[from here]

Itachi made it out to the yard without being accosted by any vengeance-obsessed brothers, so he could probably continue with his plans without further disruption. Additionally, there didn't seem to be any monsters or other obstacles in this area, either. With the exception of that minor occurrence, the night was proceeding entirely too smoothly. He had been correct in assuming he could get much further on his own.

And yet, something he could not admit to made him hesitate halfway across the yard. He turned, glancing back to the doorway. He could not deny that some part of him almost wished Sasuke would follow him, because he still wanted to see exactly what the boy could do when not drugged. That was unacceptable, however; he could not afford a fight that would waste his time, and he could definitely not afford a fight that exceeded his expectations. Not here, not until they destroyed the Institute and regained their abilities, not until whatever had been done to Sasuke's eyes could be reversed. There was no reason for him to be waiting here, in the eerie stillness of the night, staring at that door. This was not how he wanted to see his brother, and in the unlikely event that Sasuke was significantly stronger than he believed, this was not how he wanted to lose his life. Every logical consideration pointed to the fact that he should be leaving, now.

. . . So why was he still standing here?

[from here]

Itachi walked down the hall at his usual pace, it not occurring to him to hurry, even though Sasuke might be following him. He kept his eyes front, scanning for any potential enemies, but his ears were finely attuned to the potential of footsteps behind him.

The greenhouse yard was just ahead, and then he could safely get over the wall. He had no thought in mind of running from a fight, but he did not want to fight Sasuke now, not least because he had goals he wanted to accomplish tonight. Time was of the essence in the Institute, and he could not afford to be distracted by a brother who would in all likelihood fail again.

[to here]

[from here]

He became more cautious upon entering this hallway, aware that he was more likely to encounter some kind of opponent here. Scanning the area ahead carefully, Itachi focused his every sense on detecting other presences before they attacked. The hallway he needed to go down was just to the left, but it would be wise to scan the entire hallway before exposing his back.

[from here]

Itachi proceeded past the center of the main hallway, heading toward the east wing. He had not been over here much, except for that notable night when he had not been acting of his own will. The memory still smarted, a reminder of why he should take his mission here seriously, why he had to defeat Landel and leave this place. With luck he would uncover something useful tonight, and then he could turn his attention to subverting Landel through the very means by which he had taken advantage of Itachi's abilities.

[to here]

It had mainly been another waste of a day, but Itachi had learned some information about the outside area. He had been meaning to give it at least a cursory examination at some point, because while he needed to work on regaining his abilities before attempting anything else, he was not going to rely only on others for that sort of information. He had decided it would be worth at least one night's exploration before he could turn his attention to other matters.

The man he had spoken to earlier -- he should have gotten the name -- had described the area to the southeast, so Itachi decided to explore the more northern area himself for the night. He had heard there were usually enemies in the recreational field and courtyard, and while he would normally not care, he did not want to be slowed down before he even made it over the wall. Therefore, he would go over the wall of the greenhouse yard, which was not too tall and was a direct route to the area he wished to cover.

Map and utility knife in his left pocket, kunai in his right, and flashlight at hand, Itachi set off in the direction of the greenhouse.

[to here]

[from here]

This was boring. They needed to install like teleporters or warp points or something all sci-fi-like if they were going to be doing creepy experiments and shit. And then they'd make weird ass keys to make the transport things work and then they'd just have to hide them all over the fucking place because, clearly, the people running this place were never game testers, just game developers that actually remembered to disable the cheats.

On second thought, Junpei decided he'd rather walk.

[to here]

[from here]

Junpei glanced to the left, just in case there was a three-headed inside-out zombie waiting there to do something really horrible to him when he was fresh out of a lawnmower to mow them down with like in that one horror flick, he was relieved to see said potential thing to run away from wasn't anywhere in sight. Oh good. Maybe he wasn't going to chased around this night by something that belong in a video game.

With a whistle - if he could whistle, that is - Junpei headed toward the other half of the patient blocks.

[to here]

[From here]

Dean stopped long enough to count down the rest of the individual halls. He might not have the fancy college education Sam had, but he was pretty sure he could remember a map without any problems. The layout so far was ten rooms to each hall, and about four halls total, making this block about forty rooms. That meant that the hall he wanted, where M31 was, would be the last one down. Dean kept a good grip on his bowie. He headed down the corridor, turning left at the last hall and headed resolutely toward M31.

[Popping over here]

Kio's breakfast ended on a much happier note than it had started. However, for once the announcement truly surprised him. He blinked as his nurse came to pick him up. Recreational Field? But.. but if they had a greenhouse, he wanted to go there. The prospect of gardening was a truly liberating one, an island of joy in this hellhole. He thought about going to the Sun Room and lying down, but it occurred to him that he hadn't had proper fresh air since being here. With a cheery goodbye wave to Honey, he followed his torturer outside.

It was much better than he had expected. The sun wasn't too hot (what time of the year were they in, anyway?), so he walked slowly along the walls, fascinated by the size of the field. He wondered if Sou-chan was alright. He hadn't even checked the board. Well, if Soubi wanted to apologize, Kio would be willing to listen. The place was so crisp and clean. He had to think if anyone had ever gone over the walls. What was out there? Freedom? Or a different sort of monster?

