damned_institute | Nightshift 52: M61-M70 Hallway

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Nightshift 52: M61-M70 Hallway

[from here]

She remembered the last time she'd been down this way. With Yukari in tow, she'd headed over to Mori's room to exchange a closet rod for her shuriken. Okita'd popped out of his own room—man, she hadn't expected that.

But, this time…

Maybe it was a little weird, that she was willing to work with the same guy who'd stabbed a pen through Sagara's lung. That she was being polite enough to set her shuriken point-down on the floor, and to keep it slightly behind herself, with her fingers clasped loosely around the top-most blade. It was a big weapon and not exactly something she could sheathe; keeping it in a non-threatening but easy to manoeuvre from position was a courtesy, though not a deference.

… Kinda weird how interacting with Okita made her actually think about these things, too.

Shaking off any further thoughts of weirdness for the time being, Yuffie knocked on the door. "Special delivery," she announced

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Yuffie set her shuriken to lean against the wall, before hopping and twirling over to join Okita. The long trails of her headband whipped lightly with the movement. It was always nice, after a long day in sucky gray scrubs, to be wearing her own clothes again. Socks and boots beat slippers, shorts beat everything, and hell, even her underwear and accessories were better. How many times had she gone without her headband, back on Gaia? Not often. And now, the feeling of it was almost like a luxury.

… Man. This place made her think way too much.

Instead of trying to peer over Okita's shoulder, Yuffie shifted herself to the side. "Nice," she laughed, as soon as she caught sight of the map. Color, glitter, and doodles? Not bad; not bad at all. Looked like somebody shared her sense of style!

"Times like this, I miss being head of a department," Yuffie admitted, brightly, once Okita was done dishing out the directives. "Turning errands into super interesting training exercises is a specialty of mine. … Anyway," she shook herself out of the tangent, and walked backwards to collect her shuriken again. "Won't take long at all—and I'm guessin' you'll be spillin' the beans on what we're hunting when we meet up with the Yomi chick?" Curiosity was gnawing at her, and a strange, bubbling eagerness was right on its heels. Time to get something done for once, she thought. Kick some ass, take some names… The Great Ninja Yuffie's amazing comeback!

As soon as her shuriken was back in hand and hefted comfortably, Yuffie made for the door—and stopped dead, when the intercom crackled ominously to life. Her jaw clenched, but only briefly; Landel was a sadist, no doubt about that… but so was Weiss, and all the rest of his posse. It pissed her off, but, of course, it was far from enough to drag her spirits down. Burn brighter in the face of adversity, right? There was an old Wutaian saying that went something along those lines.

… And that was when the lights went crazy.

Yuffie huffed, eyes winced shut against the glare and head ducked, ineffectively, against the high-pitched whine. "Geez, how melodramatic can you get?" She shot a glance back at Okita, trying not to blink more than normal, before pulling open the door and stepping just outside of it. "Ah… Out here, too…"

He laughed a bit when Yuffie commented on his map, glad to see she approved of his decorative skill. None of his other superiors had ever been quite so appreciative. Least of all Homura after Okita and Nataku had managed to dump glitter in his hair. The laugh turned into a somewhat nostalgic smile and he closed the map, putting it away now that the objectives had been given. "Yes, I will tell you both what we are doing when we meet her."

Best to conserve the speech so he needn't give it twice. Three of them against the nurses would be difficult, but it wouldn't be impossible. Yuffie had the ability to heal if he remembered correctly so if any of them fell in battle and they had to retreat, there was at least a very slim chance of them dying. So long as they didn't pull more than one or two nurses in the fight, they should be fine; or so he hoped.

Yuffie turned to leave and Okita did the same. He grabbed his sword and bag and turned to the door - only to stop and look up at the intercom. Apparently Jill had been taken. That made two of their supposed allies who were now dead, or soon to be dead. Under pain of torture, even the strongest men or women would break, and apparently Jill had done just that. Marc, the man on the radio, the one Okita had met before, was in grave danger and there was little Okita could do to help as he had no idea where the man was.

Suddenly, the lights burst to life accompanied by a high pitch whine, causing Okita to turn his head away from the source of the light and the sound, squeezing his eyes shut. It seemed today they were going to be blessed with light, or maybe it would be better to say they'd be cursed by it. Yuffie stepped out to investigate and Okita rubbed his eyes as he followed. "...be careful, Yuffie-san. I have a feeling this is a curse in disguise. I'll see you back here in a few minutes."

