"—na-"

… Viridian red buildings; clear water rushing—blood red running and then somewhere else; raining now, raining so hard it rained through bones, sounded like a drum-beat or a klaxon or Cait with his tail stuck in a socket…

"Han—"

… Insistent rain, more like Barret's gun-fire or pebbled sand against glass or both, loud and pounding and drowning but not, and somewhere overhead hung a second moon with a Tonberry leering…

"Hanna!"

… "Shut up," Yuffie mumbled thickly, her voice sticking in her throat like molasses.

"Oh, dear," said the trumpet in her ear. "You do have to wake up now, you know. Can't have you missing anything."

"Can too." Cracking her eyes open was going to be a chore like none other, Yuffie was quickly realizing. She didn't want to wake up. Sleep tugged at her, jostled her, clung to her. It called her back, pulled her under, but the trumpet—the voice; the nurse—was insistent. Had to get up, had to go face the day, and dear, oh dear, perhaps you're running a tad bit of a temperature, just a little, nothing to worry about.

It was then that Yuffie realized the problems.

One, it was morning. She wasn't in a locker room and she (mostly) didn't feel like she was gonna hack up a bowl of innards stew. That was… good. And bad. And it was awesome and it sucked, so point number two, please. Two: she didn't feel like somebody'd set up a blender in her stomach so much as she felt like somebody'd stuffed her head and limbs full of down-feathers and sticky toffee and socks. The cloying sensation was reseeding, but it lingered maddeningly. Point three, and this was the kicker: Plucky had been close enough to shake her shoulder, had been shaking her shoulder, and didn't have a black eye or a broken wrist to show for it.

"Oh, hell," Yuffie groaned.

Plucky tutted. "Language, young lady. Now, up you get."

Up Yuffie got, quick enough to almost send herself stumbling. She would not get sick. Not, not, not! It just wasn't gonna happen. After throwing on a sweater, Yuffie grabbed the two squishy balls—one orange and the other purple (both sporting stupid smiley faces)—from inside her desk drawer before she, Plucky in tow, left for the sun room. If she had something physical to focus on, something more than chatting or people-watching or cuddling with Fuzzbutt, she'd have a better chance of jump-starting herself into gear. Maybe. Hopefully.

Before long, Yuffie was perched cross-legged on one of the sun room's many sofas, Fuzzbutt the kitten languishing cosily in her lap. One hand rested against her knee—in that hand sat the purple ball. The other hand, her left hand, was up and moving, manipulating the orange ball into small tricks and sleights. Nothin' fancy. Nothin' even interesting, as far as the ninja was concerned. Just a quick warm up to get her fingers—and her brain, ugh; it was still fuzzier than she'd like—going.

[For Kaito and Yukari!]

Could the Head Doctor go just one night without saying something creepy and cryptic on the intercom? Anise started to wonder what he meant about seeing visitors sooner than tomorrow, but she quickly decided it was best not to think too much about anything that old bastard said.

The girl began to gather her supplies for the night, retrieving her flashlight, her meat tenderizer, and a pillowcase that was rolled into a tiny ball and crammed into the sack on Tokunaga's back. Anise had to remove the maps inside to make space, but she figured that was okay. If they went outside tonight, those maps would just get ruined in the rain.

Come to think of it, she never managed to find Guy today to tell him what she and Luke planned. Maybe Luke caught him during the field trip? If not, then she could just surprise him!

With the weather like it was, though, she had to wonder if they'd have to change their plans. Climbing the wall and running across the grass was going to be a bit harder with everything all wet and slippery. Just to be on the safe side, though, Anise took the outdoor sneakers from her closet and tied those on her feet. They could probably still tough out the rain if they wanted to.

As soon as she was ready, Anise waved goodbye to her roommate and darted out the door and down the hall.

[to here]

[From here]

Where it was time to go, Yuffie wasn't exactly sure.

