Nightshift 27: Second Floor, hallway containing disciplinary therapy rooms and nurse station

[full_score]

((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

Comments

[notachick]

Dirty. These rooms were filthy, tainted with the blood of innocents, but not the blood of demons. The man Okita wanted to see had never been here. Homura had no idea where he would be either, and for the first time since arriving here, Okita felt the true weight of his illness rise up within him.

He wanted to kill this man for bringing him here.

As if he hadn't heard Homura speak, Okita repeated his question with poison in every word. "Homura-san, where is he?"

He brought the sword around, not quite pointing it at the demi-god, but it was clear that the weapon could soon turn either way. If Homura didn't know, then Okita would look by himself. He couldn't stand the idea of Hijikata being tortured, but beyond that he would die if the man had abandoned him here. He had promised to keep Okita with him so long as he was useful. Had the swordsman outlived his purpose? Had Hijikata returned home with his information and left his first captain behind? That couldn't be right, but...

Doubt was the slayer of all men.

If Homura didn't know, Kenshin was next.

[screwthegods]

Homura raised his own sword, taking it in both hands, his eyes never straying from the man before him. He didn't want to spend his time this way, fighting one of his allies, using pointless violence to console his grief.

But Homura would protect his interests, and if Okita attacked him, he would retaliate.

"Pointing your sword at other patients will do no good, Okita." Homura himself, Kenshin, anyone else--the demi-god was talented enough at pushing people away. He didn't need Okita to help with it.

"I don't know what they've done with him. I had hoped he would be here." Homura frowned, doubting Okita would appreciate his next words. "I've seen notices during my time of people disappearing from this place. No one seems to know where they went, only that they were gone."

[notachick]

Pointing a sword was the only thing he knew how to do, but Homura was right and he lowered the tip until it hovered above the ground. He felt like he'd lost the only battle that mattered and he could feel the ability to turn the tide slipping away. He wouldn't cry. He'd promised Hijikata when he was a child to never cry again, but knowing he'd lost like this was more than he could bear.

Or so he thought.

Gone. Hijikata wasn't just missing or taken. He could be gone. How could a man just be gone? Had Hijikata really returned home without him? The thinness wore out, something snapped.

"I have to find him," he said quietly, the softness returning to his voice. It didn't matter who he killed to find his answers. No matter what Homura said, he would find his commander. He'd act alone if he must, but it was time for him to start the search. Slowly, he walked forward, moving to push past Homura and out into the darkness of the Institute to begin his fruitless search.

[screwthegods]

Homura didn't relax as Okita approached, far from it. Instead, he watched the man's slow gait, studied the muscles in his arms, his chest. It would only take a moment, perhaps less, for that edge to return, for Okita to draw his sword against Homura.

In some ways, Homura would prefer it.

"Okita." Homura wouldn't let the man pass without a warning; he had little desire to impede in the search, but at the same time, couldn't let Okita kill as he pleased. "Don't act recklessly. The patients aren't the ones responsible--"

But before he could say more, the intercom sounded, the voice of the head doctor echoing off the empty walls just before darkness came.