"A covert operation and bright light," Yuffie commented, "is the best combination ever."

… Right. That was about as true as old man Godo not being the secretive chairman of the local Goldfish Appreciation Society.

Still, the young ninja flashed a cheery, devil-may-care grin. This set-up could—and probably would—be troublesome, but they had a job to do, and there was no point in getting put off before they'd even gotten started. "You too, you too. See ya in a sec."

Without another word, she set off at a fleet-footed jog.

[To here (http://community.livejournal.com/damned/989420.html)]

"Isn't it, just?" he responded, bright as ever. Yuffie was making the best of this, so he needed to do the same. At the very least, he wouldn't need the light stick tonight, which was something of a blessing. He was always afraid of breaking that thing, especially since it made for such a convenient bludgeoning weapon. He set the thing down on his desk and waved to Yuffie as she headed out. "See you soon."

As soon as she was gone, Okita lowered his hand and closed his eyes. One stop down. Now he just needed to get to Homura's room and hope that the demi-god's things were still there. Turning to the desk, he packed the pillowcase bag into the lapels of his kimono, adjusted his haori and headed out the door.

The small blessing for this journey was that he had a very short distance to go. The curse was that it meant he'd need to face the emptiness all that much sooner.

[to here (http://community.livejournal.com/damned/990094.html?thread=73687438#t73687438)]

[here (http://community.livejournal.com/damned/989420.html?thread=73972972#t73972972)]

"… a shining beacon amidst the… no, wait, amidst isn't— ahem, a shining beacon that pierces the veil of enshrouding darkness! An all-encompassing ebullience that buoy… ew, no, that's—I don't wanna think about those. Who the hell thought ships were a good idea, anyway? Stupid rotten rust buckets… Rotten, revilable—ha, that is so a word—retarded, rubbish rust buckets. They should all just sink; save me the trouble of will you please stop being creepy before I punch you, I don't care if you're just a shadow."

Yuffie took a deep breath to continue her rant, before realizing with a start just how far she'd come. Somehow, she'd managed to get all the way to Okita's room. Hadn't she just been trotting along the hallway back down near… Well, well, that was fine. It was just peachy! It saved her the boredom of trekking all that way while actually paying attention, which was, in her opinion, a fate worse than three cat litter trays and a half bucket full of extra strength bleach. In a small house. In a small house with one room, a secret passageway, and no windows, but it did have a booby-trapped cat-flap; she'd installed it herself last spring

"Get a grip," she muttered fiercely to herself. "What's a shadow, compared to a ghost?"

Nothing to underestimate.

"Nothing to flip out over. … Oh my gawd, I'm talking to myself."

Shut up already!

Don't mind if I do, Yuffie retorted, this time silently. It was too early in the game to start getting spooked. No matter what, she had to focus; Okita would be back soon, and when he was, they'd be able to get their mission underway. That meant this was her last chance to pilfer some of the plunder, but Yuffie hesitated, her fingers tightening around the neck of the knot she'd tied in the top of her stolen pillowcase. A little restraint…

… A little restraint would reap benefits in the end, huh. It was one of those situations. With a heavy sigh, Yuffie leaned against the wall just to the side of Okita's door. If he didn't hurry up, she was gonna take something, and he'd deserve it.

[from here (http://community.livejournal.com/damned/990094.html?thread=73976974#t74034830)]

With the pillowcase filled up in his arms, Okita jogged his way back. He wanted to run, but he could feel that little problem of his aching to put him out of commission so he had to take it easy. Which was unfortunate because as he drew close to his room, he realized he was the last to arrive. "Ah! Yuffie-san, I apologize for being late."

Not that he didn't have a reason. He'd been securing them a healer besides her, to help reduce some of the strain. And he'd been able to get Homura's things without much trouble. It just so happened that he couldn't run back as fast as he wanted. Even now he felt a bit winded and, although he tried to hide it, he was going to need the few moments it would take to hide the things they'd gained in order to return to normal.

With a smile, Okita motioned to the door and came to a stop in front of her. "Thank you for waiting. Shall we put these things away and get going?"

