her stuff; nobody else had the right to mess with it!

"I don't know for sure where he keeps it all. It's gotta be somewhere, though, and I'm guessin' that the third floor is our best bet." She raked her fingers through her hair, frustrated that something so important was so close, but still just a pipe-dream. "We tried to break one of the outside windows to get up there once, but my shuriken just bounced right off. It didn't even leave a crack. The only ones who might know a way up are the History Club, and if they do, you bet they won't be sharing."

She kicked her legs back and forth underneath the table, shaking off the disquieting sense that, despite having been stuck in this dump for three weeks, she'd been making about as much progress as legless chocobo. "Weeeeeeell," she drawled. "I was gonna go snatch up all our patient files, but that ring, it's really too good an opportunity to miss out on. I was thinkin' about trying the outside again," because good things always happened when she got out over the walls, haha, not, "or maybe the basement. I've never gone that way before."

It was funny that she was bringing up brainwashing when Zack had only just run into someone who'd been under those effects last night. Still, it got less funny when Yuffie revealed that she had actually been victim to it before. Zack immediately tensed, because even if this girl had given him a hard time in the past, she hardly deserved something like that. He'd always been looking out for her, after all, and some small part of him had wondered if she'd maybe been kind of lonely back then.

But how terrible, to be given all of her most useful items only to have them taken away again. Well, it sounded like she'd gotten her shuriken out of the deal, but he doubted that that was a price she'd been willing to pay for it. Still, seeing how it had been forced on her, at least she hadn't come out of it empty-handed.

"The third floor, huh..." Zack drew a hand to his chin as he realized that he hadn't heard much about the third level of this building until now. He got the feeling that was because no one knew much of anything about it, which probably meant that that was exactly where they needed to look. If they ever found a way up there, anyway.

"That's annoying," he muttered when the girl explained how her attempt to sneak up there had failed. "I guess it's being heavily guarded." And what was this about a club? Zack had seen postings about different ones on the board, but he was content to stick with his friends and the people who he met and befriended here. He wasn't that eager to get involved in another hierarchical organization, even if it was one that was run by the patients.

In his opinion, trying out that ring was going to be more worthwhile than looking for files, but he was glad to see that he didn't really have to pull Yuffie's arm on that point. When she mentioned the basement, he perked up slightly and nodded. "I've been down there, actually," he told her. "I met someone who was interested in exploring it further, but he needed an extra man. I'm hoping he got himself a ring." Since seriously, that would be way easier than asking the ninja to hand over hers.

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Day 51: Breakfast

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