Night 56: West Wing, South Hall 1-A

[poorexample]

[From here.]As Castiel exited the room block he'd been assigned to, it occurred to him that Gabriel had not caught up with him this time around. That was for the best. He had a difficult time shaking his brother off in this place, seeing how he couldn't disappear at the snap of a finger. If he'd had to bring his brother along on his lesson with

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[bigdamnzero]

It had been a hunch to guess Zack had received the sword from Tifa's roommate (because there was always the possibility that he'd gotten it from someone else), but apparently he'd been right. It probably meant that Lightning had the other sword, unless she'd given it to someone else.

At the apology, Cloud made a small sound of dissent and shook his head. Upon reflection, he was glad Zack had a sword -- or any weapon at all -- instead of him, because while he knew his friend could take full care of himself (better than Cloud could), it still meant that he wouldn't have to worry about him as much. In fact, if he'd had a weapon, Cloud would have pressed either Zack or Tifa to take it. Preferably two so that both his friends could have something to defend themselves with.

In the meantime, they'd have to stick to finding weapons the old-fashioned method Zack was talking about. (...Cloud supposed it was Trial and Error.)

"Tifa's doing all right," he replied, "Ran into her at a restaurant in town, we had lunch. She'd been wondering I was for a while." A pause, and his gaze lowered. "She... told me I'd been here before. But I... can't remember it."

[zack_fair]

If they had been able to have lunch together and Cloud hadn't mentioned any injuries, then Zack could assume that the Tifa was doing fairly well. It wasn't the sort of thing that his friend would have lied about or misconstrued, after all, and so Zack just nodded along with the explanation.

The whole matter of memory loss seemed to be sinking in with Cloud now, and Zack had to imagine it was a sore spot considering what the man had been through before. If you had at one point convinced yourself that you were a different person, having memories tampered with couldn't be a good feeling. Zack sighed, wishing that his friends hadn't gotten dragged into this whole mess.

And yet it was possible that he could only see them in this very place...

"I know," he said. "They really like to make things confusing here. You weren't here for much longer than a week, I don't think, but that's still bad enough. I can try to catch you up on what happened, if you want." Not that they should be standing around in a hall and talking when they could be doing so much more. Zack didn't mind explaining while they searched the area, though.

"Were we going to meet up with Tifa, or should we just head off somewhere?" Zack didn't really know where, but he wouldn't mind going upstairs again. If Cloud had any leads or ideas, he trusted him to mention them.

[bigdamnzero]

The sigh made his brows twitch in concern, made him glance back up at his friend to check his expression -- but there wasn't anything Cloud could read there to make him worry, not right away. Or... maybe he wasn't reading it right. Which was always possible; they hadn't seen each other for years -- ... sort of. Apparently, it had only been a week.

It was still pretty bad that he'd been taken in a week after arriving, though. Zack was right. And catching up on what had happened sounded like a good idea, and it was on the tip of his tongue to ask if his friend knew the circumstances around his disappearance (probably not, since he'd just referred to it as being confusing-- plus, Tifa hadn't either). But to ask while standing around somewhere that just about anyone or anything could happen upon them wasn't a good move.

So he nodded, "I'd like that. Getting caught up, I mean," and turned his head to squint along the dark corridor, lifting the light to shine down it. "Yeah, I was thinking of getting Tifa with us. Make sure she's all right." A thoughtful pause, and he glanced back at Zack. "It's not only the soldiers we have to worry about at night, is it?"

While he hadn't yet encountered anything resembling a monster himself, he had heard... things, the night before. And then there was the eerie feeling of the place itself, one that he'd compared to the Shinra Mansion in his head before.

[zack_fair]

Zack was glad that Cloud agreed, but there was so much to get caught up on that the very thought was daunting. There was never enough time to talk during the daytime shifts, but at night Zack wanted to be on the move, which wasn't really conducive to a drawn out discussion. He was sure that if they ever did get around to a talk like that, some pretty serious topics would come up. That didn't seem like the sort of talk to have while wandering through dark hallways.

When Cloud mentioned the possible threats they could encounter at night, Zack sent a glance down the hallway as if he was expecting something to jump out at them. It seemed that everything was calm for now, though. "Yeah, there are monsters, not to mention brainwashed patients who'll try to keep us from passing through areas."

And yet Zack hadn't run into anything that bad during his time here -- though he could assume that was because he had never really made that much progress here. Holding back another sigh, he decided it was about time to get a move on.

"Anyway. Do you know where Tifa's gonna be? We should go meet her." They had already wasted enough time and Zack wanted to actually achieve something for once. He had a sword, which put him one step ahead than he'd been last night, but it wasn't really enough.

[bigdamnzero]

It seemed his friend was thinking along the same lines as he was, with the way he glanced down the shadowy passageway as well. And then Cloud blinked. Monsters, he'd expected to hear about, but brainwashed patients was one he hadn't seen coming. Giving it a moment's thought, though, it made complete sense; manipulating otherwise normal people and using them as fodder wasn't new to him, after all.

"Gotten into scrapes with any of them?" he asked with something of a frown, since the mention of brainwashing made him wonder if that's what had almost happened to him when he was made to disappear, ignoring the little voice at the back of his head that said maybe it'd already. It had already happened once--

Cloud shook his head. "Didn't make any meet up arrangements with her, so I'm not certain where she'll be. But I do have her room number. F6." That'd be the number for her roommate, too-- Lightning. Perhaps she and Tifa had already left. He nodded down the hallway, meaning for the both of them to start walking. "Not too sure about the layout of this place, though. How about you?"

He didn't know if the place had a map or not, but if Zack had been here longer than him, been able to find Cloud's room quick enough, then he guessed he'd probably know the way to the female patients' area, too.

[zack_fair]

"A few, yeah," Zack admitted, though he wasn't interested in making a big deal out of it. Fighting monsters was more or less his job back home (or it had been, anyway), and so he only shrugged. The brainwashing was a bit more out of the ordinary, and yet it honestly fit in pretty well with some of the crap that he'd dealt with before waking up here.

The point was that they could worry about that sort of stuff when they came across it. Now Cloud at least knew what to expect, and for soldiers like them that was half the battle. "Know your enemy" and all that. Granted, it would help if they could get the blond armed, but one step at a time.

It was good that Cloud had the girl's room number, but Zack didn't know how much that would help in this case. They had already spent some time talking here, so it was possible that Tifa was long gone by now, off to do her own thing.

"I know how to get there," he replied with a nod. There was nothing to worry about there. "I'm just not sure if she'll still be there." He could tell that Cloud wanted to at least check, though, and so Zack was willing to waste the time for the sake of his friend. "Let's get going." It wouldn't take long to get there if they hurried, and so he took off down the hall.

[To here.]