The weather warned against another attempt on the outside. Disappointing, but there'd always be another chance in the future; a chance that didn't involve hypothermia, pneumonia, and-or drowning in flood water. Yuffie was no coward, no way, but she could appreciate prudence.

[To here]

[From here.]

Easily forgiven? Unlikely. A pair of (presumably) mental patient committing theft. No, it was highly unlikely they would be easily forgiven. Conscience-wise? It wouldn't even stain his thoughts, really. Nothing like ten years of judgemental slaughter to make your mind jaded against the simpler crimes in the world.

Either way, it could prove to be... okay, he didn't want to say fun because not much about Venom was even slightly amusing (and Edward was very much ignoring the teenage part of him that was all ready to rebel), but it could prove to be adventurous. Especially since he didn't have the agility nor the power to make the feat easy. Having Alice play the stock market wasn't exactly the most hands-on way of stealing after all. It couldn't really be called stealing, after all... it was just using her naturally-created gifts to further the family's fortune.

So his morals were a little skewed. That was okay with him.

Once he'd left the polluted bus behind him - fresh air, thank god - he smiled to see the sky completely overcast, the smallest drops of water misting through the air. He shrugged into the obnoxiously bright raincoat he'd been given, tucking the coupons and the untouched breakfast into one of the pockets, covering his face with the hood. The suit he was wearing was a little worse for wear, but the vampire wasn't exactly looking forward to marching around damp.

Waiting just off to the side for Venom, Edward surveyed what he could see of the town so far. It didn't seen very big... which was good, he supposed. That way it would be easier to navigate. Now that the first order of business had been planned, they would need to find the right outlet for their theft opportunity.

[From here]

The pair were forced to slow down a good deal further as soon as they hit the denser part of the forest. They could barely go more than a few meters at a time before having to dodge a tree or a stand of bushes. The ever-present mist wasn't helping matters much, either. Utena let herself catch her breath at last as they settled into a quick walk rather than a run.

"Feels like a maze in here," she commented as they wandered. Utena looked back over her shoulder; the Institute was no longer in sight. The only indication they had about which direction they were headed was the terrain, which stayed a little more even in this part of the forest than it looked like it would have been further north or south. "Ah, I'm sure we'll get somewhere if we just keep going straight, though. No worries, right?" she added, giving Himemiya a reassuring smile.

[from here]

It was another chilly night, and Meche wished she'd stopped and gotten her coat instead of walking around in the too-thin-for-the-weather, badly-fitted sweatshirt, which was what she was doing. At least she hadn't dressed up.

She didn't see anything moving on the field at first glance, so she began to make her way across the yard in the direction of the wall. "Is that what people say usually happens?" she asked Senna quietly, more because it felt reassuring to keep talking than because she expected Senna to know much about it other than what she'd said.

[from here]

The girl continued walking for several minutes, a bit of a cheerful skip in her step. Before long, the sound of running water in the distance reached her ears. They were making good time, weren't they?

"There's a stream ahead that we'll have to cross," she explained, looking over at Tenzen as she walked. Even though the guy looked strong and competent, she had to wonder how agile a man that big could be. "It's not too deep, and there are stones we can step on, so it's not that hard to cross, though," she added, though she couldn't help but give the man a curious look before turning to face ahead again.

Oh well. She'd find out soon enough whether he could do it or not.

[From here]

And here he was once more, not unlike the night before. Of course, then he'd been falling subsequent to a certain yoctogram. The memory brought a smile to his face. Now he was the prime factorial in that equation.

Checking the darkness once more with the flashlight taped to his arm, Sho didn't immediately notice anything that could pose a threat to him. Just as well; any deciles dumb enough to deal with him would be learning about the force of impact associated with the multiplication of his arm by his shovel.

However, it was just as Sho passed by the hallway of doctor offices that he heard the sound waves of an approaching attoliter...

[For the spider]

[From here]

Left, then right. Left, then right. Left in the next hallway, right at the door.

