Day 24: Courtyard (Shift 2)

[stray_shinigami]

Renji's quasi-peaceful mood from breakfast was well and gone by the time he got out to the courtyard. Rather than dwell on the all-new problems with Rukia - and the fact that he had absolutely no idea how to deal with any of it - he tried to occupy himself with a mental checklist of the things he needed to do today. Meet with Roy Mustang at lunch,

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[whiteychan]

Hitsugaya nodded. It had only been a couple of hours, and already the oppressive and time distorting sensation of the place was taking hold on him. two hours might as well have been two weeks...and he hadn't even been through a single night yet.

"I work in the same organization as Vice Captain Abarai Renji," he mentioned. "Abarai-Fukutaicho already briefed me on the situation, but if you have anything to add, I would appreciate it."

He did appreciate that this boy wanted to look out for him, though. An open offer of caution was well founded, based on Renji's brief. "I understand that we're trapped under the watch of a lunatic who seems to be more than he claims to be, and that the doors open nightly, at which point monsters and occassionally other patients roam the halls against us. I also understand that any 'special' talents we might possess have been cut off or at least severaly limited." This last bit had already been verified at breakfast. He still felt weak from the exertion of his powers. If they didn't replenish soon, he'd be useless when night came.

[daddyslilkiller]

Omi tried to look out for people. It got him into trouble as often as not, but he did. It was a thing.

And those names meant nothing to him. Not that that really said anything. He didn't know more than a handful of people here. "I don't know them, but if you've got friends here, that's good. It makes things easier, I think."

Well, unless those friends are from drastically different places in time than you, which makes you spend a good portion of your time wondering what had changed.

"Sometimes they take people. For experiments and stuff, I guess. That's just what I heard." He fixed Hitsugaya with a more curious look. Kurama had been the only other person to mention anything like 'special talents,' even though he'd seemed upset that Omi didn't have any, but... well... could they really be that common? "So you have... powers?"

[whiteychan]

Hitsugaya nodded. He supposed it was easier to call them friends than shinigami.

"They're solid friends," he said. "Loyal to a fault."

Then he asked about the powers. Super-human capabilities was another potential common thread that he could cross off his list. "It's...complicated," he answered hesitantly. Trying to explain the nature of soul society would be unwise for now, but so would lying. "On a basic level, I work in a law enforcement agency, and I have special tools that I can use to accomplish my tasks. Those tools have been taken from me." Hyorinmaru, for one. He felt naked without his soul cutter on his back. A part of his soul had been taken from him, and he felt empty inside on account of it.

[daddyslilkiller]

"That's good. Everyone needs friends like that." He couldn't quite stop himself from trying to find Yohji and Aya in the crowd. They were friends like that, weren't they?

He listened intently to Hitsugaya's sketchy explanation. It didn't really sound that different from what he did... except for the magic or whatever... and the fact that it sounded a lot more legal. "Oh. I guess that's worse than getting normal weapons taken away, huh?"

[whiteychan]

'Worse' seemed like an understatement. Losing his zanpakuto literally meant losing a part of himself; however, it was best not to break down over that. They would find his zanpakuto eventually, and everyone in this prison would be free.

"It is," Hitsugaya said, leaving it at that. "I'm guessing you have friends here?"

[daddyslilkiller]

He nodded. "Yeah. Well... sort of, anyway. There are people from my world here, but we're from different timelines or something, so they didn't recognize me at first."

Well, they'd recognized him, it was just all horribly awkward with them mixing his name up.

"I guess you didn't have that problem?" He knew he was a little upset over the 'alternate dimensions' thing at first. ...Maybe some of these other worlds were used to it? That was a scary thought.

[whiteychan]

So they weren't the only group who had been pulled from different periods of their timeline. He suspected as much, but this was a solid confirmation.

