"I could tell you some stories," Yuffie suggested brightly, "of unquestionable legality." Illegality, that was. Petty little things like the law didn't usually mean very much to her, except for the times when she had to uphold it. Always fun for the breaking, though, the law, and messy for the clean-up. Just the way she liked it.

Her nurse looked like she wanted to rub her temples. With sandpaper. "No, thank you," she said instead. "Why don't you run along, now?" Please!, was the unspoken request. Before I spontaneously combust. Or commit various acts of violence that would have me arrested, or placed in a loony bin. Like this one. Yuffie had quite a bit of fun filling in the blanks other people left. Sometimes she did it outloud, just to see the reaction; sometimes she kept it to herself. It really, really depended.

"Don't mind if I do!"

She took off, bolting out into the Courtyard. The weather was dour, overcast and threatening rain, but Yuffie didn't care. She'd refused a coat on principle, and had found herself bargaining: Fine, fine, Plucky had conced she could go without a coat, but unless she had at least a sweatshirt on, there'd be no outside-time for her. She ran a little ways down the dirt path, then toppled herself into a series of cartwheels. Straighten, run. Cartwheel. Straighten, run, just for the sheer sake of movement, and the whip of the wind. She laughed a little giddily, checking her gait down to a jog. Gawd, Leviathan, she'd needed this. Right from the get-go, she'd needed this. Every day she spent cooped up in side, the more nervous energy she had.

Nanaki had helped, she realized. Sort of. He'd…helped. In a way. His presence and everything that was wrong with it weighed on her, for sure, but he was still Nanaki. He didn't deserve to be here, didn't deserve to be stuck in a body that he hated and couldn't use, but all the same, she found herself glad to have him.

Yuffie started to hum, as she jogged leisurely around the Courtyard. A cheery little tune, one of her favorites; no, it was her favorite. A Wutaian walking song, with the roughly translated title of Pathway After the Rain. The pace stayed even but the tune picked up, and she found herself half-singing snatches of the lyrics to herself. It felt like ages since she'd last said anything in her native tongue, at least outloud; she wrote in it all the time.

[The Doctor]

Hmph. While this Rude was the proverbial "man of few words," von Karma found more potential use from him than a number of the other patients he had met put together. He would still ask Franziska about the man... as well as the other people he had learned that she had been spending time around. Many of them were utter fools, especially that Kibitoshin.

He ignored the nurse as she insisted that he stay indoors, lest he "catch his death of pneumonia." Already having planned to meet his daughter in the Sun Room, the prosecutor had no intention of spending the cold, gloomy morning in the Courtyard anyway.

It appeared that he was the first to arrive in the spacious room. Gray light from the overcast sky filtered in through the glass windows high above, making it somewhat more difficult for von Karma to peruse the notes on the bulletin board as he awaited Franziska's arrival.

The lines in his forehead furrowed as he saw Kibitoshin's note to her, asking her whether she was "feeling better." What made that blasted oaf think that it was any of his business how she was doing or to worry about her?! She had been raised to take care of herself, damn it! ...Did Franziska say or do something that would lead the clumsy idiot to think otherwise? This, among other things, von Karma would ask her.

After removing his daughter's response to his original note from the board -- and noting that Ms. Taura had yet to reply to his other note -- he sat down at a table in a remote corner of the room, claiming this space that would afford him and his daughter the most privacy.

Mew?

What was that noise? And what was that tugging sensation at the leg of his pants? He peered down in the direction from which the irritating sound had come and was greeted by a tiny orange kitten that had the mistaken notion that his leg was a climbing post. Infernal creature! One glance at his face, and the furry little nuisance was suddenly at the other end of the room, having cleared it within several skittish bounds. Good riddance!

[Waiting for his Dear Daughter]

Once again the doors had opened. Cloud believed most of what Yuffie had told him, but it was still unreal the way this place operated. They were clearly being tested, mocked, or both with the nightly routine, yet they didn't have many other options but to take the chances they were given.

