Day 60: Music Room (Fourth Shift)

[stray_shinigami]

It wasn't often that Renji felt less like punching people in general as his day wore on. This was a new experience for him. A not unwelcome one, if he was being honest. And the fact that he felt less like punching Fai? Kind of mind-blowing. The sort of thing Zen masters would probably use as a kouan to reach an all-new level of non-punching

Comments

[chippforprez]

Indeed, Chipp was in a slightly better mood just seeing that Sora was okay. Though, didn't he have a friend with him? That silver-haired kid... Well, Sora didn't look too upset himself so maybe it was pointless to worry about it. Sora seemed like the kind of person who wouldn't leave a friend behind, so he was sure the silver-haired kid was alright. And then, there was Venom... hm. Chipp didn't reply at first, crossing his arms for a minute as he thought about how to answer Sora's question. It wasn't that he had bad news to report, but Chipp couldn't exactly remember how Venom actually was during their conversation, due to him being half-asleep. Well, Venom was pissed and Venom was talking, so he had to be okay otherwise, right?

"Well, there were these damn demon birds that gave us some trouble, but we took care of them," Chipp bragged, leaving out the part where he overused his ki and then apparently blacked out since he didn't remember shit afterwards. "Venom's alright, he's kind of pissed that we didn't get to Landel before he came back. The little bastard was right under our noses the whole time... tch."

What were the odds of that? Now that Chipp's head was a little clearer, he could understand how pissed Venom was a little earlier. Still, he was far from declaring their mission a failure as he just shook his head. That just meant it'd be easier to find him next time, like he said earlier.

"That's cool though, at least he came to us so we can kick his ass later. But where the hell did the military go?" The way Chipp said it, it sounded like he already had a plan and everything. In his mind, he did at least...

[scintillatingly]

Demon birds? Sora had fought a few different kinds of birds during his time here. There had been the ones that had attacked that night a while back when the buses had all broken down, but even worse had been that other one that had attacked him and Kairi on the patio -- the one that had lightning attacks. Normally it would have been a piece of cake for Sora to take something like that down, but here it counted as extremely dangerous.

It wasn't too surprising to hear that Venom was upset that he hadn't been able to get to Landel. That was what the two of them had tried to do that night that they had gone into the forest, after all. Still, Chipp had a point. It wasn't like Landel was gone, far from it. It might be harder to get to him, or maybe it would even be easier. But they still knew what they had to do. It was either find a way home or take him down, right?

"Well, at least both of you are okay. It sucks that we couldn't do more last night, but we've just gotta keep trying." He nodded, though it was clear he was mainly saying it to himself. With people like Renji around, though, he knew that he would always hold onto that determination.

As for the military, Sora couldn't say he had any idea himself. "I'm not sure where Aguilar went, but we'd better not assume he's gone for good." It had been complicated enough with just Landel around, but now they had even more people to worry about. It was kind of tiring just thinking about it, but Sora had handled at least half of the Organization before. He was used to having multiple enemies to deal with.

[chippforprez]

See, Sora understood! How could Venom still be ... well, like Venom yet befriend such a good kid? Chipp was happy that someone seemed to get it. Obviously, they would have to work together at some point. In the future. Hopefully for Sora, that would be in the far future. Not only was Sora refreshingly optimistic, he was also helpful. Sort of. At least, Chipp thought his opinion on the military's presence was helpful.

"Yeah, you're right. If he's working against Landel, then that'll help us get rid of the both of them." That was what Chipp thought earlier: If Landel and Aguilar were opposing forces, then they could tire themselves out and let the patients finish both of them off. It sounded like a good plan. In his head. "Make sure you tell Venom that, okay? He was going on about how we failed and there's nothing we can do or something. If he won't hear it from me, he should hear it from you."

It was still weird thinking of this kid as a friend of Venom's, to be honest. Actually, Chipp still had no idea how this even happened. It was enough of a mystery that he couldn't keep his thoughts about it silent. Yet even Chipp could see something a little wrong about phrasing his question as 'How the hell did a guy like Venom befriend a kid like you?'

