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gald_digger March 9 2011, 22:41:58 UTC
Before she even opened her eyes, Anise felt that something was wrong. Still drowsy, she reached across her bed, feeling around for the doll that should have been at her side. When she didn't find it, she rolled over and tried the other side. Nothing.

Finally, Anise opened her eyes... and found herself in a room that looked almost foreign. She remembered now, the institute, the people she met here, and how she'd forgotten all of it so suddenly... but now that it all came back to her, she still wasn't sure she was in the right place. The dolls she'd put on display were absent, and the room looked just like it had when she first arrived.

And Tokunaga... Tokunaga was gone!

Anise kicked her sheets away from herself and scrambled out of bed, desperately hoping to find the doll somewhere in the room. What she discovered instead was the strange uniform she had been dressed in. A metal tag hung from her neck, which she held up to her face to examine. Dolores Haze, S Class... What did that mean ( ... )

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[1/3] quarter_english March 11 2011, 07:01:44 UTC
Before consciousness had faded, the night before, L had heard Aguilar's announcement. The general's accent suggested fluency in Spanish; therefore, he wasn't so far removed from the origins his name suggested. It was difficult to discern anything more concrete than that about his personal history, though, and in context, past an attempt to predict his motivations, that history might not be relevant ( ... )

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[2/3] quarter_english March 11 2011, 07:07:00 UTC
He thought of the nurses, who were conspicuous by their absence. If the information about them was correct, they transformed into vicious monsters at night--except for Lydia, who either wasn't one of them in some intrinsic way, or had found a method of halting the transformation. He remembered the night when her guttural responses to Landel's questions had made him think that she and Jill couldn't be the same person, and then his initial suspicions that the two were one seemed to have been confirmed. Had she been unable to keep herself from changing that night, or had he misinterpreted what he heard? (That possibility was one reason why he tried to combine cameras with microphones whenever possible: just one kind of surveillance, without the other, could create a situation in which it would be impossible to accurately discern what was happening ( ... )

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[3/3] quarter_english March 11 2011, 07:09:42 UTC
L was tempted to rebel--he itched to do it; his expression was one of open defiance and resentment--but there was no chance of success, and the price might be too high. Higher than it had been under Landel, he was sure ( ... )

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/applause gald_digger March 11 2011, 17:57:58 UTC
When someone answered the question that had been directed at nobody, Anise froze. Somebody heard her talking like that? Ack... Anise wasn't supposed to show that side of herself to others, especially not to strangers!

Eager to cover up her little slip-up, Anise snatched one of the buckets of soap water and shot up to her full height, making the water slosh precariously against the edges of the bucket. To the man who'd replied to her, she offered a sweet, cutesy smile. "Eheh... I guess that's true. They're pretty scary, huh?"

It was then that she got a look at the stranger, with his thin build and dark circles under his eyes. His posture kind of sucked, too. He didn't look like the healthiest guy, to be sure. His uniform was the same one that Anise and all the other patients had been forced into, but she found her eyes drawn to the little badge on his hat. M-U"Hey, you got one too!" Anise tapped one of the pins on her own beret to show what she was talking about. It seemed like some patients had none, some had one, and a few had two ( ... )

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quarter_english March 12 2011, 07:11:55 UTC
L watched the girl snatch up a bucket, a simpering smile materializing on her face. Early teens, dark hair in pigtails. He had the impression, supported by her hairstyle, that the look she aimed at him had been calculated for maximum innocence and adorability. He resisted the impulse to offer an equally fake smile in return; in a lighter mood, a less fraught situation, he might have gone through with it. It was his first moment of amusement in a while.

"Scary?" L's gaze slid to the side, to the nearest line of soldiers. "I don't know about that. Are you afraid of them?" If she was, she wouldn't have said what she said. She resents them, but she isn't afraid--not yet. "There's a difference between wariness and fear, hm ( ... )

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gald_digger March 12 2011, 18:19:36 UTC
Are you afraid of them? Anise tilted her head, somewhat surprised at the question. "Well, yeah..." Didn't he believe her? Anise was laying the cuteness on pretty thick, too... "I mean, that thing with the gas yesterday was pretty scary, right?" Maybe that didn't mean she was always scared of them, but being scared sometimes was still technically being scared ( ... )

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quarter_english March 18 2011, 05:35:14 UTC
"I wouldn't know," he replied, not bothering to keep the annoyance out of his voice. "I wasn't here." After a pause, he added, "I can't say that I found it comforting."

He held the cleaning rag at arm's length, using his fingertips to swirl it on the table. I shouldn't have to do these things myself, he thought. He was capable, in that he was able-bodied, but it brought his firm opinion back into focus: his skills were being wasted here, in what seemed to be training for work for which he had no real aptitude or interest. No one would ever look at him and think that he was a good candidate for any kind of on-the-ground combat (Is that what they want us for?), let alone petty custodial duties, but apart from that, he was better at issuing orders than following them ( ... )

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gald_digger March 18 2011, 14:25:40 UTC
He wasn't here? Could he be new? That didn't really seem right, though, especially if he had one of those badge things. He was probably just lucky enough to sleep through that morning.

Anise expected her little fib to go unnoticed, but what she definitely didn't expect was for the guy to flinch and freeze up, like he was in a lot of pain. "H-hey, are you okay!?" Dropping her own rag, Anise rushed to the other side of the table. Considering her first impression of him was that he looked almost sickly, it wouldn't surprise her if he did have health problems... but what was that? A headache?

Before she reached him, however, he looked back to her with an odd, suspicious look; one that made her stop in her tracks.

You're lying to me. He couldn't really know that. How could he say that with such conviction? And shouldn't he be worrying about himself? Whatever that was just now, it looked like it really hurt ( ... )

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