Night 60: M01-M10 Hallway

[mustbethesuit]

The words of the Head Doctor, back to power and gloriously maniacal as ever, slid cleanly past Peter Parker's ears and dripped unnoticed to the floor. The few that stuck - something about the radio guy, and losing a girl - they hit no notes within him. He held onto them, but set them aside for another day. Things were too woozy to even consider

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M1

[fuukaenbujin]

Kurama had made sure to wait until his roommate left first before he went about his own business for the night. While Goku was probably not going to be much help to him in terms of providing information and further understanding of the Institute's inner workings, there was more than one good thing having him as a roommate meant. Kurama felt perhaps a slight twinge of guilt at having to consider the child in that way, but perhaps he could use his roommate's simple-mindedness to his advantage, after all. Not having a particularly... observant... roommate meant that Kurama wouldn't be as hard-pressed to keep track of his secrets in his room. If he were a better person, he'd feel bad for intentionally treating someone like that, but he was Youko Kurama. And 'Kurama' had no obligation to be affiliate himself with moral good. Although he had regained faith in the significance of trust and friendship, there were still several hundred years of experiences that justified his wariness of having too many connections.

Interesting, how daytime at the Institute transformed into night. There had been two announcements to bring about the change: the first had continued the act of a medical facility, with the head doctor bidding them all a good night and pleasant dreams, while the second had dropped all pretenses and given Kurama several key questions to answer.

Firstly, what was the point of pretending to be an institute in the daytime when it should be fairly obvious to all the patients that this was hardly the case? The head doctor -- this Dr. Martin Landel -- was clearly in the know about what went on at night, but how much did the rest of the staff know, then? If the staff knew about all this, again, what was the point of the act during the day? For whom was the act for? But with the second announcement came an inkling of a possible reason for this.

The second announcement had exactly what had happened at the Institute before he'd arrived? From what this Martin Landel had said in his broadcast, Kurama deduced a couple possible facts: the man had been removed from his position as head doctor before and only recently gotten the position back; it seemed that some military force had taken over in the head doctor's stead. There had been mention of soldiers, a general, traitors, an 'Eagle,' and finally, this person vaguely referred to as ’her’ that the head doctor had seemed particularly incensed about ‘losing.’ From this, Kurama could hazard a guess and say that whatever they were doing inside this Institute was not something that outsiders were supposed to know about. Thus the pretense. What was this then, an experiment? Bringing in beings from different universes, different worlds, different timelines, for their own research purposes? If the military had been involved, perhaps Kurama had stumbled -- or rather, been drawn into against his will, more like -- into something far bigger than he'd initially thought. … How troublesome, that he’d been taken out of one inter-dimensional conflict, only to be drawn into another.

M1

[fuukaenbujin]

And thirdly, something else that caught his attention. ‘Powers,’ the head doctor had mentioned. It would be fair to assume Kurama was the not the only being at the Institute with some sort of special ability, then. Was this, perhaps, the reason they had all been brought here? Had the other patients been chosen for their powers and brought here to be observed and tested on? And the doctor had mentioned something about limits, hadn’t he? It made sense, now that Kurama thought about it. The ‘patients’ here possessed powerful abilities, but in order to contain them in this space, it would make sense for their captors to restrict their capabilities. Which meant that Kurama would be unable to access a good chunk of his youki, he assumed. How had he not been able to immediately detect nearby demons before? It had become almost second-nature to him, so he hadn’t noticed the lack of distinct auras around him, but in hindsight, it really should have been more apparent. As it was, Kurama had focused his attention internally as the broadcast had been made and realized that he seemed to be able to access more of his youki once night shift was announced. This had to be because of his apparent status as the Institute’s ‘lab rat.’ They gathered information about them at night, perhaps, and whatever transpired here at night was the experiment they were running.

There were too many questions and not enough answers for them. He would have to gather more information before he could start formulating a plan.

But first, he would have to survive whatever was going to happen tonight. The warnings and advice from the bulletin board had carried a mixture of impressions, and Kurama was unsure which impression he should trust the most. And then there had been that fellow youkai he’d conversed with.

Perhaps it was because Kurama had been taken from such a time in his own universe, but he was wary of this meeting he had agreed to. While the other youkai had seemed honest enough, it was difficult to tell through written text and deceit was hardly an uncommon trait among demons. Even if he wanted to trust this demon’s words, he was, by nature, cautious and it was this quality that had saved his life countless times before. There was no sense in being unprepared for whatever outcome, even if preparations proved unnecessary in the end.

As expected, Kurama had none of his usual arsenal of weapons at hand. After Kurama had finally gotten the room to himself, during his search of the rest of the room, he had also conducted a search on his own person. All of his usual stock of seeds, as well as the modified rosebuds he used as his signature Rose Whip weapon, had all been taken from his person. He would have to make do with improvised weapons until he could find and personalize a new stock, then.

Slipping the carefully-detailed origami map that the Nation of Japan (… he still wasn’t sure what to think of this) had provided into his pocket, Kurama picked up the flashlight and the radio, switching the latter on and putting the strap over his shoulder to keep his hands free. There must have been a reason they had all been provided with a radio, after all. Perhaps he might catch something interesting if he brought it with him. Kurama exchanged his indoor slippers for the shoes and then picked up the keyring he’d found in his desk as he headed out the door. As he stepped out into the hallway, he turned and locked up with one of the keys. Even though he had nothing valuable inside, he might as well get into the habit. Finally, he turned and headed down the hallway, the route he would take already memorized and mapped out in his mind.

[fuukaenbujin]

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