Leaning against one of the walls, Kio took as much advantage of the sun as he could. He desperately wanted a lollipop. One was quietly nestled in his pocket, but he would need to wait until the nurses were busy with other patients before he tried anything. Soubi had gone to some trouble to get them, the least he could do was make sure they didn't get confiscated. So with bated breath, Kio waited for a shift in the mood. He was, for once, content. Not happy, but not going crazy either.

[Sou-chan! Team Loveless deploy!]

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]

[coming in from here]

Harley walked in cautiously. She'd learned enough that the rooms were more dangerous than the hallways, and the last thing they needed was to get pounced as soon as they marched inside. There was a faint, distant sound... the slow, rhythmic pat of water dripping from a shower head. Otherwise, the room was silent.

This was definitely new. She actually wasn't quite sure what kind of place this was, but there was nothing like it back at Arkham. It was a large room with several places some giant freak bug could be hiding, but as far as she could tell, the room was empty. Too empty and too clean. There was definitely a feeling that the room had been used within the last 24 hours.

"Uhh," she droned in a loud whisper. She wasn't quite sure why herself. The place just gave off the feeling of needing to whisper. "There should be a door 'round here that leads to the labs..."

Maybe it was that chemical smell or maybe it was the fact that they were so close to the labs where who knew what ended up happening, but Harley was getting a bit creeped out here. Not that she was planning to turn back or anything. She was not leaving without her darlings.

[from here]

As before, Endrance held the door open to the new area. The pit of his stomach dropped as he walked through the doors himself - the area smelled antiseptic and cold, as if there was no question that unspeakable things could happen here. He hugged his arms to himself, as if trying to warm himself before going further.

"Do either of you have a map from here?"

Oh, if only this was The World, where accessing a map was as easy as pressing a button!

[from here]

As he turned the corner, Armand hesitated again. This was a long hall, and he couldn't yet see the far end. He faltered, slowing up and suddenly wanting to hide behind TK. But he managed to keep his voice steady.

"Can you explain to us--to me actually--why you seem to think you're such a terrible person? I need to know, you see, before I decide if I should invite you to help me."

[From here.]

Soubi trained his lights along the stairs and began to climb them. His nerves were settling a little now, though that wasn't saying a whole lot. He was still worried about seeing Ritsuka and still unsure about the MU Hall. He barely wanted to face it at all, let alone in the company of the one person he had to prove himself to.

And then there was Demyx. Soubi didn't know the guy well, but his actions had been unexpected and, really, Soubi was wondering if he wanted to try and control Demyx at all or just BE controlled. Either way, he needed to find out more about the Heartless.

They'd be alone upstairs for a while. If they were lucky, anyway. Of course, Soubi would certainly love to see that power again.

[Going here.]

[from here]

On the second floor, and she hadn't blacked out yet. The complete darkness, instead of slowing her down to a cautionary walk, allowed her to speed up. Melissa was too sensitive to light to be able to see much unless she was in total darkness, a fact which had only annoyed her up until this point. Now she could just run through the halls without fear of bumping into anything.

(From here.)

Holding a gun, ammo, a katana, and a kunai wasn't very easy. Especially when walking around a dark area at night. He'd waited for Akihiko to leave because Homura probably would have skinned him alive if his roommate had found out the club was in possession of a gun. And a key.

But he made it safely to M39 without falling on anything, which was a bonus considering he couldn't see a bloody thing without his flashlight on. He set his katana aside for a moment and knocked on the door.

"Uh... Kenren-han?" he called softly. "It's Hattori Heiji, the young guy from last night? I have that thing you need."

[From here]

This hallway wasn't exactly bustling with people either. Granted, this nuthouse was probably different from a general town square, but the fact that Tyki happened to be one of the first people out could probably considered as surprising. The Noah of Pleasure was known to be slacking off on occasion, usually needing others (more often than not the Millennium Earl) to urge him to do something. But tonight was a little different. Tonight he was going to take some revenge. And have some proper entertainment while he was at it.

And unless Martin Landel had an annoying sense of logic he was only one door away from his destination.

[To here]

[From here]

Tyki always considered these endless string of hallways pretty boring, and tonight wasn't any different. After all, the dull scenery and the lack of interesting things around here made it difficult to catch his attention for long. Traversing them was such a tedious task to get anywhere.

At least he had almost reached his destination for tonight.

[To here

Finally! The doors had unlocked, and Blitzwing could go. Tonight would lack the frustrations that made the night before such an irritating exercise in futility, not least because he'd have nothing to do with the traitor at all. He also had a slightly better idea of where he was going, at least for this first stretch of the journey: it was with no hesitation at all that he set out to the rendezvous point he'd set earlier that day with Lugnut. From there they would go to the kitchens, where Blitzwing would attempt to arm himself...And after that? Well, they'd see what the night held.

[to here]

[From here]

Ophelia slowed back to a walk as she entered the main hallway. It was a ways off in the dark, but she could just make out a small patch of light further down in the center of the hall, presumably streaming in from the Sun Room's glass ceiling. She didn't see anything yet, but there was no telling when something might suddenly jump out at her. That large glowing thing before had seemed to come out of nowhere, hadn't it? Who knew how Landel inserted his creatures into the building when night fell. For all she knew, he had some sort of magical location abilities, transporting creatures to wherever he desired on a whim. Power great enough to bring so many types of beings to a place like this was surely great enough for such feats.

Keeping her wits about her, Ophelia moved slowly down the hallway.

[To here]