There wasn't an actual need to repeat the directions to himself at this point, Luxord was just finding the spiraling shadows of boredom creeping up on him as he walked these empty hallways. It was as though spiders were weaving webs of monochrome design, glazing the viewing eyes over instead of attracting them. It was all the same boring stretches of walls, shadows, and the thump of boots on tile. If Landel's devious plot was to bore the Nobody into submission, he had quite the headstart!

Alright now, not too much further. Hopefully he would reach the room before the awkward whistling set in.

[Going over here]

[From over here]

While the prospect of loitering in the hallway he had just passed was tempting (just what was the Keybearer and his friends up to?), X was officially timing himself out of lack of anything else to do. There was no one to speak with, nothing to look at, no cards in his possession, but Time would never abandon. She was always there to focus on, so that was what he did.

Fifteen minutes to reach this hallway in silence...? He could do better, but since he saw no sign of his conspirator, he was not going to rush. Still, that didn't mean he was going to stop moving. The open doors of the Sun Room and the closed door across were ignored for now. They could be explored later when he had no further obligations.

As he kept timing his stride and paced ever forward, Luxord began to wonder if entertaining the idea to paint these walls garish colors would be fun or not. He could even make a game of it, should others get involved...

[lalalalala]

[From here]

Since Landel's idea of fun usually rivalled Hojo's, Yuffie tried really hard not to find the dull, monotonous, tedious stretch of hallway boring. Boring was good. Boring was… boring. Boring, boring, boring.

She had to wonder how people did it. Living in the same place, second after second, day after day, spiralling out into weeks and months and years. A while ago she might've gone totally psychonuts within a week or two. Now she was pushing on three, and wanderlust was threatening to choke her. Good thing she'd be getting out for a while tonight, especially after last night's fail-fest.

In a desperate bid to spice things up a little, Yuffie slipped into a playful not-routine. A ninja-y walk turned into a ninja-y skip n' hop, into an aerial cartwheel, into a back tuck-pike-layover set that brought her to the wall beside the door. "Not too shabby," she congratulated herself. She'd had years upon years of practice keeping her shuriken in hand during gymnastics routines, but with the Institute being what it was, a bit—okay, a lot—of practice was gonna come in handy.

With a twirl for flair and a bounce for fun, Yuffie slipped out of the women's block.

[To here]

The night kicked off with another cryptic, creepy message from the Head Doctor. A rebel? Was he talking about Jill, or maybe another comrade of hers?

Well, whatever. Anise figured it was best not to think on it too much. There was a chance that this was just another ploy to make Jill seem trustworthy, after all. Anise had more important things to think about! Like how she was going to get to the ruins tonight. Ugh. How could she let the whole day pass by without at least asking someone to join her? She couldn't just go alone... could she?

For a minute, Anise was seriously considering that thought, but she knew her friends would probably be upset with her if she went through with it. In a way, she was more worried about getting scolded by them than she was about getting attacked by monsters. Even though getting attacked while on her own would be seriously bad...

When she thought about it, though, there was another way to go about this. She could head outside, see if she could find some other bold individual going the same way, then join up with him or her! Preferably a 'him'. A handsome 'him' would be even better.

As she did every night, Anise gathered her things for the excursion: the meat tenderizer, flashlight, running shoes, and a balled-up pillowcase stuffed into Tokunaga's sack. Once she was ready, she gave the room one last glance to make sure she had everything, then slipped out into the dark hallway.

[to here]

_{[From here.]}

Shinji paused at the major hallway, playing the beam of his flashlight over the walls. This was familiar by now. He'd come through this hallway a couple times before and it was usually as far as he'd gotten into the institute at night. Usually he just stopped - he didn't particularly want to find out how far the corruption went or encounter anything unpleasant. Tonight was different, though. Kaworu was missing (or so he thought). He'd wait here for a few minutes to see if Kaworu passed through. If not, Shinji decided to move on. He'd find Kaworu if it took all night. He owed him that much.

