Sigh. It seemed today wasn't going to be complete unless he'd been completely soaked through. In which case, mission accomplished, Mutter Grün. What had started out as a drizzle had escalated into an all out rain by this point. A bandana didn't really do much to protect against this kind of weather. Klavier himself wasn't much used to walking out in the rain without at least an umbrella, so when he reentered the bookstore, he couldn't help but look a little irritable.

And to make matters worse, whatever medication had been administered to dull the pain in his hand was now wearing off. It was getting harder and harder to ignore the stinging and pressure running through and down to his wrist. His thoughts immediately went to the pills he had been given in the morning, the ones he had refused to take, but he quickly shook his head to rid himself of such thoughts. He wasn't going to resort to such things. Who knew what those things were. He could handle this... He could. After all, it was nowhere near as bad as it had been last night.

He used his good hand to try and shake some of the water from the ragged, hand-me-down coat before finally walking inside. Luckily, the store wasn't very big, so it shouldn't have been difficult to find his lost companion in here. Provided Nigredo hadn't decided to run off on his own, that is.

[Nigredo]

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]

[from here]

The snatch-and-grab had taken only a few seconds before Falis had Ritsu inside the bathroom. She spun about once through the door to place herself between her prey and its means of escape, kicking the door shut behind her. She would have her answers.

( from here. )

Bella couldn't help but slow to a walk when she continued down the hall, her eyes wandering as she looked around a part of the institute that she had never been through before. Of course, she really hadn't seen much of the place; she had only been there for a few days, and both of the nights had been spent doing things, so there was really no time for sight seeing.

She supposed that perhaps this little adventure also held that purpose - to get to know the layout of the building. She was sure that Edward already knew the entire place (him and that photographic memory of his.) but she wasn't so lucky, so she had to experience things for herself to know where they were.

Speaking of. She couldn't stop and check out the scenery anymore, it was taking too much time. Bella knew that when Edward realized she wasn't in her room he would come looking for her, and she had to keep moving. Maybe she could meet him on the way coming back downstairs...

( to here. )

It was, thought Agatha, about time this Landel guy started acting like a real evil megalomaniacal mad scientist. All the sugary-sweet fakery had been getting on her nerves, but this persona was something she knew all about. Right down, in fact, to the inclusion of information helpful to his enemies.

She'd been spending most of the time since finishing dinner assembling the pitifully few useful-looking items their room contained. She hadn't originally meant to include the little radio in that, since no matter what settings she tried it had only produced rather forgettable music and she didn't have the time or the tools to reduce it to usable parts.

Now, though, she snatched it up and slid it over to the channel that had been mentioned. It might not be much help, but she didn't see how it could hurt, either. "I think I'm all set," she declared. "Ema?"

( from here. )

There was the stairwell. Kairi couldn't help but smile to herself as she rounded the corner and spotted the familiar hallway, still shrouded in darkness like she remembered it. She could see down the hallway and slightly into the Sun Room from where she was standing, and she lowered her flashlight, not wanting whatever it was that was lurking inside it that night to spot her.

At the thought of that, she looked down at the sword that she held in her hand, feeling ready to take on whatever it was that they were going to do tonight. Though, she had a feeling that even with her own weapon, the two boys wouldn't exactly let her help out all that much. Still, she'd try. The sword she had was real and with her at all times, not like a keyblade that would appear seconds before being attacked.

And to think, back when they used to play on the island with wooden swords, they had never given her one. Well, now she had a real sword, so hah!

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]

It had all been going so well!

Seeing Cloud and Aerith(!) again had brought a now unfamiliar lightness to her shoulders. Work would be harder from here on out, but she wasn't on her own anymore. She was getting a second chance she'd never thought was possible. And then, then they'd trekked outside, totally ready to face the fog and the unknown (privately, the ninja had been a little worried; it couldn't happen again, it just couldn't, but what if it did?)—only to wake up. In their beds. As usual. Gaaaaaawd—!

"I just want you to know," Yuffie informed her nurse, grabbing her journal from the desk on her way out, "that your hair looks spectacularly god-awful today. What did you do, stick your tongue in a socket? I'm not exactly hip on fashion, too busy badass for that fluffy stuff, but—"

Plucky looked ready to plant her face in her hands. Or to plant her hands somewhere else. To her credit, and much to Yuffie's eternal disappointment, she did—tried to do—neither. "One of those days, is it?" the nurse sighed, disapproval incarnate. "Well. You're just going to have to behave; the new batches of patients are due today. We don't want to make a bad impression."