"So, uh, you and Venom... you're both good friends, right? How'd that happen? You're not really the type of person he tends to hang around."

Well, that wasn't really appropriate either, but Chipp was trying.

[scintillatingly]

As it turned out, Chipp was a pretty interesting guy to talk to! Unlike so many other people, he was focusing on how they could keep accomplishing things and pointing out the few advantages that they had, rather than always dwelling on how it was going to be impossible. Venom was the one who was constantly giving out warnings to Sora about how he was going to get in trouble by being too optimistic, but he was just looking at it the wrong way.

Well, maybe if both he and Chipp worked at it, they could convince Venom that it didn't always work that way. Sometimes positive thinking went a long way! "If I see him around, I'll make sure to tell him! Or... maybe I should leave a note for him on the bulletin." It wasn't the best way to talk, but the day was almost over and so he wouldn't get another chance until tomorrow. If Chipp thought that Venom needed some cheering up, then Sora wanted to pitch in.

The question that came next made sense considering what they were talking about, and Sora smiled as he thought it over. Honestly, he didn't have a very good answer for Chipp. It had just sort of happened.

"I don't really think he thinks we're friends, but I do." Which was kind of sad, but Sora figured that Venom would come around eventually. Some people were just prickly like that. Or they were scared of attachments, or whatever the reason might be. "But we just kind of ran into each other one day! I approached him the first few times, but then I also talked to him in Doyleton and after that we just started keeping up with each other." It had developed naturally, which was how it was supposed to be.

Sora wasn't too shocked to hear that Venom didn't usually talk to people like him. That was clear from the way Venom treated him. He still saw him as a kid who didn't know much, which got old sometimes, but Sora knew that Venom meant well. In the end, his heart was always in the right place, which was what mattered most as far as Sora was concerned.

[chippforprez]

Sora was surprising, that was for sure; it wasn't that Chipp was oblivious to how anti-social Venom was, but hearing the boy doubt Venom's feelings on their friendship was a little surprising. So surprising, in fact, that Chipp just had to say something to correct it.

"Really? But he went straight to check on you when all hell broke loose last night. I mean..." Chipp frowned, realizing he didn't exactly have enough experience around Venom to really say what was and wasn't normal behavior for the assassin when dealing with people was concerned. Yeah, Venom wasn't the most social guy, but he wasn't that much of an asshole for an assassin. "... I dunno, it's like you're important to him or something."

Sora's story of how they met was really underwhelming, like it provided exactly no information as to why Venom liked Sora enough to at least check on him. Then again... well, if Venom just liked the kid, Chipp could see why. Maybe he should have just been glad that Venom picked up such a good ally. Maybe instead of asking about Venom, Chipp should have been introducing himself some more.

"Uh... hm... Oh, hey! I'll tell you how me and Venom met! It's kind of an awesome story."

It was awesome because he won, that was why!

[scintillatingly]

When Chipp put it that way, Sora could only agree with him. It was true that he and Venom had been through a few things together, between that one night when Venom had been drugged and that morning when the cafeteria had been gassed. They both looked out for each other, and Venom seemed to take Sora's safety seriously, if nothing else.

"Yeah, that's all true, but whenever I say we're friends he gets kind of weird about it." Sora sighed and rubbed at the back of his head awkwardly. Friendships weren't really supposed to be this complicated, were they? "I don't know if he just doesn't like to call anyone a friend, but I don't want to step on his toes either." That would just cause Venom to avoid him, which Sora didn't want.

Though the fact that Chipp was suddenly willing to explain how he'd met Venom in more detail certainly caught Sora's curiosity. He tilted his head up to look him in the eye, smiling briefly.

"Yeah, tell me! I'm really curious now." Not that he hadn't been before, but he had to wonder what made it so awesome.

this is the worst story ever told.

