Day 33: Greenhouse

[miracle_grow]

Claire wasn't sure how gardening was a means of relaxation, but she didn't point this out to her nurse as she was escorted outside and towards the large glass structure. Inside, the air was warm and humid and she wrinkled her nose as she eyed her surroundings somewhat skeptically. This had always been more her mom's thing than hers, but still, at

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[yin_yang_fox]

The shift ended abruptly like before, though Renamon was pleased with the results of the conversation. She headed towards her second meeting for the day. Again she stopped at the Bulletin Board, and good thing she did, because her informant had to reschedule of the shift changes.

....

Well. she guessed she could take a shift to regroup and get her thoughts together. No longer in a hurry, she tried to copy the maps from the primer. She wasn't anything close to an artist, but her rough copies would do for herself. She finally followed her impatient nurse to her next "fun activity." If fun meant ignoring the world forced upon her, then yes, it would be very fun.

Reaching the Greenhouse, she saw beaches in the back, and headed straight for them. Like last shift, she opened her notebook, and stared at what was there, willing some new understanding of it all to surface.

[Waiting for Matsumoto!... though she doesn't know it. XD]

[fuyunohanabi]

It was a shame that she was being dragged away from the cafteria, she'd been rather enjoying her conversation with Daemon. He was an interesting man, and charming and of course she was glad to help out those who needed it. It was kind of her job after all. Besides, it was always nice to be able to make nice with people she'd tried to incapacitate. Proved it wasn't anything personal. And she was glad to have Renji's judgement proved considering Daemon had seemed so... disturbing the night he'd been brainwashed

[yin_yang_fox]

She was at a dead end with most of the information. As a new person with very limited resources, her own knowledge would be flawed at best. She really needed to find....

Immersed in her contemplations, Renamon didn't notice it at first. Something like a scratching, prickling the back of her head. It brought to mind Toboe for a moment, but it felt nothing like the wolf. Very still, she raised her eyes to find what this new feeling was. On the bench across from her was a wounded woman that was... well proportioned. After glancing around, it seemed no one else was close to set off that feeling. Well, that settled it. She trusted her instincts enough, and it was quite obvious that no one here was what they seemed.

She slid her notebook to one side. "Hello. I am Renamon. What kind of creature are you?" Wordplay had no use here, and bluntness was so very comfortable.

[fuyunohanabi]

Rangiku opened one eye a crack when the other woman approached, looking her over curiously. What an odd question. Not 'who are you?' or 'how long have you been here?' but 'what kind of creature are you?'. Not a question that Rangiku was used to being asked. At least it was more creative and added a bit of variety to the general monotony of the place.

She gave a little shrug in response, finally opening her other eyes and smiling slightly at the woman. "Shinigami," she replied with a touch of amusement. "A death god." It wasn't as though they were keeping it hidden from people anymore. "I'm called Matsumoto Rangiku. Rangiku."

[yin_yang_fox]

Renamon was pleasantly surprised when the woman actually answered. Everyone seemed to hide what they were here, though she supposed she wasn't any different. She took a seat slightly closer to where the other woman was reclining. "And may I ask what that is, exactly?"

At the woman's name, her eyes widened a fraction. What strange luck it was to run into the exact person Orihime told her to look for. "Matsumoto. You are Orihime's friend then, and second-in-charge of the Arts & Crafts club?"

[fuyunohanabi]

"We cleanse the souls of those who have died and send them onto Soul Society," she explained. "We also fight corrupted souls which have degraded to become monsters called Hollows and prevent them from preying on human souls." THat about covered the basics of it without getting into too much detail about divisions and the fact that she was technically dead.

She smiled more warmly when Renamon mentioned Orihime, nodding enthusiastically. "Yes! I know Orihime-chan. And I am with the Arts and Crafts Club. My captain is the one who runs it."

[yin_yang_fox]

"I've never given much thought to an afterlife. Where I'm from..." Digimon disperse into data, and eventually recombine into a Digi-Egg, and then a reborn Digimon. "We reincarnate automatically. Unless something happens." Like our data being absorbed. The Hollows sounded like most Virus-type Digimon. Just tainted programing. Well, sometimes. Maybe they were more like the Devas. "That seems like an interesting job to have. Are there a lot of Shinigami's?"

"Yes, I spoke with Hitsugaya on the Board, though he seems too busy to meet with me." Renamon had to smile as well. Orihime seemed to bring that on. "I met her last night when she accompanied me to the Chapel." She eyed Matsumoto. "If it truly was a healing place, I'd tell you to go there yourself." But now, she wouldn't advise any to try it.

[fuyunohanabi]

"Mmmm, lots of people here seem to have different ideas of how things word in their worlds," Rangiku agreed. She pushed herself up into a sitting position and curled her legs beneath her, giving Rena mon enough space to sit down if she wished. It was just awkward carrying on a conversation upside down. "There are a lot of shinigami, yes. We're divided into thirteen divisions, each governed by a captain and reporting to the captain of the first division." It was more complicated than that, but those were the basics.

"Ah, my captain's always busy, my apologies for the inconvenience," she replied with a wry smile. "I haven't been able to speak with him much since he's coordinating things most of the time." And it was frustrating! It wasn't as much fun when she couldn't work with her captain. Her eyes narrowed when the woman mentioned the chapel and the 'present' that was in it. "I take it that it isn't as much of a gift as the head doctor tried to make out it was then? Not that I'm surprised."