"I am feeling so completely convinced of my wrongdoing," Yuffie confided. They stepped into the cafeteria, practically empty as of yet. The chocolate cake last night had worked a treat, whetting her appetite. Honestly, she was getting sick of pecking at scraps like a runt Chocobo in the snow plains—but not literally, of course. Ew. She got more than enough of that on those damn buses once a week. Now that AVALANCHE really was dropping onto her lap—and remind her to get the hell out of dodge if Barret ever took his turn—she couldn't afford not to keep her strength up. For one, she'd be a liability. For two, she'd get her spine chewed out.

"Fruit," said Plucky, hovering as her charge picked out her choices for the day. Rolling her eyes, Yuffie grabbed an apple, slinging it onto the tray alongside an 'English' sandwich. "That'll do. I'll leave you to your breakfast, now." Somehow, that sounded about as comforting as 'My name is Don Corneo and I am raiding through your panty draw', and Yuffie was stopping that thought right there. Oh, god. Eurk. Bad, bad, bad! Bad, brain. Bad. That—yeah, no. Just, no. 'Sides, the guy was as dead as a doornail, splatted across Da Chao's feet. Dirtying them, really, but somehow Yuffie couldn't bring herself to be sorry about that.

(And it wasn't like the creep'd ever end up here, right? Right!)

She took to a seat, dropping her tray and her journal both onto the table. The book fell pages-down; Yuffie flipped it over, thumbing through to the middle as she worked through her apple. An almost finished map of Gaia stared back at her, neat as she could ever manage. Dots for major locations, squiggles for mountains. Stars for the materia caves, Chocobos for the tracks. All labelled in Wutaian. It was just a little piece of the home she absolutely had to get back to, 'cuz Leviathan knew what kind of trouble they'd be up to their necks in without her.

[For Donna]

[F22]

No, Falis didn't want to wear the dress. Okay, maybe she liked the crown and the dress was nice (for a white frilly princess dress), but she wasn't doing anything where the dress would have any impact. She was a bounty hunter and, in this place, being a princess held no weight. Her sword, her accomplishments, her strength - that was what counted, not her title or ability to fight amazingly well in a white frilly dress. Milano always said it was entrancing to watch her fight in it, but that didn't matter here, right?

To be truthful, Falis was a little - no, a lot - irritated that it was the dress she'd been given and not her bounty hunter clothes. In a place like this, they were much more practical and the dark colors wouldn't draw attention. Not that Falis cared about attention from either other people or monsters, but she was hunting vampires and she was eventually going to be laying in wait for that one bloodsucker. The grey outfit was a better choice for something like that than the white dress.

Whatever. She was pretty sure Hokuto and Namine would like the dress and... maybe she'd put it on for them once, twice at most, if she was talked into it.

Sitting on her desk were the two jugs of moonshine plus two cups and an empty can that could be used as a cup. She wasn't sure how many people Kagura was bringing, so the can was there if needed (she'd be the one using it). Cracking open one jug of moonshine, Falis took a sip and her eyebrow twitched a little. Okay, the stuff was definitely strong enough and the flavor was passable with the apples she'd used. She'd made much better stuff in the past with Dominikov and Pete, but for the resources she had at her disposal, this wasn't nearly as bad as it could have been.

On the hunter's bed was the bag of crafty shit she'd gotten for that charm thing Orihime had wanted to make. Sitting down next to them, Falis waited for her guests to arrive. To pass the time, she ripped a piece of sheet off and started cleaning her sword.

The intercom jingle went off, mirroring the cheery voice that came out of the speakers soon after it.

"Hello, everyone, and I hope you found productive endeavors in both your music-making and your therapy sessions! Now, our nurses will be escorting all of you to your rooms and to your delicious dinners. Tonight, we're serving moist slices of turkey breast covered in gravy and served with mashed potatoes and grilled artichoke. Also available are our usual salad and drink choices, as well as a to-die-for devil chocolate cake dessert!

"...Mm, yes, I do think I'll have to partake in some of that myself! I trust you'll all enjoy it as much as I do, and I'll speak with you again shortly!"

The intercom clicked off.

