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

Comments

[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.

But running off in search of him was the wrong thing to do, Tsubaki felt. The next best thing was to leave a note, which she did.

She was going to be leaving a lot of notes today. The shadows didn’t stop hospital life from moving on, and she had Mori on her mind, as well as her other friends. Though the Sun Room was likely going to be a crowded spot that day, she didn’t see anyone she could approach, and with nothing more to do, Tsubaki took a seat, keeping an eye on the door. It wasn’t long the nurse who escorted her in came back, however, this time with something in her arms.

It was the first time they’d ever tried to seriously give her a kitten to watch over, and Tsubaki was caught off guard when the woman held out a little black and white kitten. "Oh, but I--"

"Here, just take her and see how it goes for a little while. These guys need some attention now and again."

She’d never thought of playing with one of the cats when there were other prisoners around, and she was a bit bemused to find one in her lap while the nurse turned around and went on her way again. The kitten mewed, batting its paw, and Tsubaki stroked the underside of its chin without thought. It wasn’t like she couldn’t do what the nurse had said. The Head Doctor had doubtlessly meant to hurt her like anyone else, but she had no reason to withdraw and dwell on what the shadow had said to her, about her. Her time with her brother hadn’t ended well, but they had… she had… done what she’d done without doubt.

In fact, if there was one thing that stood out to her, it was that Landel clearly wasn’t going to spare his "investigators" from any obstacles. Which reminded her of Kurogane. What had happened to him while she and Fai had been together?

[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.

While he and Naruto had managed to get further than they had for a good many nights before that, what they'd found had left mixed feelings in his mind at best. Now that they knew where that location was, they might be able to return there in the future. It certainly had a few things that might be useful to them. The creatures that had taken on shadowy visages of themselves, however, were something he would gladly avoid in the future if possible. And it was embarrassing, not that he should ever feel embarrassed, but that failure was part of the reason the creature had been able to get at him, wasn't it?

He was in the sun room before he realized it and he frowned at the crowd already there. Was it just him, or were there fewer patients than normal? And was this a good thing or a bad thing? He headed toward one of them at random, a girl already occupied with one of the sun room kittens. He didn't want to talk so much as he wanted to think, and if he was sitting with someone else the nurses weren't likely to bother him further.

"Good morning," he greeted without a smile, taking a seat beside her.

[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.

After a while of this, she was prompted to look up as someone took a seat near her, a boy who appeared to be close in age. "Good morning," she returned quietly, smiling. It was a tense morning, too, and making new introductions was not on everyone’s mind.

[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.

He nodded at her. There really wasn't much else to say, so he went with the practical. "Last night... I don't suppose you noticed anything out of the ordinary?" Even as he said this, Sai realized that could be taken any number of ways. There was rarely anything 'ordinary' about a night at Landel's to begin with. Still, the fact that they'd gotten further than usual, the odd shadows - a sort of creature he'd yet to encounter... such things could have happened to others.

Would they be able to do anything about it? Probably not. It didn't hurt to make him feel like he was getting something accomplished, though. Even if it was just exchanging information.

[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.

A momentary smile raised the corners of her mouth, enough to show she understood what he was probably trying to get at. "Yes, it was the first time I’ve ever seen the lights on," Tsubaki said at first. She glanced at the boy, wondering if he wanted to know to make sure he wasn’t alone, or if it was the opposite entirely. She had no desire to lie and pretend nothing else had happened, though she would hardly be surprised if others felt differently. The shadows were personal to her, too, but not so personal that she’d deny that alien clone of herself, with stripes of shadows moving over shadows, had existed. She had. Did she exist beyond that, as a real part of Tsubaki?

Some, yes… parts of her guilt, maybe.

"It seems like the light might have been what caused the shadows to start acting strangely… I was outside the building with someone, and they started talking. They even ended up looking like us in their own way," she explained. A twin in black.

[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.

Should that make him feel better or worse about the situation? It meant that everyone's insecurities had been targeted, and he hadn't been picked out on an individual level due to a weakness in his own growing emotions. That did relieve him, in a sense, if that was what this sense of lightening of his spirit was. It was just Landel trying to get at all of them on a deeply personal level. Just another way he could show how much in control of them he was.

He nodded, finally, when she was finished. "I did experience something similar. Thank you for confirming that is wasn't an isolated experience." Eventually he'd have to check the bulletin board and see what others had to say as well as check in with his fellow ninja.

[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.

With how fast people could disappear, it was almost a rarity to find someone she had a vague impression of from glancing around a room.

She nodded in agreement, feeling there wasn’t much she could broach in regards to his initial line of questioning without getting into specifics. The initial, wordless impulse she had in situations like these was to confirm someone was all right, but asking that kind of question with a stranger didn’t carry much weight. Even asking amongst friends here was something of a formality. Personally, Tsubaki didn’t want to burden others, so she could understand Fai in that sense.

“I thought so, too. I’ve been here a bit over two weeks, myself,” she replied. “I’d like to meet people, but… ah, time seems to fly by sometimes.” By her tone, she made it known she thought Sai probably knew as much. Her choice of words was a euphemism as much as anything. Time wasn’t the whole problem--it was what was usually going on in the meantime that often distracted her from meeting new people.

[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.

It might’ve looked foolish from the outside, trying to have a pleasant conversation considering all of the jarring events that had so recently happened, yet Sai’s demeanour encouraged her to smile at him all the more. It’d be worth it to create an unburdened moment, just to put the shadow stuff aside for a time and have a second of carefreeness like the animal in her arms.

“Yes, I agree,” she said, smiling. “There’s a lot of good people here; it‘s not hard to find friends.” Despite whatever the shadows may have said to the contrary. “What about you, are you part of one of the big clubs?” The largest circles where people were helping each other out were probably the clubs, though memberships hardly had to be exclusive, and there were plenty of people with their own networks.

[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?"