Utena's second night seemed to have ended even sooner than the first had, which greatly disappointed her. She had been hoping that at some point, she could have coaxed her friend into telling her what was so horrible that happened in her future. Then again, curiosity aside, she was also somewhat relieved that she didn't have to hear it just yet. She half-wondered if Landel had ended both of their previous nights early on purpose, too, just to make certain that Utena didn't spend enough time with her friend to potentially hear of that future.

Almost as soon as she thought of Landel, Utena heard his voice crackle over the intercom again. Hearing him yawn through his announcement almost made her sleepy as well; she'd had no idea that yawns could be contagious over speaker systems. Physically, she did feel rested, though she certainly couldn't remember sleeping or dreaming between the end of night and her waking up.

As her nurse came to collect her for breakfast, Utena felt conflicted over whether she ought to see Himemiya again that night. On the one hand, she wanted to be there for her friend and try to coax some of the girl's old self out of her. Either that or at least try to console her about whatever was troubling her. On the other hand, she knew that it would be stupid to waste too many nights on talk. She could be helping Seiya or the clubs or finding metal to store for whenever Skuld was ready for her, something that would help her and Himemiya break out faster.

Maybe I'll post a message for her later if I don't see her again during the day. It's not perfect, but at least it'll let us talk and then leave me an opening to go out and do . . . whatever it is that might need doing, she thought as she was escorted into the cafeteria to pick up breakfast (english muffins that morning). Remembering the clubs again, Utena thought about the message exchange she had had with that girl from Arts & Crafts, Momo Hinamori. They were supposed to be meeting over breakfast, right? Utena didn't see anyone who matched Hinamori's description yet, but then, the girl had said that it would be easier for her to find Utena than the other way around. She sat down at a nearby table for the time being and waited, running the previous night's short conversation in her head over and over.

[For Momo]

As soon as the doors unlocked and night fell, Kira was up out of his bed and feeling around underneath it to take hold of his sword. When he stood, he paused and looked at the pillow; he recalled the night before when he'd failed to bring the pillowcase, and as such had caused difficulty for himself. He set down the blade and removed the pillowcase, then grabbed the necessities for the night and headed out.

He hadn't checked the bulletin board right before he'd gone back to the room, but he assumed it wouldn't be too difficult to find Hanatarou. Quietly, glancing both ways down the hall before actually leaving the room, Kira slipped into the darkness and made his way toward the exit.

((To here.))

[From here]

Belatedly, Yukari yawned in response to the doctor's own repose. She'd been awake for more than half the day; it was no surprise she was tired. Youkai were nocturnal, after all. But there were so many things to do, so many people to see, so many new and interesting phenomena.

Maybe she'd catch up on her sleep in a few weeks. Just sleep a month straight. Yeah, that sounded good.

Yawning again, Yukari headed onwards.

That had been a very interesting shift, Miku decided as she was wheeled around. Not only for making a new friend in Endrance (well, perhaps not friend, but very kind acquaintance), but for the overload of unwanted information from the bulletin. It was enough to make her want to hide until there was no chance of a blush ever forming on her face (and ears, and neck and anywhere else a blush might decide to raise its wily head).

Her nurse was oddly quiet for once, as she gathered her meal (vegetable pizza and milk) and wheeled Miku away from the crush of other patients being herded in. Well, then it would be a quiet lunch, she decided.

"Now, Alice, I expect not to see a crumb of food left, do you hear? Not a crumb," her nurse chastised her gently and Miku winced. So, they were noticing. She'd have to be more careful to eat a little more.

"Ah... yes. I'm sorry," Miku ducked her head and started picking at her meal with her knife and fork. "I'll eat." Even if the nurse was really a monster at night, she hated that tone of disappointment. She sighed and picked at what appeared to be a piece of broccoli on her pizza.

