Day 52: Game Room

[full-score.livejournal.com]

Lunch had taken his mind from his worries, if only for a few minutes. But after the intercom sounded and the nurses began leading patients onto the next activity, one look at the bulletin board brought everything back in full force. No replies from Ashton, Dias or Dad. By now Claude felt like he was practically counting down until the end of the day, when he was going to have to finally grapple with the real possibility that most of his friends from before Landel's, as well as his own father, had fallen victim to the institute.

And now he was going to have to deal with his mother being here on top of that. It didn't seem like a coincidence that she'd show up right when his father's whereabouts were so up in the air. But what did it mean? Why couldn't Landel leave his family out of this?

Normally, the announcement about new video games would have made him perk up, but his eyebrows only knit together with concern as his nurse led him into the game room. That didn't seem to stop her from trying to get him to unwind, though.

"Oh, come now, Thomas, you've worn that expression for most of the day!" she told him with a frown. "Why don't you have a bit of fun now that your eyes are all better? I'm sure you could use it."

The last thing he wanted was to be reminded of his "sleep studies", he darkly thought to himself. But before he could protest, his nurse had sat him down in front of one of the television screens. There was an old gaming console, one Claude had never seen before, and he glanced at her with a confused expression. "Go on," she encouraged as she placed one of the controllers in his hands. "I know how much you enjoy these kinds of things. Someone will come play with you soon, too, I'm sure. Doesn't that sound nice?"

He didn't have time to answer her, because she'd soon bustled off to tend to some of the other patients. Claude watched her leave with a sigh. He realized the daytime staff meant well, which made knowing what they turned into at night even worse to think about. But now he was just being negative for the sake of it, wasn't he?

Taking in a small breath, he reached over to the console and turned it on. As long as he was waiting for some kind of answer from the bulletin, there probably wasn't much he could do except pass the time. Claude watched the title screen appear on the television, his expression growing more curious in spite of himself. Super Mario Bros....

[For Prussia!]

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[bitpartgod.livejournal.com]

At the sound of a familiar voice, Kibitoshin looked up- and nearly dropped his counter with embarrassment. Speaking of feeling compelled to behave, of all the people to catch him obviously not having a clue what he was doing-- but it couldn't be helped. Intimidating though Xemnas could be, he wasn't actually actively rude or unkind to him, so that was a plus.

In fact, when he looked at it like that he didn't have any reason to be so startled. It was silly of him to have reacted so strangely, really. "Xemnas! How are you?" he asked with a slightly embarrassed but pleased smile, pushing his latest counter arch away from him and tilting his head at the man. "It's good to see you're still okay! I know you replied this morning, but still."

He didn't look injured, which was nice to see. Now that he thought about it, though, Xemnas had never seemed like the kind of person who'd ever be injured- like monsters and weapons would just sort of... bounce off of him. He certainly couldn't picture anyone getting the better of the man, at least.

[itneverwas.livejournal.com]

To a being who wasn't part of anything, to a mere nonexistent shell, it was of no importance what Kibitoshin chose to do with the counters; whether it was playing the actual game they were meant for or piling them into little arches. Xemnas merely spared it a brief glance, his facial expression betraying little.

"Your notice, though considerate, had been rather difficult to miss," the Superior commented as he finally claimed the seat across the other man. If there were others familiar with his name, then they certainly would know of his presence by now. But there didn't appear to be many others than the Keybearer and a number of his friends, of which at least one was aware of his presence by now. It would only be a matter of time before that news would spread, had they not already been aware themselves. Even then, it was but a small matter the Superior wouldn't entirely mark as an inconvenience; it hardly changed little in the second chance he had been granted.

"As I've said, I am well," he affirmed. "What about you? Did your night go well?" The question was a convenient way to begin prying loose possible information.

[bitpartgod.livejournal.com]

If there was one thing to be unsure about, Kibitoshin couldn't help but think then, it was the way that he could never quite tell whether or not he'd made a mistake with Xemnas. His voice and expression was always so calm and even; Franziska at least was nice (?!) enough to broadcast her emotions loudly enough for the entire Institute to hear them most of the time, but with Xemnas he really had to pay attention. Like now. Did that mean that he'd been just obvious enough this morning, or...?

"Ah- I'm sorry. I didn't really think that one through," he answered, rubbing the back of his neck. "It didn't even occur to me that some of the people on there might not want their names written so big. It's just so hard to get everyone to reply to those things, you know?"

Well. Not personally. He doubted Xemnas ever had trouble with getting people to do things for him- he probably just had to think it hard enough and everyone snapped to attention. Maybe he should have been the Kaioshin here. "My night? It wasn't that bad, for once. I got a baseball bat and didn't get bitten by a monster once. Impressive, huh?"

[itneverwas.livejournal.com]

"Acquiring a weapon is indeed of crucial importance when there are creatures roaming the dark halls," Xemnas commented with a slow nod. A bat may not be the best choice, but the nature of this facility hardly provided them with many choices.

But the subject of the institute's abomination was of considerable relevance. If Kibitoshin truly had been encountering the monsters as much as he was implying, than perhaps he could provide some useful information regarding their nature.

"I have been rather fortunate to avoid them thus far, so I am afraid my knowledge of the monsters is rather limited," he spoke. "Would you, perhaps, be able to tell me of their nature?"

[bitpartgod.livejournal.com]

The fact that Xemnas actually agreed with him was worth a lot, as far as Kibitoshin was concerned. Even with the subject of monsters in full swing, he couldn't help but keep his tone and expression nice and buoyant- he'd actually said something right for once! Now there was something to be proud of!

"That's probably a good thing. They can get pretty nasty," he said, nodding sagaciously as though he knew what he was talking about. From the sounds of things, he was officially going to be the monster expert in this conversation, so why not play up to it a little? It wasn't often he got to be the authority. "Let me think... on my first night I saw a scary person in the front office who looked like some sort of doll. And when I was out with Sechs, we found this horrible mimic creature that came out of the mirror. It looked exactly like Sechs, only all rotting and falling to pieces." He gave an emphatic shudder. "Now that was horrible!"

[itneverwas.livejournal.com]

A person who looked similar to a doll and a decaying mimic coming from the mirror. The head doctor certainly had an interesting choice of creatures roaming the hallways. However, Xemnas did not yet possess a satisfying amount of information. He couldn't be certain whether Kibitoshin possessed this knowledge, but it would do no harm to inquire further.

"Would you be able to elaborate?" he asked. "For example; what did they do? How were they vanquished?"