[yin_yang_fox]

"I've noticed." She crossed her arms. "It almost sounds like a military organization." Renamon's distrust of government organizations ran strong, though this woman didn't seem anything like Yamaki's crew.

"That's what Orihime mentioned." Belatedly, she asked, "So am I wrong in assuming that he's a Shinigami as well if he's your captain?" She wondered if all the members of the Arts & Crafts club were these 'death gods.' Renamon expression mirrored Matsumoto's when she asked more about the Chapel. "No. Not at all. If you are wounded it seems to heal you. But in actuality it switches your wound to another that you're with. It's not something truly usable at all, unless one has enemies they can entice there."

"But I was actually wondering if I could ask you some questions, if you don't mind?" She uncrossed her arms to give more of an 'open' body language. "Orihime said to talk to you if I could find you, and here you are. But if you'd rather rest, I'd understand."

[I'm going to be gone all day, so could I ask for backthreading in

[fuyunohanabi]

Rangiku shrugged, used to being mistrusted by the denizens of Rukongai, even though she'd once been one of them. "We need to be organised, but no-one is forced to join or required to stay if they don't wish to." The alternative just wasn't particularly appealing. Ah, but that was something that she could think about later and try not to move even closer to Gin's path

[yin_yang_fox]

Hm. So it seemed people from Orihime's worlds were either human, Shinigami's, or Hollows. Interesting. She remembered Orihime rattling off a list of names the night before. "It seems like a lot of people from your world are here. Do you have any thoughts on why?"

"I posted all the information I had on the Chapel on the Bulletin Board, but I'm not sure how many read that." Or are able to. Toboe couldn't read at all. She shook her head slightly. "Perhaps there's a way to bypass the system there. If we could figure out how it works, there might be a way to use it to our advantage."

Renamon truly hoped so. "Thank you. I wanted to know how you define multiple worlds, and how you travel between them." Renamon knew she was being demanding of the people she talked to, but until she had enough information to back her theory there wasn't any other path available to her. Hopefully people would forgive her lack of decorum if she found out something useful.

[fuyunohanabi]

"Not a clue," Rangiku admitted. "There just are. There dosn't seem to be any rhyme or reason for why people are taken from one world and not another. And those who have been brought from my world are from different times and different power levels." Gin wasn't even on the same side as them anymore, and Orihime wasn't a shinigami.

"I think a lot of people use the bulletin so a good number of people will probably have seen it. But yes, a way of using it to our advantage would be useful. The only thing that I can think of is if someone had a very dangerous injury but someone with a stronger larger body agreed to take on the injuries that would be less threatening for them." Otherwise, she hadn't even seen the place.

Rangiku didn't mind answering questions if it would help someone. "In our world, there are already three realms. The world of the shinigami and the human world and the world of hollows. We can travel fairly easily through gates to the human world, and hollows can move through from their realm to the human realm as well."

[yin_yang_fox]

That fit with what the others had been saying. She wasn't as arrogant to say she could find things where others couldn't, but she was supposed to believe there was no pattern at all? There had to be something. Even Chaos had a purpose and reason. So there had to be one here. Somewhere

[fuyunohanabi]

Rangiku tapped her lips thoughtfully, frowning as she thought the problem over. "I think there's a possibility, but considering the nature of the rest of the place, it's unlikely. Nothing done with magic seems to have much affected. There's a good chance it has some kind of shild on it. It might be worth looking at though." If they could replicate the effects but modify them, then it would be worth playing with. She just thought it might take more time and resources than people were willing to expend

[yin_yang_fox]

"I see." Once more, Renamon was silent as she thought. "The man on the intercom--Landel--said that no monsters would be in there, but what if they were brought in there. If monsters were lured in there by wounded individuals, perhaps the wounds would shift. Then there would be healed people, and less monsters. Perhaps. It'd have to be tested if the wounds even switch to monsters. There's no pattern so far between the originally wounded and the recipient that I can find, so it may be possible. It'd be useful."

Renamon accepted the explanation, again seeing the parallels between the Digital World and the worlds she was describing. "I can understand where you're coming from. The two worlds I come from... if the humans from one of the worlds went to the other, their chances of survival would be very slim."

"What are the gates made of? And are these hell butterflies guides, or something else altogether?" She was getting more information, but her theory wouldn't pan out unless she understood the 'hows' of the different ways to travel.

[fuyunohanabi]

Hmmmm, now that was a good question. "The monsters would have to be incapacitated enough to be taken in there, I suppose," she said consideringly. "I don't think that any would willingly walk there, even being lured, if Landel said there would be no monsters allowed in. But that would be useful if it could work." Healing and killing some of the creatures of the place, even if she was sure that there would always be more waiting.

She nodded in agreement. "Yes. The potential for travel exists, but the other worlds are of no interest, or too dangerous to explore fully, unfortunately." She was sure that shinigami in the past had probably tried to invade Heuco Mundo, but she also doubted that they'd managed to get very far.

"Reiatsu," she replied promptly. "Spirit energy. They aren't physical gates because normally, shinigami don't have physical bodies. And the hell butterflies, well, we use them for communication most of the time, to send messages."