[chippforprez]

"He's weird about a lot of shit. Don't worry about it, you two are friends." For some reason, Chipp felt like he really had to reassure Sora about his friendship status with Venom. Nevermind the fact that he wasn't questioning why the two should be friends. Anyway, it was time for him to move on to a bigger and better subject: how he and Venom met. Chipp grinned, glad to know that Sora was interested in hearing the story (because he would have gone ahead and told it regardless).

"Alright, so, I was tracking down the leader of the Assassin's Guild. I thought it was this guy named Zato, but when I found him, he was already dead! I didn't find this out until I defeated him in battle and the weird shadow demon that was controlling him ran off. But then, Venom found me and he got really pissed that I was beating the corpse of the old Guild leader. I guess he was Venom's old boss or something, cuz he was really pissed. Then we started fighting!"

Just in case Sora needed some visual aid for his story, Chipp started mock swinging, and thankfully stopped before the nurse who had been watching him from the corner made it over to him. Oblivious to her presence, he continued on.

"He put up a good fight, I guess, but I was too fast and I came out the winner, of course! After that, I was threatening to take down his Guild, but he told me something that I didn't think about. He told me that as long as there was a need for the Assassin's Guild, then they'd still be around. So, that's when I decided! I was going to become President! Thanks to Venom, I knew what I had to do. So I told him that once I became President, his Guild would work for -"

"Robert?" Unable to keep herself silent as Chipp rambled on about one of the most convoluted stories she ever heard from a patient's mouth, the nurse tried to catch Chipp's attention. "Do you think that's an appropriate story to tell Matthew?"

What? He turned and stared at her, giving her a wary glance (she was possibly a zombie) and shrugged. What the hell was her problem, he wasn't doing anything!

"What the hell? That's what happened! You sayin' I'm a liar?!"

"No, but don't you think -"

"Shut up! Anyway," Chipp turned back to Sora, missing the miffed and somewhat annoyed look from his nurse after his attempt to dismiss her (it was so annoying how she kept insinuating he was some punk or something!) "Me and Venom, we're friends now."

if by worst you mean best.

[scintillatingly]

Just like that, Chipp was saying that he and Venom were friends. Sora couldn't argue with that, since he'd labeled Venom a friend a long time ago. It was nice that there were other people out there who got it the same way that he did. And maybe it didn't matter if Venom wouldn't agree to it; all that mattered was the actions they took, right? In the end, the words to describe it were secondary.

Sora didn't have too long to dwell on that, though, since Chipp jumped into his story soon after. And it turned out to be a pretty complicated one -- or was that just because of the way that Chipp was telling it? He was making it pretty exciting, even flailing his arms around as he spoke, but...

The mention of a shadow demon caught Sora's attention almost immediately. Had this Zato person been possessed by some kind of Heartless? Or maybe the darkness had just consumed him. Either way, Sora hadn't expected to hear that Venom had been working for someone who ran an assassin's guild. While Sora had to admit that he didn't exactly know what that was, he had to assume that it had something to do with killing people.

Venom had never mentioned that. Was that because he wasn't proud of it, or had he just thought that Sora was too young to hear about it? Honestly, Sora wasn't sure how to feel about it, especially since it had been kept from him.

Sora had ended up befriending people who he fought originally, so he could wrap his head around that, at least. He was surprised to hear that Chipp had won. He had to be really strong, to beat someone like Venom. But then he gave some more details about the guild. Venom apparently thought there was a need for it. Sora didn't know what that need was, but he was sure that it was a good reason. He'd just need to ask Venom about it himself.

Either way, this also explained why Chipp wanted to be president. To change things, right? That was what presidents were for: to make things better. At least, that was how Sora understood it. If Chipp wanted to make their world a place where a guild (whatever that was) wasn't needed, then that seemed pretty admirable to Sora.