[For Sousuke]

That really hadn't been the breakfast she'd been expecting, but Yuffie couldn't bring herself to complain. The kid made for good company, and was, if nothing else, pretty entertaining. She could've just done without the whole choking thing. That… That had been embarrassing. A bit. Okay, a lot. Yuffie was starting to get a feeling that this day was -- for once-- actually going to ping on her ‘interesting!’ meter.

Whether or not that was a good thing, she didn’t know.

By the time she’d reached the Sun Room's bulletin board, a kitten on her shoulder and a pen twirling between her fingers, Yuffie was starting to put her finger on why she had that weird, nagging feeling. Though on second thought, it was less like putting her finger on it and more like it had jumped up and punched her right in the nose; the feeling wasn’t just about waffles, magicians, or tricky candy thieves. Sagara hadn't answered her bulletin post; he hadn't answered any bulletin posts. She hadn't seen that stupid, spiky head of his all morning. It was like radio silence without a radio.

Agai-- No, Yuffie cut herself off sharply, frowning. She was just jumping to conclusions. It wouldn't be the first time, right? Right! And yet… instincts were instincts for a reason, and in a dump like this, who knew what could happen?

[for Okita?]

_{[from here and about to be perved upon]}

She'd been upstairs once, to visit the Chapel, but that had been during the day. There were no staff members escorting her this time, which only made things more dangerous, in a way. The shinigami, Abarai Renji, had been killed battling nurses at night.

When Tsubaki stepped into the stairwell, she did a quick check--stairs, behind the stairs, the door behind her--before putting a foot on the first step and slipping the makeshift bag off her shoulder to balance on her knee. The sound of her boot shifting against the edge of the step was eerily loud.

Once she'd fished out her flashlight, Tsubaki lifted the bag of cloth again.

A deep, silent inhale. Let's go.

[from here]

[M23 to be exact]

Momo stopped in front of Hitsugaya's room and sighed. The last time she'd seen him, he'd been sedated, so he probably hadn't noticed her dead eye. She didn't like the idea of keeping the state of it from him, but she wasn't sure if this was the right time to tell him. Then again, he'd probably notice it now.

She knocked on the door, pushing all that inner turmoil and worry aside, and called out just loud enough to carry through the door, "Shiro-chan?" She just... wanted a hug. She wanted to be held. Be weak for a moment wrapped in his arms and then... then she could be strong again.

[From here]

As she entered the hallway, Ophelia stopped for a moment to quickly fold up Kio's maps and stuff them into one of her pockets. She had been hoping to take a peek at them at various intervals during the night, but in this dim light, there was no chance of being able to see them. For now, she would have to travel by memory of where she had been taken during the day.

At least this time the choice of where to go was easy. On one side she could just barely see the hallway ending, and on the other it continued for a ways. The path that continued would surely lead to the Sun Room and the areas around it. She started running again with a grin spreading on her face, emboldened by the long, seemingly unobstructed length of the hall. Perhaps she would find her first challenge of the night soon.

[from here]

Coming to a cross hallway, Falis stopped and knelt down again. In the darkness, she couldn't see where the hallway lead, nothing more than a few feet immediately in front of her. Unbeknown to her, the stairs she needed to go down to the first level were just to the right. Falis had the same feeling as she had back at that dead end, so she didn't think there was anything down that hallway.

Seeing some very faint light to the left, the hunter headed that way. Once she found light, she could get her bearings.

[to here]

There were still too many things on Armand's mind for him to truly relax. The morning with Alec had been a help. And seeing that TK was going to be well helped him know that it was time to work out something else, but what? He'd already, without success again, tried to reach one of the club leaders about his sole idea of something new and different. Maybe it was hopeless.

There was no way he was going to play with paper and glue like a small child, and he glared at the nurse as best he could until she gave up on the idea. There was a free chair in the Sun Room--in fact, there were many free chairs--where he settled down to see what the new patients looked like. Prisoners, not patients. He felt bad that he had to remind himself. Even if he was crazy, he wasn't going to give in to Dr. Landel's game, not today. He nibbled on an overgrown cuticle and kept an eye on the room. No dozing today.