Still unarmed, but hopefully ready to deal with anything, the blond nodded a goodbye to his roommate before stepping out into the hall with nothing but his flashlight. Yuffie's room was in the single female block, which was on the other side of the block he was currently in. It wouldn't take long to get there, but knowing that creatures could attack the patients even within the patient block caused him to keep his guard up right from the start.

[to here]

[From here.]

Dias had simply assumed things could only get worse - he was generally a pessimist, if only because there was at least a certain grim satisfaction in being right frequently - and he wasn't disappointed. Moving, and moving with urgency, was definitely making his wound bleed more freely; the sheet was completely plastered to his chest with blood by now, and he wasn't entirely certain how much good it was doing anymore.

And, of course, the hall was completely empty, from one length to the other; it was dark enough to make that not entirely discernable visibly, but the complete silence and just the sense of emptiness was enough to tell Dias that not only was no one in the hall, no one was even within hearing distance. And, really, could he have necessarily relied on assistance even if he'd found someone? He wasn't sure what kind of picture he'd make to an outside observer, but he was certain that it probably wasn't one which inspired confidence...and he, himself, had never been one for inspiring goodwill. Besides, he was pouring blood; he might as well be monster bait. There weren't many people in the institute he'd trust to help him in spite of the fact that he might bring an attack down on the heads of his rescuers, and of those he did, he certainly didn't know how to reach them.

Still, with bloody-minded (and bloody-everything-else) determination, Dias moved down to the far end of the hall, keeping one hand on the wall as the dizziness grew worse. He really doubted falling over could make things that much worse, under the circumstances, but he'd still prefer to avoid it.

When he reached the door, he paused, debating what he should do, and what he was actually able to do. He could press on a bit further, he was fairly certain...but he recognized that, if he did, there was no way he'd have strength enough to make it back to Guy. And Guy was even more helpless than he was at the moment - leaving him undefended, even if Dias himself was in no shape to do much defending, felt like...some sort of betrayal. Or at least a failure. If he couldn't find help, then Dias ought to at least be there to help Guy himself as much as, and for as long as, he could. And Guy had asked him to come back, as well...

With the indecision came hesitation, and in that lack of momentum, the lightheadedness took full advantage, his body suddenly cashing in checks he hadn't realized he'd been writing. The transition as he sank heavily to his knees took him entirely by surprise, and some consternation.

[From here]

Sho came to a halt as he topped the stairs, glancing down this hallway and that. He had a triumvirate of options and he hadn't a clue which one was right.

"There's a kitchen in this quadrant," he explained more helpfully. "The one downstairs requires going through the Sun Room and I've so far gathered convincing data suggesting a high probability of meeting attack in there. This one, however, bypasses that prerequisite." And instead was a big unknown, but what kind of man of science, even one who was first and foremost a man of numbers and art, didn't like exploring the unknown? "And in a kitchen we can probably find lighters and matches." He grinned. "And knives."

He'd obtained his share of blunt objects, and sure he had the paper cutter arm in his jacket, but nothing so precisely dividing as a knife. He wouldn't mind adding a few of those to his arsenal.

"Now, the only question is which directional do we go with?" he muttered, considering his options. Right headed over to the other side of the institute, which was definitely not where he'd seen the kitchen marked on the ill-remembered map; it also headed over the Sun Room, which could be just as bad as through it. Turning left meant going back the way they'd come, which reeked of backtracking and inefficiency. That left straight ahead.

"Let's go thataway!" he declared, directing forwards with his shovel. A sense of purpose in his stride, Minamimoto was off.

[from here]

Once away from the safety of the patient block, Momo slowed down as she traveled along the left hand wall to cover her blind spot. In this position, she could easily draw her sword and deal with issues as they arose. Hopefully, there would be none.

Momo had too much on her mind to want to deal with anything she didn't have to.

The game room made Heath feel more like he was being treated as a child than any other place in the Institute. It might have just been the selection they had to choose from. A deck of cards was a safe choice and would hopefully keep him from attracting much more energetic company. Yet as he sat down and began shuffling them between his hands he was surprised to find that he couldn't remember how to play a single game. At a loss, he blamed it on his current state of mind.

