Day 34: Lunch

[thatdamnedninja]

Yuffie bounced all the way through collecting her lunch, all the way to a good seat- one with a nice view of the whole cafeteria, which was something she'd been missing out on during the past day or so that she'd been stuck in the Institute- and hell, she even bounced into her seat.

A good mood? No, reallyDespite the occasional blip, talking to

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[longlivetehking]

[Free!]

Scar sat down at an empty table, ignoring his lunch in favor of processing all the information he had just read on the bulletin board. It had yet to completely sink in, but he could scarcely believe what he had just discovered. It was ridiculous, insane even! But even he couldn't deny that everything had been correct. The names, the events, they had been too fitting to be a mere coincidence or a lucky guess. But the fact still remained, people knew. Of what he had done and why he had done it. They knew of the future that awaited him. They knew all about him! All of this did more than making Scar feel incredibly uncomfortable all of a sudden, and he couldn't help but shoot a quick look around the cafeteria. How many of the people he had spoken with had known?

And he was not even going to try and think about the possibility of there being alternate versions of his world. He couldn't be sure of the reliability of that particular piece of information, and he had a hand-full already on all the other pieces.

What kind of place was this?!

If the entire ordeal had been good for one thing, it would be that he knew Simba was alive. As soon as he would get home, he would find the annoying hairball and dispose of him personally. Those drooling hyenas couldn't even be trusted with killing a small cub, obviously. Something that shouldn't even have surprised him as much as it did.

But that was as far as it went for positive sides. The rest? It gave him a massive headache, one he couldn't even blame on Mozenrath.

[kanpekinasenshi]

Seiya's day hadn't been going too badly thus far. Last night had been... but last night was last night, and she wasn't going to sulk about it. Every day couldn't be a smashing success; as long as she was alive and hadn't even been hurt, there was no room to complain.

And while she hadn't gotten to enjoy breakfast very much, she was determined to at least pay attention to what she ate for lunch. Her ponytail hadn't finished drying off yet, but it was at least not dripping on the ground as she went through the lunch line, then tried to pick out a place to sit down.

The earlier shift had been spent surrounded by pretty women, if injured ones, and she could still appreciate that a little even if it had been spoiled by the setting and the presence of children and her own morals. So for lunch, she picked out a male sitting alone. Seiya needed to at least try to keep talking to people, socializing. It was how she kept moving.

"Hi, nice to meet you. Mind if I sit here?" It was a rhetorical question, since she was already sitting down. Even if he were annoyed, at least it was something to do.

[longlivetehking]

Scar's thinking was interrupted by another patient - a female - sitting near him. As much as he didn't feel like socializing now, it was inevitable considering the nature of this facility. The King wasn't even going to answer her question, because she was already sitting anyway.

"Good afternoon." he answered instead, merely for the sake of being polite than anything else. "A pleasure to meet you too." Or at least, one should hope. His comment was nearly followed by an introduction, but part of him hesitated.

[kanpekinasenshi]

Well, he was being polite even if he didn't look as though he were in a very good mood, and Seiya had to give him points for that. She offered back a casually friendly smile.

"My name's Seiya. I'm still a little new here, so I'm trying to meet new people." She left that at that for now, pausing to try the food. It wasn't really all that bad, it reminded her of the food at the school cafeteria the few times she'd eaten there with her partners. And there was something to be said for pink lemonade, even if the cheeriness of the drink was probably just a sick joke on the doctor's part.

[longlivetehking]

When the woman - Seiya, apparently - began eating, Scar decided to take a look at whatever the nurse had brought him for lunch. What stood out the most was the pink substance that was supposed to be his 'drink', which served as a brief distraction as the feline tried to figure out from what it was made. Failing, he eventually gave in and began on his meal.

"How long have you been here, then?" he asked after a pause, moving the conversation away from introductions. He realized it was probably a little foolish, but the recent discoveries regarding his life had made him wary of giving his name.

[kanpekinasenshi]

No name? That was a little rude, but maybe he had a reason to be coy. Seiya decided not to hold a few secrets against him. "This will be... my third day." Odd, it felt longer. But so much could happen in even a day.

If Galaxia... No, there was definitely something odd about time here, and if Usagi and Ami had come from some earlier point in their own time period, maybe Seiya could return back to the point at which she'd vanished. There was no use contemplating the alternative, that she'd escape only to find everything was lost.

"What about yourself?" It was a rather open question, but since he seemed to be the secretive sort, demanding details would probably not go over well.

[longlivetehking]

Three days, hmmm? At least not as new that she needed an explanation about this place. As for her question, Scar saw no harm in sharing that particular bit of information. "This is my eigth day." he answered. Eight...that would be a little more than a week. It seemed much longer than that already.

And with his anwser came the realization; because he was that long here already, there were plenty of people who already knew his name. There was hardly any sense in hiding it, and simply too late to come up with an alias.

"I am called Scar, by the way."

[kanpekinasenshi]

"Well then, hello, Scar." Seiya smiled at him again, trying not to be overly pushy. At least he was coming out enough to talk that far, and give her a nickname to call him by. No question where that name had come from, either.