[for Citan]

Kio had been having quite a time with Kunzait. He couln't really believe that one of his childhood characters was here. Well... characters. Some guy with a lot of time on his hands and cosplay. That was all there was to it. He had hoped, as people filed into the Sun Room, that he would glimpse Soubi. No luck.

Perhaps it was better to just accept that his friend was gone. Soubi was in Goura, with Ritsuka. Well, sort of. If the bulletin note was anything to go by, Kio had a handful of pranksters on his hands. He could understand it if this were an appropriate time for jokes and such, but it wasn't. However, should that boy prove to indeed be Ritsuka, then Kio had someone from home. He'd hoped that the identity of the other person would be revealed, but other than minor scathing remarks between 'Ritsuka' and the other, nothing Kio could say was Soubi or not.

If anything, it just annoyed the man. When the nurse came to take him away, Kio went silently. He did not remark on how 'Mr Akatsuki' was being friendly already and how that was a great improvement. If anything, Kio was not himself. But he had to try. Grabbing a tray with enough meat and vegetables, he frowned at it.

"No sushi?". The nurse just smiled. No sushi. Sighing, he moved to a centre table and sat down, picking at his salad. He was a bit hungry. But more than anything, he was despondent. He missed Soubi. He wanted all this to prove to be one giant nightmare.

[Sou-chan! <3]

I wouldn't really call this a locker room. More like a bathroom with lockers. The place was uncomfortably crowded, with almost every adult male patient being hustled into the showers at once, but Phoenix wasn't as annoyed by the claustrophobic, milling throng of bodies as he might have otherwise been. Every extra person was one more person who might end up standing between himself and Edgeworth.

He knew that the prosecutor would have a fit if he found out about this. He'd known since he'd tacked that first response up on the bulletin board. And in a way, he couldn't blame him. Phoenix knew that he jumped into things all-or-nothing more often than most people. At the same time, he had some kind of reality testing. He wasn't going to learn the basics of how to defend himself and suddenly decide that he was Rambo.

He found an unoccupied locker in the southwest corner and glanced around, trying to gauge how long he could possibly stall in a locker room, looking as if he was expecting something, before people started looking at him strangely. It would have been easier if he'd known something of the description of the man he was supposed to be meeting. As it was, all he had was handwriting and a military rank, neither of which guaranteed any particular appearance.

It's not as if there was a better way to plan this, though. "Yeah, meet me by the lockers. I'll be wearing gray and a smiley face, just like about a hundred other guys."

[for Hughes]

[from here]

The next room was also annoyingly dark. Brainiac 5's flashlight picked up a couple of desks, one of them right beside him.

"Finally something that might hold an answer about how I got here." He smiled and turned towards it, placing the flashlight on the desk to allow him the freedom to begin looking through the drawers. There had to be some kind of clue as to who had brought him here, why and, perhaps most importantly, how. Then once he'd discovered that, it would be relatively simple to obtain a way to reverse the changes and return to his rightful place with the Legion and Superman. And perhaps while he was doing that he could learn more about the technology that had been used to change him into a human form. The practical applications alone of something that could cause such a complex transformation were intriguing.

The nurses came and took Takaya away. For a visitor? Tony heard that as the other boy was led away, but he didn't react. Usually, when he heard something, he wasn't supposed to hear it, and it was just a good idea to pretend he hadn't. Though he wondered if he should check on Takaya later if he found a way to do it.

He returned his attention back to the recorder in his hands. Now with no "student" to teach, he could play the melodies from his head again. This one was a bit more exuberant, a bit more expressive of the hope he felt that life was more than this, more than the city where he'd grown up. Tony had dreams that weren't crushed. His music said all this.

(for Frey!)