The red-head sat back in his chair and began looking through the deck one card at a time, if only to have something to do with his hands. The kings, queens, and jacks blurred together despite suits as this did nothing to distract him from the pangs of his still somehow empty stomach.

The deck was eventually tossed to the floor in front of him, free for anyone who felt like a game of 52-card pick-up.

Heath swore under his breath and slouched where he sat. This whole ridiculous matter was more than wearing thin. He'd have to get the involvement of a nurse before dinner. There was nothing else for it. Still, more than one came close enough to stop and he did nothing. Something deep within him knew there wasn't anything any of them could do.

[for Argilla]

[Warped in from here.]

When Guy's eyes opened, it was almost as if he was waking up, and yet he knew that wasn't the case; he was standing, with a weapon in his hand, and somehow feeling far more comfortable than he had in weeks.

His gaze was on his feet, and it took him a few seconds to let everything sink in. He was wearing boots. His boots. And while being back in familiar clothing wasn't so new to some people, it was definitely a big change for him.

His head then snapped up and he realized just what he was holding. It wasn't Ashton's sword, but his own, the Jewel of Gardios -- and on top of that, Guy realized that he felt more powerful somehow. Did he have access to fonons? He had been working without them for so long, but it was almost as if he could feel them in the air now.

All of those changes didn't matter as much when he took in his location. The sphinx had warned them, of course, but the huge coliseum still impressed him, and what was even stranger was the way sunlight seemed to be filtering in from overhead. Was it actually day? This almost felt like he was in some sort of dream.

But that theory was torn into shreds when he eyed Sync, also in full form, standing across the arena from him. So what, they were supposed to fight? Guy didn't have a problem with that (it was what he'd come down here intending to do, after all), but he knew there had to be some kind of catch.

As he glanced to the side, he saw that Claude and Dias were in similar positions, except facing each other. "Wait," he muttered under his breath. No way were those two going to fight each other except in a sparring capacity, so what was going on? He wasn't sure where Anise and that other girl had gotten off to, but maybe it was for the best that they weren't here...

[To here]

After reaching the top of the stairs, Tenzen slipped into the next hallway. This time, the hallway consisted out of a normal floor, ceiling and walls, as opposed to the pulsing flesh from last night.

Sliding his hand along the wall, the ninja kept his flashlight switched off as he headed East.

[To here]

[From here]

Unsurprisingly, the stairwell appeared to be empty.

There was, however, no excuse to allow himself to be caught off guard. Now that he had gone further away from the patient blocks, the chances of an ambush would naturally only increase. Not that such a thing would stop one of the Ten Chosen Iga, of course.

His eyes peered into the darkness above, concluding there was nothing of note, before silently ascending the staircase.

[To here]

[From here, after a certain lady general has passed through the hall.]

The flashbulb came on with a click, illuminating the area. The hallway was empty, as far as he could tell, allowing the light to flood where it could reach. Edgar shined his light one way, then the other. They'd taken stairs in a later hallway, hadn't they? He remembered meeting Kuukaku there- she'd certainly been lovely, even if she was a bit hot-tempered- then traveled upstairs to the enchanted hallway.

Maybe heading up the same set of stairs wasn't such a good idea after all, since there was a chance that hallway was still enchanted. On the other hand, he wasn't seeing extra hallways and doors this night- perhaps the enchantments changed nightly. That could be a pain to deal with.

First things first- he needed to get to the hallway with the stairs, then he could see if there was another way around.

It'd been nice to talk with Subaru, if only to see that the young man was faring a little better than before.  He seemed to have the worst luck and unfortunately, there wasn't always someone there to protect those that needed it the most.  As he passed the Sun Room, there was still no sign of a post from Ururu either.  Things didn't look promising.  But the nurse didn't stop there, she led him out and into the waiting room, empty now, but she promised his visitor would be along shortly. 

He thanked her and nodded, taking the seat provided and folding his hands quietly in his lap.  Would today be the day that he would get to leave this place with Ashura?  He'd done everything he could.  Followed the nurse's and doctor's orders, taken his medicine, even though it was causing havoc with his magic and his health, he'd tried to keep from causing any major fusses.  Would that be enough?  If he didn't get out soon, well... he didn't want to think about what might happen.