"It seems like all of my group were pulled from a relatively similar time...within the span of about a year." When you've lived over a hundred years and were still young by shinigami standards, a year was nothing. That's what made it seem so odd. Why did everything center around the time of Aizen's betrayal and the Arrancar's assault? His mind raced as he absently commented, "Thankfully, we've all been on this team for a lot longer than that."

[daddyslilkiller]

"We had been, too, but five years is still a big difference. Aya-kun and Yohji-kun are from really close timeframes, though, I think." He half-smiled. "Guess I'm just the odd one out."

He continued looking around the courtyard, eventually spotting Kurama. "Oh! And my roommate here. He's really nice. Have you met your roommate, yet? I guess if you just got here you wouldn't have..."

[whiteychan]

Hitsugaya nodded. "Thankfully, all of us have the same ranks and positions in all of the remembered timelines. Otherwise things would be a lot more complicated."

Following Omi's vision, he noted who he could only expect was Omi's roommate. "No," he said. "When I woke, he must have already left for breakfast." The idea of a roommate didn't please him, but it only made sense. He only hoped that he could turn his roommate into an ally once he found out who it was.

[daddyslilkiller]

He thought about that for a bit, then nodded. "It was the same when I got here. Kurama-kun was already gone, so we didn't meet till dinner. I think they might do that on purpose. Wake us up at odd times, I mean."

It seemed like everything here was done for some purpose or another, anyway. He glanced over at Hitsugaya. "How would that make things complicated? You having different ranks or whatever, I mean?"

[whiteychan]

Hitsugaya pondered. "There's a lot of things they seem capable of doing." Taking away Hyorinmaru, limiting his powers below even a hundreth of his true potential, pulling even Captain away from Soul Society. Whatever they were doing, they were effective at it.

"Well," Hitsugaya said. "If, say, two of my team came from a time when I was not a Captain, and two did, things wouldn't be able to run as smoothly. In such a case, which rank do you follow? Who is in charge?" Heiarchy was important among the shinigami. If they came from a time before he had graduated from shinigami academy, it would have been incredibly awkward for all of them. Thankfully that was not the case.

[daddyslilkiller]

So... basically the problem Omi had now. Yeah, that was definitely awkward. Not that he could really mention it without mentioning the whole assassin team thing, because trying to get sympathy for not working in a flowershop anymore just... didn't seem especially realistic. Then again, a 17-year-old heading a team of assassins who just happened to also work at a flowershop wasn't the most believable story, either, but what could you do?

"I guess you would just have to work together, then, right? Or make something up. Improvise." He laughed. "This place isn't very good at helping things run smoothly, you know?"

[whiteychan]

Thankfully, that wasn't the case with him. He was a captain, had been for some time, and everyone knew that. "I'm not surprised," he said. "Whoever's doing this wants us all for some reason, and if things ran smoothly, I wouldn't even be here because this place would have been brought to rubble by now."

"We work together no matter the position," he added in agreement. "We just work most effectively when we have a set rank. We take our duties seriously, and rank makes sure that we can focus on those duties instead of who's in charge." Who else could maintain the balance, if not the shinigami?

[daddyslilkiller]

It was a most disturbing problem, yes. Omi wouldn't wish it on anyone. And oh, if Omi only knew how few of the people he was meeting here were actually human.

"It's good that things worked out for you and your friends, then." He sounded like he really meant it, too. "I've heard stories about the things here, and seen things myself, too. From what they can do to us, and the monsters and everything... I don't know why they need us here. Or you'd think they could at least figure out a more effective method of indoctrinating us or something."

[whiteychan]

Hitsugaya had a few guesses why, but the simplest answer seemed the most likely. "My guess is that they either want us out of the way," he reasoned. "Or they want to make us suffer. Or both." Shinigami had a lot of enemies among the hollows, enemies who would love to put them all in this position if they had the chance.

[daddyslilkiller]

"Out of the way of what, though? And why us? If whoever's behind this was planning something, wouldn't it make sense to take people all from the same world?"

Omi was a hacker. He thrived on finding patterns in things. There was no pattern here. "All the people here are too different. Nothing makes sense."