Scar didn't have to think long about which direction to be escorted in for the third shift. He didn't quite enjoy the human activities these nurses forced them to do, so it wasn't much of a surprise that he soon found himself sitting on the grass in the courtyard.

That, and he generally preferred to be outside in any case. He didn't quite understand how humans could live between four walls for an extended period of time. At least here there was fresh air.

[Free!]

Miku hurried away from her new friends (and kitten) to the cafeteria. For some reason she was just terribly ravenous. Her nurse smiled, relieved that her patient had finally chose to eat something and wouldn't continue that backslide into poor health. She loaded the girl's plate with French toast and fruit, dusted the bread in powdered sugar and a bit of cherries in red-red syrup and sent the girl to sit.

"There we are, Alice, a nice healthy meal," she cooed, and patted Miku's head. Miku sighed, but carefully cut into her meal and started eating, keeping her eye out for Sousuke.

For the first time since arriving at Landel's, Elle woke up feeling... almost peaceful. She lay in bed for several minutes, adjusting to certain things. Mostly the fact that her left arm was in a sling. And her shoulder didn't hurt as much as she would have expected it to, which probably meant she was on meds.

She got out of bed slowly, and made her way to the desk. Her journal was still in the top drawer, lying closed on top of the files she'd stolen. She grabbed it, along with a pen and a rubber band - not easy, one-handed - and allowed herself to be escorted to the Sun Room by a nurse.

The Head Doctor's words intrigued her. Visitors? Friends and family from back home? Despite the sudden ray of hope, she had to admit the unlikelihood of seeing Daddy. Either he'd put her here for a reason, and so would have no need to visit, or he couldn't get here at all.

It took a very long time to figure out how to hold her journal open and write at the same time. Through trial and error, she discovered that using her left hand to hold the journal didn't hurt too much.

This was probably a really bad idea. But if Daddy had really put her in here to kill Sylar as some kind of test, he wouldn't have given Sylar the virus. And if it came to having Sylar as a friend or as an enemy, she'd rather have him standing between her and the monsters than in a nearby corner laughing while she got ripped apart.

[for Eddie]

Nny was beginning to suspect that he wasn't dreaming. Interestingly enough, it wasn't the length of his stay that was starting to convince him. It was his goddamn headache. You didn't get headaches in dreams, you just didn't. Not unless you'd been drinking the night before, which he hadn't experienced in, well, a really long time (and that was it's own sort of hell). He had to be awake to feel this shitty.

He didn't even go into town with the rest of the patients. He got off the bus, stood around for a few minutes, said "fuck this", turned around, and ran back into one of the other buses. Luckily for him, the nurses had been understanding once he brought up how he felt. They even refrained from bugging him while he desperately tried to wish his existence away. He spent most of the day with his head glued to the back of the seat in front of him, not quite aware, but refusing to fall back asleep.

All in all, his day had gone from okay, to completely horrid.

[Renamon, I think?]

[from here]

The further away from the smell of food she got, the better she started feeling. Which on one hand was awesometacularly made of awesome. On the other hand, it was failtastically made of suck

Yuffie sighed as she walked, rubbing the back of her neck. Now that she'd left the boys behind, what was she supposed to do? Wandering aimlessly around town wasn't her style- she needed something to occupy herself with, something to focus her attention on. Something interesting.

She turned left again at the first opportunity, leaving the store-less street behind.

[to here]

Rukia filed out of the bus with the other prisoners, shivering a little in the cool autumn air. She was a little irked that the nurses hadn't given her mittens on this trip. Forced to stuff her hands in to the pockets of her jeans, Rukia hunched her shoulders and wandered to the edge of the park before turning around to look for anyone she knew.

Nurses and orderlies were already milling about, supervising and watching the prisoners. Rukia's plan was to get a hold of something - anything - that she could use as a weapon when they returned to the Institute that night. It would be difficult with so many staff members around, but she was determined; the last thing she wanted was to be trapped on the buses again with no weapon.