He didn't want any more of his friends to be hurt because he was too afraid to take action anymore. Despite the firmness of that thought, he still found himself fighting against panic and fear. This place still scared him at night. All moving shadows and claustrophobic walls. The feeling of being watched and followed. It was more than creepy, even after a few nights here. He wanted to go back to his room and try and sleep for once, but this was more important.

He wouldn't run away. Not this time. At least, that's what he told himself. He just hoped it wasn't a lie.

Only one more patient to see and the week would be over -- in a manner of speaking, that was. Her official work would be ended, but tomorrow? Ah, tomorrow. Unless the schedule was changed (and why should it be?) tomorrow the patients would be on their field trip to Doyleton. Wandering about town with some pretense at freedom, and right where she could see them. Approach them. And, perhaps, find something, or someone, to provide some small amount of amusement in what would otherwise have been a rather bland weekend.

Still, though, there was that one more patient. A new patient, no less. And female. Though so many of her patients thus far had been terribly disappointing, Makiko still held out hope with each one. Even when temporarily lessened, soothed by a brief, hasty snack, her hunger gnawed ceaselessly and demanded more. More, more, more always more and her choices were sadly lacking here and even more so in town.

She stabbed at the 'play' button on the CD player, then frowned at the song which began to play and quickly advanced to the next track. There'd be none of that, that merely reminded her of home, of what she didn't have now. No. No point in regretting; all she could do was establish herself here. For now, she'd just wait for Miss Jones to arrive.

Luckily for Mele, the night had ended before Tenzen had changed his mind and deemed Mele appropriate for target practice. Even if the situation of who was mocking who had seemed to change into the Iga ninja's favor. Despite her behavior, perhaps the insolent woman could serve some sort of use nonetheless. He had been trapped in this place for a week by now, he would not accomplish anything on his own.

A week was a long time, a lot could have happened. Of course, he was thinking of the war, the bloody clash of two rivaling ninja clans, whose hatred had gone back for four hundred years. After that infuriating peace treaty had been broken, he, too, could finally release the hatred. And despite their losses, Tenzen had been certain that the Iga clan - no, that he would be the one to remain standing.

Four had remained on both sides a week ago...had the remaining Kouga already been killed? Or had they somehow succeeded in disposing of the remaining three Iga (excluding himself) during his absence? Of those three, two were blind. The situation was not a favorable one, and with himself trapped here before he could return from death, he had to wonder if the Kouga had removed the name 'Yakushiji Tenzen' from the scroll and would believe they had eliminated all of Iga's chosen ten.

The thought - along with no manner of telling this - was enough to make his jaw tighten. The longer he would remain here...

But as unfuriating as it was, it would not help him return. After confirming the presence of the scalpels he had retrieved, a nurse entered his room to escort him to the cafeteria for ridiculous Western breakfast. Unfortunately, the same ridiculous food was the only source of nutrition.

Upon entering, the ninja noticed he was the first to arrive to the area. After deciding on a salad rather than these so-called 'pancakes', he moved to one of the many vacant seats.

[Free to a good home. No limits!]

[from here]

It was times like this he had to wonder if he was the only damn person in this place who still cared about finding the fastest way home possible. Which probably wasn't true, but hell. Seeing as the only people he'd worked with so far had 'stealing books' as a goal or were setting up training nights, it was no damn wonder he was feeling more than a little pissed off about the whole thing.

But really, what it all boiled down to, everything that had been bothering him so far, was one simple fact. Raphael was homesick. He knew it too, would have been an idiot not to. He missed the city, the rumble of the subway felt distantly through the walls of their home, sneaking out for late night training sessions with his brothers where they ran across the rooftops playing tag or follow the leader. He missed the nights they'd spend drinking cocoa at April's place, talking all about the things they'd seen and done. But most of all he missed his family. He missed how Leo always had a plan of action and Donny had the tools for the job, while Mikey could keep things light and not too serious. Hell, he even missed Mikey's jokes and how often he talked about that stupid Battle Nexus trophy he'd won. But he didn't know where his brothers were or if they were even alive at all, if they'd been brought here as well and turned into something they weren't or if Karai had destroyed his family as well as his home.