So he continued to sit, looking up anxiously every time the door opened, wringing his hands in his lap.  There was a mixed feeling of dread and happiness that seemed to be at war within him.  It would be a relief to see him again, but at what cost?  How long could he keep trying to balance two different lives?

Sam frowned when he heard the intercom message. That didn't sound right. He'd gathered from his conversation with Sen that everybody in the institute was sane, but that the staff were trying to convince them they were mental patients for some nefarious purpose. So why that announcement? If Sam knew anything about brainwashing, he knew that it was a bad idea to announce it to the brainwashees. Good thing he was immune to...

"Oh no," mumbled Sam, feeling the top of his head. He wasn't wearing his hat, and if he wasn't wearing his hat, he wasn't immune to mind control. His mind was totally open to whatever insidious brain... control... things this place planned to inflict on him.

They seemed to be leaving him alone for now, though, so he headed back into the Sun Room and inspected the bulletin board, which was very hard to miss now that he was looking for it. It was plastered with messages, some signed with strange aliases, and some babbling about zombies.

Sam read the messages closely, engrossed. The biggest thing he'd learned about solving cases these days was that it was important to read everything. Talk to everyone too, but that could wait. Even that short conversation with Sen had taken all of brunch.

[for Scott Pilgrim]

The intercom message was unnerving. Again with this I.R.I.S. thing, and some nonsense about guests and tours. What the hell was going on? Was the head doctor really dead? That seemed to be the theory, but Asch couldn't be sure. He hadn't thought this place could get any nuttier, but apparently, it could.

Asch wasn't sure he even felt like eating, but the nurse insisted. So he got his tray of food and sat in the corner of the cafeteria, away from the other patients. He was well aware that this particular strategy was flawed, of course, as it had yet to provide him with anything resembling peace and quiet.

He hoped against hope, though, that he wouldn't be bothered. That annoying guy that used to room with the replica had no reason to come and bother him, and he'd spoken to Claude yesterday. He knew that the man from the night before - Apollo, that was what he'd written on the bulletin board - wanted to repay him somehow, but that wasn't exactly going to happen at a lunch table.

He reminded himself that he'd have to take the kitchen shears to Alfred to exchange for the meat cleaver, once night fell. The cleaver wasn't his first choice of weapon, but it beat the hell out of stabbing things with shears.

He took a drink of his juice and sighed. Maybe he'd get in contact with ZEX regarding night shift; he wasn't sure he wanted to venture out alone.

[Guy]

And just like that, the disorienting feeling of blacking out just to wake up in an unfamiliar bed came again. Alkaid had wondered if it would - everything about last night had been different, all the way from the zombies to the eerie emptiness of the Institute to the strange broadcast at the end of the night. Had the Head Doctor been shot? Damn, someone had gotten to it before her. And who was the voice at the end there? It was like she'd been allowed access to some kind of strange mystery that she could not understand, one that had been going on for a long time before she had arrived and would be going on for quite a while in the future, after she was gone. Had these strange sets of circumstances been bugs in this place's programming? Who could say?

The morning's intercom greeting was strange, as well. Federal training whatsit? It didn't seem like this happened very often, from the sound of it, but so much had happened since the last day she remembered that the former Demon Palace Emperor was ready to take pretty much anything at face value.

The room she woke up in was still empty. Wondering where to stick the half-cracked bat that she'd picked up last night, she shoved it under the mattress hastily when she heard footsteps in the hall.

The stupid nurse was the same as ever, though. Some things never changed. "Ahh, good morning, Eileen. It's so nice to see you awake."

Alkaid rolled her eyes at the nurse's chuckle, and shook her head. She didn't care that the NPC thought it was nice, she just wanted to see the rest of the institute already.. see what had changed! "Yeah, it's fantastic. Whatever! Just take me where I'm going and be done with it!"