Eight days. A downright eternity. But Scar here was still alive, wasn't he? "A lot of the people I've met here have been around a week or more. In a way, it's reassuring for me to hear that. Not about people being trapped, of course! Just that people have survived here that long." Without friends or without loved ones, in many cases. Maybe Scar's introspection was just cautious loneliness... or maybe she was projecting too much.

"I've been lucky so far, myself. I figure, even if I'm trapped here, I've at least got to make it a week or I'll be too embarrassed to go home. I hate losing, even to a place like this." Something on the edge of her smile grew hard, and she put it aside quickly by drinking some of the lemonade.

Girly, overly sweet. Where was Usagi, anyway? She hadn't seen the girl in the showers, either...

[longlivetehking]

"Maybe this facility is similar to the food chain." Scar commented. "The strong survive, or something like that." Even though he would be the first to say that physical strength wasn't everything. Functioning braincells definitely counted as a strength in his book.

Considering Scar's lack of fighting skills, it almost seemed a miracle he had managed this long without even a single injury. But then again, that probably had more to do with him knowing he couldn't fight unlike some of the other patients who ran into battles like a headless chickens.

"I'd rather survive this entire ordeal, instead of only a week." he eventually said. "There is hardly any point in surviving a week only to be killed one day later." Did Seiya believe this was a contest or something?

[kanpekinasenshi]

She wondered where dumplings fell on the food chain. It wasn't a comfortable thought. Odango survived this long, and Ami-san's here too. They were trying to offer you weapons, remember? They're hanging in there, even if they seem helpless at first glance... But where was she? She should have been in with the younger shower group.

Seiya tried to shake away the worried expression, shrugging loosely. "Of course I want to survive... and get out of this hellhole and back where I belong. But that's starting to look like a long-term goal. If I can manage that, that's best, but for now, just keeping my eyes on the short term is more than enough to worry about. Both nights I've encountered different kinds of dangers... each night, I need to concentrate on surviving and getting something done for the evening. Once I've been here at week, at least I can call myself a regular veteran. I won't lay down and die no matter what, but even worse than dying would be dying early on and stupidly."

Letting down the others by letting her life end here would be bad. Letting them down through carelessness or foolishness, unforgivable.

[longlivetehking]

Scar had to admit that he'd rather die later than earlier, and he'd rather not die of some stupid mistake that could have easily been prevented, but it all came down to the simple fact he didn't wish to die at all.

Though he somewhat had to agree with short-term goals and getting things done, even though he barely had when it came to the latter. It seemed humans worked differently than hyenas did, and the only person he was somewhat regularly acquainted with was Mozenrath. But the King realized too well he wouldn't get anywhere with merely one meat shield.

"I suppose I somewhat agree." he eventually admitted. "It would hardly help anyone to run around like a headless chicken." Not that Scar was much of a helper, but that was a detail that hardly mattered.

[kanpekinasenshi]

"Mm, the downside is finding a direction to run in, so you're not running in circles, I guess. Easier on me, I'm still getting my bearings, gathering weapons, trying to meet people." Seiya poked at her lemonade glass before emptying it with a few firm, somewhat unladylike gulps.

"If you don't mind my asking, how do you handle the nights? Work with one of the groups? Or just try to find your own way?" The place wasn't exactly a maze, although apparently new territory had been opened over the walls. In her book, that qualified as 'headless chicken' level planning, though. There was that group with the stuffy-sounding guy, but she hadn't gotten him to agree to even meet her, and she wasn't going to chase after some group that had no larger plans than she did. "I've been trying to decide on whether I should join a club, maybe, but I haven't heard all good things."

[longlivetehking]

"I have not joined these groups, either." Scar admitted. Of course he was also aware of these groups, but he simply wasn't able to put his own pride aside and work together. He had never been good at following orders, and he'd rather rely on his own brain rather than relying on someone else's.

"And what have you heard, then?" He asked curiously.

[kanpekinasenshi]

"Oh, just complaints about organization in the Arts and Crafts club," Seiya shrugged slightly. "But it could just have been sour grapes. Like I said, I'm still pretty new--I'm not even sure I know all the organizations, even though I've seen a handful of messages about them being passed back and forth on that board."

She gave Scar a half-grin. "It'd probably encourage me to join them more if I had some reason to think they knew any more about what's going on behind this place than anyone else does. I've yet to meet anybody who seemed to have an idea of the big picture, beyond whatever gets broadcast at us at night."

[longlivetehking]

"I doubt anyone does." Scar answered. "And I also doubt such information would be all that easy to find. It doesn't take all that many braincells to figure that leaving such facts lying around isn't a clever idea." And even despite there were some questionable announcements during the night, ones that made him question their captor's sanity, the King figured the man at least had that much common sense.

[kanpekinasenshi]

"Yeah... the downside is that figuring there's no easy solutions just cuts down on options, it doesn't give me any better sense of direction." Seiya leaned back in her chair again, and glanced around the room one more time. "Maybe that's why it's so busy at night, even with all the people who must have been over this place a dozen times. I guess finding a monster to fight means having something immediate to do, even if it doesn't seem to help the bigger picture."

Which was what? What was the point in taking away her powers, or for that matter Usagi's and Ami's, then leaving them here to just exist as humans? At least Galaxia, as a force of destruction, made an insane sort of sense.