[ All room threads go in response to this post; please post your character's room number as the subject line of the initial post. ]

Dinner had been pretty quiet. In fact, upon coming to temporary terms with the fact that she was alive, Aerith had wondered if things didn't seem a little too quiet. Traveling across the Planet with AVALANCHE had rendered her used to the constant voice of Gaia in the back of her mind at all times. It hadn't been like Midgar where the only whispers in her ear came when she visited the old church. The flower girl wondered briefly if she were actually back home in industrial city, a captive of Shinra somehow after everything she'd gone through to escape them, but no. It was a possibility she couldn't ignore, but there was just something so strange about this place...

Aerith's first course of action had been to explore her room. A thorough sweep had revealed a few interesting finds: a flashlight under her pillow, a journal, a few pens, and a radio. The most curious discovery, however, came in the form of a very familiar set of clothes hung carefully in her closet. Her pink dress was just as she remembered it, and even her red jacket was there along with her favorite boots, the string necklace she'd been fond of wearing, and the ribbon. As strange as it was to find a set of hr own clothes in what she could only assume was some sort of mental hospital, Aerith didn't think twice before exchanging her current sweat suit for her usual garb. She even took the time to braid her hair and tie it up with the pink ribbon. In fact she was in the middle of adjusting the silver bangles around her wrists when a strange announcement sounded over the intercom.

The man's voice was a far cry from the overly pleasant announcer that had bid his patients good night only moments ago. Aerith hardly had time to wonder more, however, as the loud sound of her door unlocking almost made her jump out of her boots. Aerith stood slowly from her seat on the bed and fumbled for the flashlight she'd set beside her. Cautiously, she moved to the door, testing it. She frowned. Apparently she hadn't been losing it. The heavy door was open, revealing a dark hallway. Was this some kind of game?

Eventually rationalizing that she wouldn't be able to learn anything about her predicament just sitting in her room all night, Aerith stepped out into the hallway. She shined her flashlight up and down the hall. So far it seemed completely empty. How weird...

"Hello?" she called out softly. With any luck, she wouldn't be in this alone. Someone had to know just what was going on in this place.

The intercom's jingle signaled yet another announcement.

"And our excellent behavior continues! Well, I am extremely impressed indeed!

"In any case, it's time to stop our socializing, unfortunately, and for the patients to return to their quarters for dinner. Be aware that new roommates have been assigned due to our influx of new patients and discharged old ones, so please be hospitable should you find yourself with someone new!

"As for dinner itself: tonight, we'll be serving shrimp and vegetable tempura along with delicious chicken teriyaki. Yum, yum, yum! As sides, we will also be serving boiled, salted soybeans, rice, and of course the appropriate soy and tempura sauces. Our regular assorted drinks and vegetarian substitutes are also available.

"I hope you enjoy your meal!"

The intercom clicked off.

[ All room threads go in response to this post; please post your character's room number as the subject line of the initial post. Find new room assignments here. ]

Today was really trying to rain on her parade, wasn't it?

Well, it wasn't gonna work! Hanna was determined to stay strong and cheerful, in spite of Kenshin throwing a mega bitchfit and that the chick from the library being… Yeah. Her flightiness had been bad enough, but the half glossed-over memories had bordered on terrifying. Had she really been that far gone? It had to have been the meds. Just the meds. Yuffie was a douchey, semi-sociopathic klepto ninja thing, but even in that imagined world of hers, she hadn't gone around slashing people to ribbons for fun. Had she? Ugh, Hanna didn't even know anymore. Crazy people were capable of crazy stuff

Hanna's gut clenched just thinking about it, and she turned determinedly back to her lunch. The food wasn't exactly great, but it was better than some of the stuff she'd eaten. Like Stan's Deep fried Twinkie and mashed banana hot pot. Or, y'know, the normal stuff that teenage semi-runaways ate. Craptastic sandwiches and super economy potato chips, when she could get them, and whatever was in Tiffany's fridge when she couldn't. Dignity was dignity, and dignity was important, but being able to scratch a living from a rock was a handy life skill to have.

Stuffing another few chips in her mouth, Hanna did her best to ignore the door—and, by proxy, anybody who happened to come through it. Nostalgia trip aside, hadn't the Head Nurse said something about a whole new batch of crazycakes? Now she'd feel even more like a sardine than ever. Great.

[ For Cloud? :D ]

Mori woke with a start. He lay on the bed for a moment, staring up at the ceiling and sighed quietly. Another day, another round of shifts and people and-- Wait a minute. Breathing in carefully, Mori's brow knit together as he realized that his ribs were no longer broken. After testing his collarbone, he found that it, too, was healing faster than it should have. Not that he was complaining, but there was something odd about broken bones setting so quickly. Pushing himself up out of bed, the teen shook his head, knowing that he'd have another day or two of the sling and then he'd be free from it.