It was just then that she realized that she was not wanting to devour the flesh of the nurse in front of her. And that the pain on her arm had kind of abated - she couldn't see through the thick bandages they had covered her arm with, but she wondered if her skin was still rotting off like a zombie. Had they somehow cured her infection overnight? Or was the nurse not human, like Alkaid had always thought?

There was only one thing for it: she had to go somewhere else.

"Chapel, sun room, or cafeteria, then?"

"Does it look like I care?"

The nurse sighed, then started walking Alkaid down the hall, up the stairs, and down another hall to the chapel. No one here yet, huh? That was weird. She couldn't imagine that no one else'd show up, but who could say? This place had been turned on its ass.

The chapel was empty so far, and kind of nondescript. She shooed the nurse away, and stood in the middle of the space between the pews, standing akimbo. What would happen today? What would she learn about herself... her situation? How long had she been sleeping? Was she really still going freaking undead, or had that been somehow taken care of?

All this would come to light really soon. She hoped. Geez, too many mysteries!!

[unwittingly awaiting Haseo]

[from here]

Junpei burst out of the Twin Pines, dragging his chair along with him. Wide eyed, with sweat dripping down his face (he was so not crying), the teen stared at the hordes of zombies in the street. What was he going to do? He could still feel Chidori's presence, so she had to be alright. She had to be - right? RIGHT?

"SENPAI!!" Junpei yelled at the top of his lungs, hoping one of his senpai would find him. He was alone, surrounded by zombies, and didn't have an evoker. He was scared. "MITSURU-SENPAI! AKIHIKO-SENPAI! WHERE ARE YOU?"

The sudden zombie apocalypse forced any thoughts that Junpei had been pissed off at Akihiko and avoiding him. Akihiko could punch a zombie and makes its head explode. Mitsuru could kick a zombie and make its head explode (no matter where she kicked it). Junpei? He could... swing his chair ineffectually at the closest zombie as it tried to eat his brains. Good thing he didn't have much of them; maybe they would get a whiff and decide to go after someone smarter. Which made him think of Yukari.

"YUKA-TAN!"

Shit. No one was there for him to hide behind to help him. Maybe he could find them the next street over. It had to be called Main Street for a reason, right?

He tried to sneak across the street, hoping maybe this hat they gave him had some kind of special stealth mode, but forgot he was still clutching to his chair. Junpei tripped over it, screaming like a little girl in the process. Zombies descended and the teen struggled,m kicking and punching and pathetically swinging the chair around in an attempt to get back to his feet. He cried out in pain when he felt something bite his ankle, but the chair came down and crushed that zombie's head. Struggling to his feet, Junpei just ran, swinging the chair back at the zombies he'd just escaped as he entered the alley across from the restaurant.

[to here]

At first, the idea of being stuck in this meatbag dwelling sector at night seemed like a wonderful idea. So many targets, such an open field, and so many things that could be repurposed for use as weapons!

...Then he saw all the zombies. After the talk of those 'space barnacles' last night, it was fairly easy to identify them as such. But the only thing was, those things were supposed to only affect droids.

Now there were meatbag zombies. All over the place. And he didn't have a flamethrower. Oh no no no nononono.

In short, HK freaked out.

Brainiac 5 was bored.

Since he'd been, for lack of a better word, abandoned in the park this morning, he'd had little to occupy his attention beyond the brief distraction offered by Peter's odd visit. And while earlier he might have insisted that he didn't require any company, that the silence and space gave him time to think and work on more important things, he actually found himself missing the company of others and the break it gave him from his own thoughts.

He supposed it made a certain amount of sense. While he'd preferred to work alone on his numerous, complicated projects, it had been a regular occurrence to have others of the Legion dropping by his laboratory to ask questions about what he was working on and to check up on him. He'd gotten used to it, and had even come to welcome some of the intrusions, such as when Clar-

He clenched his hand into a fist, nails digging sharply into his palm hard enough to leave indentations in the skin. It helped distract him before he lost his hard-won control over his emotions, but it was much less effective than he would have liked. He needed something else.

Unfortunately it would seem that the one time he would have preferred his nurse to abduct someone for him to talk to, she had instead wandered off to take care of something else, leaving him alone for the time being.