"...Huh," he replied eventually, barely even registering the nurse who had come to bother them. He didn't mind hearing a story like this, especially since it would help him understand Venom some more. And Chipp too, for that matter. "So... what exactly is an assassin's guild? This is the first time I've heard about it." Sora wanted to get that figured out first, so that he didn't make any wrong assumptions.

i'm glad someone else sees how awesome this story is /bricked

[chippforprez]

Despite how underwhelmed Sora sounded at first, if only because there was so much new information to process, Chipp felt like his story had been well-received. This was because he had no idea that Venom had kept the more unsavory details of his life and day job from Sora. Back home, pretty much everyone knew what Venom did at least considering how often he invited various people to join the damn Guild in the first place, so that was why Chipp actually looked surprised when Sora asked him exactly what the Guild was.

It wasn't even that he felt that it should have been obvious just by going from the name, but... how could someone hang around Venom and not know what the Guild was? Of course, Chipp didn't even bother to consider exactly why this information was withheld from Sora, when it ought to have been clear as day. Then again, Chipp was never a fan of mincing words or hiding things.

Regardless, he wasn't sure exactly how to respond, evident by the fact he answered Sora's question with another question: "... You mean, he never invited you to join it?"

Chipp didn't know too much about Sora, but he knew the kid was able to hold his own against a place full of monsters with that weird key-sword weapon of his and come out looking better then he himself did. Venom would be interested in that at least, right?

[scintillatingly]

It was clear just from the look on Chipp's face that Sora should have known exactly what this guild was, which made him feel kind of bad. Still, he was almost positive that Venom had never spoken a word of it to him. The question that Chipp asked soon after that just made him feel even worse.

If it was normal for Venom to invite people, why hadn't he ever extended that invitation to him? Not that it mattered much here, since this was clearly something that existed back home, but Sora had invited Venom to join Arts and Crafts. It hadn't been accepted, but he'd still made the offer, which was the important part.

"No, I... he's never talked about it before," he admitted. "Maybe he didn't want to talk too much about stuff from his home? He's kind of secretive about that stuff."

Mainly his conversations with Venom involved talking about the institute itself, trading information, and being given advice. Sora hadn't mentioned much about his own life either, but he hadn't been actively trying to hide it. Maybe Venom hadn't either, but Chipp was acting like that was the case, so just what was going on here?

[chippforprez]

Secretive? He was so damn mouthy back home... Then again, Chipp was rather glad that Sora didn't hear anything about it. That sort of stuff was best kept away from anybody, much less kids. So that's why Chipp shook his head, trying to assure Sora that it wasn't that much of a big deal.

"Well, if he ever does, I want you to refuse anyway. Wait until I'm President, then the Guild will be used for good, alright?" Indeed, Chipp had learned a long time ago that while the Guild in its current state was a goddamn mess, that was only half of the problem. It only existed because people needed it. Clearly, the world had to change first before the Guild could change.

Still... why was Sora upset? It couldn't be because he felt left out or something, was it? Actually, now that Chipp thought about it, Venom probably didn't invite Sora because it would expose the kid to all sorts of danger. ... Hm.

"You know, he probably just didn't want you to get hurt. I wouldn't worry about it. Besides, I already said you can't join." Yep, if Venom was intending for Sora to never get involved in that crap, then he was more then happy to oblige.

[scintillatingly]

[Sorry for the delay!]

It was kind of weird that Chipp had just gone from asking him why he hadn't been invited into the Guild to forbidding him to join it. Sora was having a tough time keeping up, but if he understood right, the Guild wasn't exactly a good thing. If it really was for assassination, then that meant that the members of it were murdering other people, which --

Well, Sora had done that before, if Nobodies counted as people, but that was different. He doubted that this Guild was targeting people who were emotionless and friendless.

The idea that Venom hadn't mentioned it to prevent Sora from getting hurt made sense, though. Venom was usually overprotective of him, so that would fit in there. And Sora probably wouldn't have even wanted to join, so what exactly was bothering him about all this?

"Okay, so... what do you plan to do, if you're president?" Maybe it was better to focus on other things now. He could talk it all over with Venom later.

