Nightshift 23: Second floor; east wing, near railed area

[damn-legends.livejournal.com]

[[From here]]

This space. All around him, emptiness. Even his hushed, near-silent footsteps boomed with echo in the emptiness of the corridor; he stopped dead and listened hard.

There was something. Something moving along the corridor, slowly, regular. A scrape, like a wounded man dragging an injured leg. And he could feel something too - feel it, the heat in this cold space...

He gripped his pipe tightly, and ran as quietly as he could towards the nearest wall, bracing his body against it.

Was it coming closer?

Comments

[idolism]

Granted, Aidou wasn't all that easy to recognize as an aristocrat - what with the monstrosity he was wearing, and that he was having a hard time keeping his bratty side under control - but when given a hand to shake, he obviously didn't know what to do with it. At least not automatically. If someone were bold enough to extend their hand to one of the Night Class, it'd probably get torn off by the crowd.

He stared down the proffered hand before finally taking it, slowly closing his fingers around her smaller one. "Sakura-chan, then." He pumped her hand, albeit in an over the top fashion (but then Aidou always had to do things a little over the top, anyway). He couldn't help his handsome face breaking out into a delighted grin. It was so charming! So charming and pedestrian, the way commoners did things. He was going to have to test this with Yuki.

When she answered his inquiry, of course, it was not so common place. 'Ninjutsu' and 'chakra' were just two different ways of defining what vampires did everyday - but in this case, it was being applied to humans. Hm. That their frail bodies were capable of more than just the creation of anti-vampire things sounded fishy. Well, at least in this girl's... world they were. (How crazy did that sound?) That this place was suppressing her strength didn't surprise him, though. "But you and Uchiha... you can still access some of your energy, can't you?"

Naturally, Aidou heard and saw Yuffie coming long before she came to a stop - he made an effort not to fidget. It seemed like when one trouble crawled off, another ran up. Not so ironic that they were in the form of people. He just wanted to get going!

"Yes," he said to Sakura, and, "No," to Yuffie, who was obviously upset. Aidou might've considered feeding off her and keeping her close, but it was precisely because of that that he didn't. She was too easy to read. He reached out, seemingly absently, and lightly brushed the chocolate smudge from the corner of her mouth. She must've been in the 'mail' room if her clothing was any indication. "Don't be mad with me," he said to her, smiling with his usual brilliance. "I wanted to come back much earlier, but Alucard's a cretin." He gestured at Sakura. "This is a friend of a friend, who you could say... just snuck up on me," he said, glancing at the pink-haired girl from under his lashes. "Now we can all be good pals. You should really bring him along with you one night, we could have a morbid double date." Aidou didn't say who, and he especially didn't say he'd already seen Sasuke creeping around with an unknown blade in tow.

[madvampireking.livejournal.com]

((Went to: here (http://community.livejournal.com/damned/98086.html?view=6370342#t6370342)))

[materianinja.livejournal.com]

All things aside, Yuffie figured she was being fairly level-headed about this. Normally, she would have just yelled and stamped her feet and stormed off, but she was being mature this time! And her decision to not run off had nothing at all to do with that thing she ran into the other night. Absolutely nothing!

Yuffie made a slight face when Aidou rubbed the chocolate off her mouth, scrunching her nose up a bit. Not really because she was mad at him, but because it was weird having someone's hand that close to her face. But as far as his explanation went, well... She couldn't really do anything but take his word for it, right? If this pink-haired girl snuck up on him, then it wasn't his fault he got delayed. And he had been heading in her direction.

She still wasn't happy, but her indignation had lessened to a grudging acceptance somewhat masked by her constant urge to be upbeat.

"I'm Yuffie," she offered with her usual grin, though she was too put off to offer the rest of her amazing title. "Nice to meet ya."

[she-bloomed.livejournal.com]

Sakura-chan? It was strange that she couldn't find it within herself to protest; he seemed so very genuine and enthusiastic that it might've felt like stepping on a puppy. Instead, she only blinked and nodded, focus shifting to the question. She remembered the surprise that had come when she'd revealed that she was able to access some of her chakra. If Sasuke couldn't use his, it wouldn't be smart to reveal it to someone she'd just met. Charming or not, that conversation he'd been having with Alucard had been weird enough to put her on edge.

"I can use a little of mine," she admitted, not that she'd really had the opportunity to test out just how much yet. Sakura opened her mouth to elaborate when the subject of a "double date" was brought up, and she was stumbling over herself to find the right reaction.

"I-I don't know about that," she stammered, trying to sound annoyed by the idea rather than embarrassed. "Sasuke-k- Sasuke isn't really the type to do anything if you'd call it a date, and-" Sakura stopped in mid-sentence, forcing a vibrant blush down with all of her willpower. Aidou hadn't even said who he was talking about, and there she'd gone.

Turning on her heel to face Yuffie instead, she managed to salvage a grin of her own as the subject was forcibly changed.

"Sakura. Nice to meet you too!" came the possibly over-ehtusiastic introduction.

[idolism]

There was no reason to bring up his (nonexistent) affiliation with Alucard - as Sakura had walked in on a most unsightly reprieve which he never wanted to discuss ever again. She had apparently chosen to keep it to herself, assumedly to come to her own conclusions. All the incorrect ones, of course, but Aidou was pretty used to human ignorance, so whatever. It worked out well for him, as her misgivings were bleeding into her demeanor.

When she said "I can use a little of mine", he heard: "Sasuke-kun is having some problems, which is why he has to overcompensate with a big sword."

Perhaps there were different levels of power suppression. It was a workable theory. Those without any strength whatsoever, the average human, would probably be unaffected, which explained why weak people like Miku and Edgeworth and Larsa had no complaints. On the other hand, Aidou expected any being - human or not - with advanced abilities or special talents would be feeling the strain. If not, there wouldn't be any cooperation, and three times the brawling.

Then Sakura broke into a babble over his suggestion of a "double date", an even better reaction then he'd expected. Even better than Rukia-chan, and that had been vengeance served pretty good. It appeared that even with a piss poor, robotic personality, a gloomy kid could win the undying affection of a female.

There was hope for Kiryu yet!

"Well, I presume it's just the three of us now," Aidou commented. If he hadn't tried to impregnate Yuffie or something equally debauched, Jack had probably taken off. The list of immediate annoyances was dwindling with the disappearance of Alucard and Jack's fashion sense. "Shall we keep going? Night is almost over."

Unfortunately.

_{[stepping over here]}