Very well, he'd already planned something else in case of this exact circumstance, and now that the day had warmed up enough, he should be able to get away with his plan. Shifting around carefully, Brainiac 5 managed to take off his jacket without bothering his injuries too much, though his shoulder still caused a wince and hiss of pain. Still, the end result made the effort somewhat worthwhile; the shirt he'd been given today was no longer hidden away.

Smoothing the fabric against his skin, he frowned slightly as his eyes flicked over the binary.

"This is gibberish," he said finally, sounding put out. "It doesn't even begin to make any sense."

His gaze rose to glance around the area again, noting this his nurse was still absent before he produced a pen from his pocket and set about correcting the flow of numbers. No doubt his nurse would try and stop him once she noticed, but he found the idea of wearing something that didn't make any sense whatsoever more irritating than wearing a shirt sporting the occasional neat pen mark.

And at least it gave him something to do for the time being.

[open, no limits!]

[continued thread from here]

Hahaha~ Poor Sheena. At this rate, she was doomed. At least it was a playful kind of doomed. Sheena was her friend after all, and if Harley actually felt the girlie was in any danger, she wouldn't have been as nice to little miss youkai over here. Sheena was so dramatic sometimes, heh.

Harley made an excited Oh! noise when she heard this was Yukari's first trip. Fun! "Place is small and boring, but you can have fun anywhere if you know how. We're all dolled up with nowhere to go anyway. Let's hit the town!~" Dusty, little Nowheresville town, but still. Might as well take advantage of whoever's tax dollars were funding this little trip.

She turned away from Yukari, leaned forward, and held a hand up above her eyes as though she was concentrating real hard on looking far away. She turned her head back and forth eagerly as she spoke. "I just been down this street before. Not a whole lot. There's a burger joint and some beauty places and a grocery store and some place with TVs and ya can't really see it from here but there's a hardware store waaaay down there, too. Also heard there's a toy store somewhere around here!"

Harley wasn't a really picky person when it came to the where. If it was up to her, she'd be picking up a big mallet, some machine guns, and a flamethrower... some snacks, too. She hadn't had anything high in sugar in a long time. Since even she knew those weren't an option, well, there had to be some place that was fun.

Yuffie took the long way around, practically making it a tour of the entire town. She collared--not literally, since the nurses would've thrown fits--a few random citizens along the way, asked as many inconspicuous sounding questions as possible, and then moved on. Wash, rinse, repeat. Sneaking a few covert glimpses into stores and windows confirmed what she'd been talking about with Sam earlier; no dates, no explicitly mentioned locations outside of the town itself… how weird was that? Even the most insular of towns back on Gaia would've coughed up some kind of connection with the outside world.

It was almost like a living ghost town.

Well, maybe she was just thinking too hard. Maybe she was throwing shuriken too hard at the wrong target. Back home, she had a concrete frame of reference. Here, she couldn't take anything for granted; she had no local or international knowledge whatsoever. All she could try to do was get a profile of the immediate area and build it up and out from there. Theories were already budding, popping up like weeds hit by Quadra-Haste, but without facts to back them up, theories were like sand in a desert.

Not that she didn't want to share those theories, sand or not. She did. A lot.

Once she'd developed a viable mental map of the place (as viable as she was gonna get given the time constraints), Yuffie swung back around and jogged back to North Street. From there, she took the alley; a quick right turn; slow to a trot, and there. Her cheeks were tinged pink from the cold winter air, and they stung as she poked her head in through the door.

Okay, so maybe she was a little early after all. That was cool. Very cool. She had some time to set things up, to pretend that she wasn't hideously under prepared for this lunch date. Stepping into the warmth, Yuffie surreptitiously cased the place out as she headed to a table. Homey, in a way that almost reminded her of some of the up-and-coming rural towns. Automatically seeking out one of the more strategic seats--one with a good view of the rest of the restaurant, and one that didn't leave her totally vulnerable to mutant chairs or murderous sandwiches--she made herself comfortable, whipped out a few crumpled pieces of paper and a pen, and began to jot down her findings.

[Closed to Edgeworth.]