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?

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[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]}