It was the not knowing that hurt the worst, and Raphael had never been good at dealing with that kind of frustration. It made him want to find something, anything really, and just hit it. And keep on hitting it until things started making sense again or he came up with a way to actually leave this place or something.

And somehow he didn't think this little training session was going to help much there.

Ema let the nurse lead her through the facility and out into the recreational field. She wished the nurse hadn't have taken the journal out of her hands to be left in the room--there was quite a bit to take in and Ema's hands were itching to record every little detail. If she was, in fact, kidnapped in order to prevent Lana from being proven innocent, then she was going to have to pass along everything she possibly could to Mr. Wright the instant she managed to get free.

However, that hypothesis was starting to fall apart, as much as Ema wasn't quite ready to let it go. The nurse had called her "Marie," for starters, and it was becoming increasingly obvious that Ema was not the only prisoner. This was a rather large facility, and there were several cells (dormitories?) that lined even the halls the nurse led her through. And then there was that comment that her family had admitted her. That made the least sense of all; Lana couldn't have done this to her to get her out of the way of the trial.

Could she? Lana was really well-connected; it wasn't likely, but it was possible. The thought made Ema a bit sick to her stomach. The two of them didn't get along these days, sure, but to have her kidnapped and locked up somewhere? That was just cruel. Her sister was not cruel. She hoped.

Maybe it was better that Ema didn't have her notebook. She was too lost in her own thoughts to really take in her surroundings. Before she knew it, the nurse opened the door to the recreational field, smiled down at her, and told her to go have fun. Wearing the same smile, she gave a warning not to try running off--there were people watching, and this place was for her own good. There went that idea.

New plan: talk to other prisoners (patients?) and see what the heck was going on. Ema strode past the nurse and into the field, hoping that she wasn't going to be forced to actually do anything physical while outside. Sports were not her thing, and that was the last thing she wanted to be put through after the day she'd had so far.

[Free~!]

Heat was able to ignore the still faintly throbbing spot on his head as he was led back into the cafeteria for another meal he had no intention of eating. He kept himself from rubbing at what he knew would be a small bump because dammit it didn't hurt that much. It was embarrassing, was what it was.

At the fishy odor filling the room when he entered, the demon wrinkled his nose. How that was supposed to be the slightest bit appealing he had no idea. Then again, it wasn't always the taste that mattered. Whatever this cod was, it could very well taste better than the rotting flesh he'd gotten down the night before.

His nurse made some comment about his lack of appetite, but he wasn't paying attention. She could eat his damn lunch if she was worried about it going to waste. It wasn't his fault they didn't inform their staff properly of their patients' eating habits. The room was fairly empty too, so Heat wasn't picky with where he sat. He just hoped one of his tribemates found him before he was stuck with some other pest for the duration of the meal.

[Sasuke?]

Why couldn't she get it out of her mind? It was a stupid white dress. So what if it was visual evidence that she was a princess? It should not be bothering her this much. It was a just a dress.

Falis didn't protest when the vultures herded her outside to the greenhouse for some quality time with Mother Nature, or something like that, as lost in thought as she was. Her headache had subsided to a dull throb in the back of her head, but she still stared at the plants and dirt wondering if they really expected her to bother. She had no talent for such things.

Turning her eyes to the others that had been herded along with her, Falis looked for someone she knew. Someone who might... No. She wasn't going to start questioning herself. It was just a stupid white dress.

[Soma and eventually Hokuto]

[From here]

Utena nudged the door open the rest of the way, moving so that Himemiya might have a better angle to shine her light. "The plus side, I guess, is this means we weren't beaten here. Last time I came this way, some really loud guy made off with just about everything in here singlehandedly." Utena's hand followed the shelves as the flashlight beam washed over them, keeping an eye out for anything that looked like a package of batteries. "There are pipes in here too. They're not the best weapons, but they're better than nothing," she added as she searched.