But more important than that was finding out how Mitsukuni was doing. The last thing he remembered was the bathroom and gathering metal. Since they were together at the end of the night, Mori was certain that Mitsukuni would be fine, but...well, he still liked to confirm such things with his own eyes. With the twins gone and Tamaki still missing, Mori didn't want to take any chances anymore. Especially not with the strange announcements this morning.

As usual, his nurse came to collect him and helped him into his sling. Then he followed her quietly into the cafeteria, taking notice of the unusually empty bulletin board. They really were cracking down on it already. Weird. Even weirder? For once, he was the first into the room. Picking up a tray, he pointed out what he wanted, making sure to take double of the pancakes (asking to keep them away from the sausages for now), double of the strawberry jam and biscuits, and an extra helping of fruit. To top it off? Milk. It'd help his bones mend. Hopefully.

Going to a nearby seat, Mori took a look around the empty room and shivered. Kind of eerie in here without anyone else but the nurses. Someone was certain to come sooner or later though, right? He hoped so at least.

[for Chihaya]

[f25, specifically]

Alkaid finished her supper without a damn thing happening. No nurses coming to snatch her away for crazy torture sessions, no roommate coming to make awkward conversation with, no nothing. Kind of boring. She knew that no news should be good news, or whatever... but somehow she just felt unfulfilled. What was she going to do tonight? It hadn't been quite decided yet, but she was going to meet that exceptional dork, at least, and they could go adventuring just like old times... At least that'd be fun.

She gathered what had become the usual stuff - her bat, her flashlight, and the vial of acid that Badou had given her, which she popped right into her cleavage. Hey! Bazooms like this were good for something!!

Then she looked down at the cast on her arm, tapping it with the bat. Okay, yeah, this thing wasn't gonna come off tonight by any stretch of the imagination, but if the arm was healed under it then the cast itself wouldn't be a problem. The bad thing was that she felt the old zombie rot start to spread just where it had last night and the night before. Well, damn.

She was almost done getting ready when she heard the intercom go off. Huh... Was the Head Doctor trying to make himself out to be the hero of the day? Apologizing for stuff? Geez, things sure had changed in the week she'd been stuck in that coma. Weird as hell.

Oh! One more thing! She emptied a pillowcase and held it in the hand with the flashlight. It could end up useful. So now that she was all geared up, she headed out!

[to here]

And again, the fucking vultures made it a point to tell Falis that she was not allowed, under any circumstances, to share the showers with Hokuto. With an exchange that caused her to be reprimanded about her language again, the hunter started the water up and waited for it to heat up. She hated that particular vulture and her insistence that Falis and Hokuto's relationship was 'unhealthy'. She really didn't get why the bitch called it that, but the fact was, Falis wasn't allowed to have Hokuto wash her hair anymore and that fucking pissed her off.

Washing it by herself took so damn long.

Stepping under the spray, the hunter let the water soak into her hair and stared balefully down at the discoloration that stood out on her broken toe. She had an upcoming meeting with another bloodsucker's victim. Vampires. She needed to shift her thoughts to vampires and not zombies.

[unknowingly waiting for loli vampire]

That had been a very frustrating shower. For many reasons. At least Raine was going to at least look at Forte. Hopefully, she'll actually heal him. The showers had also succeeded in making the ninja feel like a pervert. A mild one, but still... It was as if Yukari had picked that spot in the showers because she knew the ninja could easily see her.

Ugh! Damn youkai.

Squirreling herself away in a corner of the cafeteria, Sheena finger combed her wet hair before pulling it back with the bright red ribbon. She so needed her own hair ribbon back. She was attempting to formulate her plan of acquisition - she was ninja after all - as people started trickling into the room. The plan was put on pause, though, when her stomach rumbled.

Food now - plan later.

