((From
here. ))As Claude stepped into the dark hallway, he made sure to shine his flashlight beam enough to light their way forward. Doing a quick scan of the area, Claude noticed the closed doors along their path. He swallowed hard. Were they torturing Ashton in one of these rooms? Who else did they have trapped here
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Renji didn't rush into the room; he knew there were other people ahead of them and he didn't want to jump into the middle of someone's fight. That was a good way to get injured by so-called "friendly fire." He moved to the side, skirting the wall, and tried to get a sense of what was going on.
Two steps in, he caught himself from stumbling. He put his hand against the wall, registering the cold and wet of frost leeching the warmth from his skin. It smelled bad, but no worse than where he'd grown up; it was the heaviness of the air, the feeling of oppression and doom, like he would never be happy again, that caught him.
He made himself take a deep breath and let it out slowly, made himself think. He'd never felt this before, but it was familiar all the same, a piece of knowledge being test.
"Oh shit," he said. Even his voice felt heavy and thick.
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As they approached the commotion ahead, Rukia heard voices and a thud; probably someone ramming a door. She didn't really pay attention to what was being said, though, as Renji stumbled ahead of her.
"Renji?" she asked, her teeth chattering. She felt strangely sluggish and hopeless. Why were they even bothering to try and rescue anyone? They were all stuck here, anyway, with no chance of escape-- Shaking her head slightly, Rukia frowned. What was she thinking? The sense of despair was still there, though, and her fingers were going numb as frost slowly began to form on Sode no Shirayuki's blade.
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It chilled right through, past bones and to the core of a person, closing them off and deadening everything warm. He had felt like this - useless, hopeless - only twice in his life before now, as far as he could remember.
When he had been a Heartless, and when he had found out that all of the work he had being doing, all of the darkness he had been killing, had just been helping along the organization he had been trying to stop.
He breathed hard, and it became visible in front of him. His face and his fingers were stinging and going numb from the cold, and he just couldn't find it in him to do anything about it. He remained near the door, and nothing was motivating him to keep moving.
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She glanced back at Sora as she listened to Renji's words, but... could it really be that easy? It wouldn't work; her kidou was too weak, and their swords probably wouldn't even hit the thing.
Gritting her teeth, Rukia made a small noise, like a snarl. She couldn't let that things powers make her think like that! They had people to rescue, people who needed them, even though they were probably already under the doctors' scalpels.
NO.Rukia rolled her shoulders and shifted her weight from one foot to the other, to try and stay warm. Her hands stung from the cold. She released the katana with one hand, reaching back to grab Sora's shoulder and pull him up to stand with her and Renji. It seemed better, somehow, if they were close together ( ... )
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The rats were coming, and with them Sora caught a whiff of that putrid smell. He winced his eyes shut against that and the cold, against everything. He didn't want to do this anymore.
Normally, as the rodents got closer, his Keyblade would have materialized so that he could properly block their attacks. But this time, nothing happened. His heart wasn't in it, and so he was left with no means to fight. It didn't even seem like it was worth it to get out of the way...
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Sora's despair wasn't lost on him. And he knew the source, obviously; he was effected, himself. In a way, he had an advantage, having the childhood and adolescence that he and Rukia had gone through. Much of it had seemed hopeless, but they'd been forced to keep going, had learned not to give up against any odds.
He bared his teeth at the monster, doing his best to hide the heaviness in his voice. "Come on, Sora!" he yelled. "She got it!" He began to run toward the rats, sword coming down to strike at the first. "I need you with me, let's go!"
They needed to break through and get the Dementor. And more importantly, they needed to keep the rats from getting to Rukia until she recovered. He did his best to focus on those to things, on the necessity of doing and duty no matter how he felt.
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With shaking, numb hands, she slid the katana from her belt again. Sora's weapon hadn't appeared yet, and the rats were closing in. Renji couldn't take on all four by himself. That was the only thing that gave Rukia the strength to move forward.
Still leaning heavily on the wall, she held her katana ready, but in her current state she would make an easy target.
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That didn't stop the rats though. They continued, heading for their prey with a foolish determination that was leading them directly into what could be their deaths. With another howling shriek and a sound like breaking glass, the Dementor began to pull back and away.
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The loud screech was hard on Sora's ears, but he felt himself starting to warm up, if only a little bit. He was by no means as confident as usual, but he also knew that there was at least a small chance of them succeeding.
That was enough.
When he realized how close the rats were getting, the boy launched himself in front of Rukia--suddenly, with a flash of light, he was holding onto his Keyblade with both hands, drawing it in front of him to block himself from the monsters' attacks.
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In all his time at the institute, Renji had never actually encountered rats before. He'd had to deal with smaller, non-monstrous ones in his childhood, but there was no way of knowing how these would attack, what strength they had. The only way to know was to fight.
He lunged at the closest rat, sword whipping down to strike.
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Still holding the katana ready, she wiped some of the blood from her nose onto her shoulder. Thankfully, the room was growing a little warmer, and the feeling was starting to come back to her hands.
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The rats weren't exactly intelligent but they weren't near as stupid as the average ones either. They broke off into two groups, one set going for Sora and the other for Renji. Hideous squeaking started when Renji cleaved the one in two, the other going for the swordsman's ankle. Unless Renji was quick with his blade, the filthy creature was sure it was going to get to bite someone.
The two that were in front of Sora stopped without warning, eyeing him and then each other. Weirdly enough, they squeaked back and forth a few times before breaking off in opposite directions. They turned just as quick and headed at Sora from the left and right. The question was could he manage to get them both or was he going to end up part of the Rat Bitten Brigade?
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He trusted Sora to take care of Rukia, and Rukia to take care of herself. There seemed to be one person left of the group the dementor had guarded, and it seemed best to get to them before more rats showed up and attacked someone that couldn't defend themselves. Their other team had arrived, but were facing rats of their own, though they didn't seem to need any help.
Sword at the ready, Renji headed for the person, intent to help him up and then get his entire group out of there. It wasn't someone that he recognized, but that didn't matter to him. A person in need of help was a person in need of help.
[ooc: yes, he's ( ... )
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