By the time Okita returned, Yuffie had progressed from counting cracks on the opposite wall to making shadow puppets with her fingers in the flickering light. The creep-factor hiked up by a gabillion when she realized that said shadows were taking lives of their own, and occasionally growing tentacles. Chocobos really weren't supposed to have tentacles.

"You sure took your time," she complained dramatically, dragging her gaze away from the grotesque patches of black. She half turned, nudging her shuriken out of the way, and swung the door open for him. "I thought I was gonna fossilize. That's no fate for a girl like me."

He looked winded, too, but Yuffie chose not to comment on that. "How'd it go? Anything fun? Anything interesting? I met a kid with cat ears who pouted at me for stealing bedding, but he didn't throw anything at me. But, anyway—I'm all for going. Going's cool." Going would make it easier to concentrate, she hoped, on things that weren't spooky enough to put the old Shinra Manor to shame. It was enough to make even her restless.

"Certainly not a fate for you at all," he agreed, opening the door and heading inside. "But I definitely have some good news."

Although it might not measure up to meeting a kid with cat ears. How was that even possible? Okita paused and looked back at Yuffie for a moment, tilting his head curiously as he thought over that little tidbit. He'd heard of people saying they weren't human before coming here, but he'd never heard of something like that. How weird.

Dropping to his knees, the swordsman pushed his find under his bed as far as it would go into the back corner. Homura's sword was not for giving away yet. Not until he knew better who to trust and what to do with the people he had under him. He had promised Yomi a weapon, but there had been no promise as to what sort of weapon. And he distinctly remembered Nataku having a machete of sorts.

"I was able to secure us another healer, to help take the load off your shoulders, Yuffie-san," he said as he climbed back to his feet. "If you ever need it, a man named Kibitoshin has agreed to help us when possible. And I recovered most of Homura-san's items. Was there anything like a machete or blade in Nataku-kun's things? Yomi-san will require a weapon for our hunt tonight."

"Another healer? … Whew." Yuffie followed Okita into the room, and, after a moment of hesitation, sank into a crouch on the floor to empty her pillowcase. She set out the items carefully, leaving her own shuriken laying flat behind her. "Can't remember how much I've told you about my ability before, but awesome as I am, I gotta admit: it's really more suited to, y'know…" There was a soft jingle and jangle, and a rustle of cloth, as she extracted the keys and scalpels. "… the battlefield, or close to it. The bigger the pinch I'm in, or have been in, the easier it is to use."

The uniform, the box of cigarettes, the gun and the box of ammo, the whiskey, and the machete were soon littered neatly about on Okita's floor. Yuffie sat back on her heels, pillowcase draped across her lap. "There's a machete," she confirmed, staring at it—and everything else—longingly. Her fingers were itching almost as bad as the back of her neck; she could've sworn that the shadows were still flickering, mutating… "And scalpels, and—well, you can take a look for yourself."

"Yes, a surprising number of them are hiding around the Institute." It was like hitting in a gambling ring in order to find one. Lately, more and more people had become silent about their abilities, either due to the bulletin censorship or the general atmosphere of the Institute. He wasn't sure which, but it certainly made recruiting a little more difficult. "It's something like a game to find them all," he added as he turned around to see what Yuffie had laid out. It was quite a find and Okita couldn't help but smile a little at it. "And I wouldn't want you to have to use that when you're more suited to battle, not back-up."

Kenren's uniform, more of those white smoking sticks, a gun and bullets, things they could use somehow or another. Most important was the machete, however, and Okita picked that up, checking it over. This would work well enough while they waited for another try at the upper room. The rest, scalpels and other odds and ends, could be hidden for now. "Hopefully Yomi-san can be satisfied with this for now."

He glanced up again and caught Yuffie looking over the items, causing his smile to grow. "We best be moving. I'm sure no one will come in and my roommate is someone we can trust not to pilfer anything we've so rightfully gained."

With a few careful steps, Okita was by the door and opening it. "We should move. Yomi-san will get impatient." After he was able to confirm Yuffie was with him, Okita started out into the hallway at a jog, trying to keep his eyes off the shadows that seemed to be twisting and lengthening beyond reason.

[going here (http://community.livejournal.com/damned/989523.html?thread=73749331#t73749331)]

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Nightshift 52: M61-M70 Hallway

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