Day 53: Sun Room, Morning

[scarefaux]

With breakfast finished and a new acquaintance made, the Scarecrow's mind turned to his other friends. The disappearance of Depth Charge's friend had brought back memories of how he'd felt when Kaiji went missing: helpless, useless, as though he should have and could have done something more to find him. If only he had his brain, then maybe he

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[thecamellia]

[free]

Suddenly waking up back in bed solved the problem of navigating Doyleton, but it also meant that somewhere Fai was doing the same, the nurses ready to go about their business like nothing outwardly had happened. "And when you wake up in the morning, you’ll be able to neatly pack it away again and stash it where your allies and enemies aren’t able to see. Unless, of course… they have already seen it."

But Tsubaki wasn’t really worried about herself or what Fai had "heard" about herself. That could wait, could be unpacked calmly later. She wasn’t worried about what she had heard regarding Fai, either, because according to her, she hadn’t heard anything. At least nothing that affected her opinion. She trusted--had to trust--that people would feel the same. Fai’s condition and what he thought of her having been witness to his shadow was what concerned her the most

[tsunagari]

Sai awoke to find he'd missed out on breakfast. He didn't mind this so much, as he doubted he would have been up to eating anything just yet anyway. Still, he didn't like losing track of any period of time, no matter how inconsequential. He followed his nurse to the sun room silently, mulling over the events from the night before

[thecamellia]

The animal she held was soft and she could feel its heart beating against the arm she used to brace it in her lap. How were these tiny kittens affected by the nightly transformations? When she thought about it, they were probably the most innocent creatures she’d come across in the Institute. "You can’t talk, though, can you?" she murmured a little wistfully to it, drawing her fingers through its slick coat of fur. Unfortunately, there were no magical cats to confer with here. Home was a long ways away and so was the wisdom of all her companions and mentors. Even Professor Stein’s, despite the fact that he was here.

Tsubaki cuddled the cat some more, every now and then scanning the doorway. She hoped she could catch someone, if only to say hi, and at the most, figure out what they were going to do about the radio situation. Last night had… opened some wounds as well as complicate things

[tsunagari]

The ninja had no interest in dealing with any of the kittens himself and he watched the one in her lap with a detached expression. Would these be real kittens that turned into monsters at night through some outside source or were they genetically altered to begin with like the creatures he'd come across on the second floor. Perhaps the one he'd taken out of its cage had once been a simple animal like this one

[thecamellia]

She considered asking the stranger if it would be all right to let the kitten approach him, since it was clearly happy for the attention, but for the moment she thought it better to hold it in her and let it play with her fingertips. To be expected, people having a personal interest in what’d happened last night. Sometimes Landel’s 'events' just seemed aimed to cause chaos, but other times they felt pointed. Like when they’d had delusions of loved ones. Like last night, when people’s shadows started spilling secrets laced with venom

[tsunagari]

Sai's eyes narrowed. That was actually a bit unexpected. He was used to the nighttime creatures varying and spreading out to different areas of the Institute. To hear that she'd run across the exact same sort of being that he had changed the way he'd have to look at this situation. It hadn't been something related just to the area they'd managed to reach, but rather something that everyone had dealt with. Perhaps that was the reason they'd been allowed to get as far as they had in the first place. The shadow monsters would be more effective if one was separated from others so that you might not suspect it was an Institute-wide occurrence

[thecamellia]

[… Er, late is an understatement. Sorry for dropping the ball, b. D:]

“I get the feeling… it might’ve happened to a lot of people,” Tsubaki ventured.

At least, it was obvious enough that last night’s events hadn’t just happened out of the blue. The shadows had been created, given voice by an outside power. That fact alone made them suspicious; it hadn’t been a natural conflict between parts of a soul, rather one that someone had designed on purpose.

During the day, they seemed like a bad dream now blurred at the edges.

Giving the boy another small smile, she took the moment to insert a little more amiability into their line of conversation. “My name is Tsubaki, by the way. It’s nice to meet you.”

[tsunagari]

The ninja nodded again, his smile not entirely false. "I am called Sai. It's nice to meet you as well." Her name sounded as if she could be from his world, but he found to be the case more often than not was that those sort of people were from this 'Japan' place he and his fellow ninja were often confused as being citizens of. It really wasn't worth asking about unless other aspects of his own world came up.

As far as their conversation went, there wasn't much else to say in regards to the events of the previous night. The creature seemed fairly specific in design, and if it had brought up anything that caused her to be uncomfortable, then it wasn't his place to ask about it. Just knowing that she'd seen one was enough for now, and he'd work with that.

"I feel as if I've seen you around, we just haven't spoken."

[thecamellia]

For all the awful episodes like last night, it was still a bit of a marvel how few people she actually knew by name in the Institute. So many people she had met by sheer chance, and now… now she could count her acquaintances on her fingers. And they were dwindling every day, too

[tsunagari]

Once again, Sai nodded in reply. Anyone who'd been there for a certain period of time knew something of what she was thinking. "I've been here about a month."

And he still had so little to show for it, unfortunately. He'd made acquaintances, sure, but they all seemed to vanish on him, and he often felt distanced even from his fellow ninja - moreso than he had back in his own world and that was saying something. He didn't have the best of ideas on how to close that distance either. The staff did a well enough job of separating them during the day, and the nights... Well, everyone knew how difficult those could be.

The ninja wasn't the best of conversationalists on a good day, and this girl looked like the quiet type, but they were getting some information shared between them and that was progress. He'd take anything he could get at this point. "We should all do our best to work with each other, so it's good that we've had this chance to introduce ourselves."

[thecamellia]

“I see.” She accepted his revelation about how long he’d been present without making a big deal out of it. The difference between them--give or take about two weeks--might not have been very large in the grand scheme of things--but it was a long time to be trapped as they were, and probably an unfortunate reminder. The morning was dark enough without dwelling on that. Tsubaki already felt the strain, and she was far from being the most experienced captive around. Honey had been an admirable soul for how well he had kept to his good cheer despite his lengthy stay, but he’d been special. Was special, hopefully, somewhere

[tsunagari]

Sai shook his head. "Not one of the big clubs, no. I do have several acquaintances here from my world that I work with, however." Or at least he assumed he still did. They seemed to come and go all the time. He hadn't even seen Sasuke for a while and he'd been around since the beginning. Shikamaru had posted to the bulletin, at least. He'd been able to see that some of them were still around.

"I know about the clubs, though, and I've worked with people in them before." To an extent, anyway. He could never really be considered part of any of them given what he'd contributed. For the most part, he'd stuck to his own (if he could call them that, and he hoped he could).

"Do you work with them much?"