[chippforprez]

If only Chipp knew how much potential damage he was doing to Sora and Venom's friendship, he might have backpedaled a little further to try and do some damage control. Even if he and Venom didn't quite agree on the whole Guild thing, he wasn't that much of an asshole that he'd want to ruin a perfectly good friendship that didn't even have anything to do with it. At least, to him, Sora didn't look too bothered...

Besides, he was distracted with a better question. A far better question, though it turned out that Chipp didn't really have a good answer for it.

"What else? I'm going to change the world!" Of course, such a vague answer would have made anyone listening to him skeptical. Even Chipp was slowly starting to realize how empty that sounded. "... But I have to get elected first, don't I?"

[scintillatingly]

Changing the world sounded like a good idea, but Sora knew that it wasn't that easy. It was true that he'd traveled to all sorts of worlds and helped them with his Keyblade, but that didn't meant that he'd fixed all of the problems that existed in them. Defeating the darkness was just one part of it.

Still, if Chipp was dedicated to that, then Sora saw no reason not to support him. It sounded like the place that he and Venom came from was in pretty bad shape, so someone who was interested in changing that was someone that Sora could only think well of.

"I guess so, yeah! I don't really know how that stuff works, honestly..." He scratched at the back of his head. "So, uhh, how do plan to do it? Change the world, I mean. Hey, what's the name of the place you're from, anyway?" That was yet another thing that Venom had never told him, although Sora had never asked. Well, he was going to be asking a lot more now.

[chippforprez]

[ ooc: sorry for taking so long! wanna wrap this up? ]

"... Uh." Shit, he didn't really put as much thought into this as he should have, didn't he? Chipp frowned and crossed his arms, not sure how to reply to Sora's first question. But it was an important one... well, whatever he had to do, he had to become President to do it. It felt kind of crappy to have a kid point out a flaw in his plan though, especially one that was so obvious in hindsight. "Damn, I guess I didn't really put as much thought into this as I should have."

It kind of pissed him off to admit that, but he wasn't going to take it out on Sora. It was a good question, after all. Thankfully, Sora asked him something else that he could answer and was much more important!

“Oh yeah, I'm from Japan. But it's not there anymore, so I'm just traveling around trying to collect votes.” The sad thing was that while Chipp was blatantly lying, he seemed extremely serious about Japan being his place of birth and where he was from. He knew it. He knew it in his soul. So it wasn't really a lie, just a correction. Yep.

Before Chipp had the chance to lecture Sora about the wonders of Japan and the wisdom of the Japanese, the nurse who was watching them warily made her way around yet again, this time with an orderly following behind her. Just in case.

“Robert, it's about time to get ready to go back to your room. Why don't we-”

“What the hell did I do now?!”

[scintillatingly]

So if Sora was understanding right, Chipp had all of these plans to become president and change things, but he didn't actually know how he was going to do it. That was a little unexpected, since Sora would have thought that someone would put a lot of planning into that idea. It was clear that Chipp's heart was in the right place, but it was probably going to take a whole lot more thought than just that, unfortunately.

That didn't mean that Sora wasn't going to support Chipp, though. He just needed to put a little more effort into figuring out a game plan, and then he'd be golden.

Either way, the location he gave for where he was from was one that Sora had heard a few times. Japan was definitely popular around here, for whatever reason. "I guess a lot of people are from there," he remarked out loud. He wanted to know what exactly Chipp meant by "not there anymore," since that was definitely the first time he'd heard that mentioned (it was probably a time issue), but he wasn't given the chance.

The nurses came by and Chipp almost immediately got testy with them, which made Sora laugh nervously. "All right, Mr. Chipp!" he said as he stood up. "I'll see you around. Good luck with those votes, okay? And I'll try to cheer up Venom, too." Actually, he had a few questions for the man, but hopefully he take care of both at the same time.

Sora offered Chipp a wave and then took off, eager to go put up the assignments for Arts and Crafts.