[Closed to Haseo and Endrance]

Astor hadn't talked much after introducing himself, which hadn't bothered Terry. With all the crap their little hospital of horrors piled on the patients, he couldn't blame a guy for not wanting to open up to some stranger. Plus, not talking meant he could get a decent meal in, and then check out the bulletin for the latest in Landel's news and gossip. Turned out to be a good thing he did. He'd have missed a lot otherwise: how many people had apparently gotten slagged last night, Spider-boy's unsurprising guilt trip, a note for a too cheery someone named Harley, and another one signed by a lightening bolt that looked a lot like one he'd seen in Wayne's Justice League files. It was pretty hard to know exactly where to start--especially since so far, Terry hadn't seen any sign of the old man in all that mess. Unless that one guy had meant him by the "you-know-who" that made someone else shake in their boots. Inspiring that kind of reaction wasn't exactly a stretch for Bruce.

Terry would've been perfectly content to stay there and watch the developing news, despite the lack of vid screens making the process almost painfully slow. But his dear sweet nurse had other plans for him apparently. Ones that involved crayons and construction paper.

"Oh come on. You can't be serious."

Needless to say, Terry was less than impressed by the offerings. His nurse didn't exactly care about his opinion though, instead firmly asserting her belief that first grade arts and crafts was the key to mental stability. It made Terry eager to get home all over again, just so he could tell the officials at Gotham's mental wards how'd they'd been doing it wrong for all these years. Apparently Batman could retire in peace, just as soon as a bunch of gangsters got their paper mache on.

And they thought he was the insane one. Obviously because he hadn't made enough popsicle houses in his childhood.

Sitting down at least got the woman to stop her preaching, for what that was worth. Of course, now Terry was left with half a glue stick, cheap paper, and scissors that probably couldn't cut air reliably. Terry couldn't say he was pleased. Oh, but they had glitter too! Well, didn't that just make everything perfect? He could make his own Bat signal that would shine with all the colors of the rainbow.

"This is just slagging great."


[Free as a bird bat!]

Yuffie had died.

No, really. Seriously. She had actually died. Bleeding all over the place, making a horrid, sticky mess and scaring the hell out of Suzaku; she remembered it clearly. Kind of. Sort of. Through the blood loss, the pain, and the visions. Through Aerith's voice whispering in her ear, Cloud's stricken eyes, and her own panic. As bad nights went, it had been Bad, capital B and all the trimmings, and oh, god. She sat, trembling on the edge of her bed, eyes closed and hands pressed hard over her racing heart. The by-play between Landel—Landel!—and Lydia barely even sunk in. There was nothing in the whole world, any world, that could prepare you for something like…

Had it all been some kind of hallucination?

Had she imagined the whole thing?

No… She didn't think so. Nightmarish or not, Yuffie knew reality. But if it had been real, how was she alive now? That kind of pain wasn't something you could just cook up, was it? She thought about it all the way to the cafeteria, drifting behind her nurse without focus or intent. Maybe if she tried to stay clinical, tried to step back… But she'd never been good at that when things got personal. And every time she closed her eyes or blinked, she swore that the scenes played back to her, like an overused commercial on a crappy channel on a crappy TV, in a run-down dump of an inn that smelled like mothballs and yesterday's breakfast.

The scent of blood and damp, rotted wood clogged her nose. Disgusted, Yuffie shoved her bowl of cereal—handed to her by a clucking Plucky—off to the side so that she could melt into her chair, palm heels scrubbing against her eyes. Too much. This was… Too much. She couldn't even paste a plastic smile on her face to make herself feel better. Her usual shield, the white noise of inane babble that could filter out almost any crisis, was in tatters all around her. Five minutes, she gave herself.

Five minutes (not) to think, five minutes to get her act together, because there was no way she could let herself shatter here. No way…

[Closed to Sheena]

[in F22]

Falis was sitting on Senna's bed, her back to the wall with the shinigami laying against her, when the weird intercom thingie went off. She looked up at the little box for a moment before frowning. What the fuck had that been? Damnit! Where was Dominikov when she needed him to figure shit like this out for her?

A sharp pain ran through the hunter's left arm accompanied by a searing heat she recognized from the night before. It seemed peoples' fears were going to be true this night. Taking a peak at the flesh underneath her bandage, Falis grimaced seeing the decay return and it work its way up to her shoulder. At least it stopped there, but she wasn't sure it'd stay stopped all night long.

Her eyes slid back to the sleeping shinigami. Falis licked her lips. Damn, she looked and smelled... No. She was not going to do this. She was stronger that whatever fucked up zombie sickness. Senna was important to the hunter. She may be Falis' prey, but not prey like this. Resisting the hunger that lay in her stomach, she idly combed her finger through Senna's hair as she rest her head back against the wall and waited for people to show up or for the shinigami to wake.