Day 40: Sun Room [Fourth Shift]

[clockmongler]

Well, that was... special. No wonder he was losing respect for this place--the fearful Martin Landel was coming undone, most probably with boredom. So scary. Even Nursey seemed a little exasperated, though that most likely had more to do with X's constant insistence to stay in the Sun Room rather than go inside the Greenhouse

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[superdynamic]

Lunch had been. . . interesting. Suzaku was glad the business with Porky had been resolved to some degree and that Lelouch was in a better mood for it, but talking to the other boy was like navigating a mine field. Not a week ago he would have detested the thought of talking to him as if they were still friends, but with all the uncertainty between them now he couldn't help hiding behind the old, comfortable teasing. Maybe the problem wasn't so much that he didn't know where he stood with Lelouch as that he didn't know where he wanted to stand with Lelouch.

But he could worry about that later. For now, he had a meeting with one of the Arts and Crafts officers, Matsumoto Rangiku. Lelouch wanted him to survey the club a bit, find out what he could, and he figured the best way to get what he needed was under the guise of wanting to join a club.

He recognized the woman easily enough and made his way over. "Matsumoto-san?" he asked, taking a gamble on the fact that most of the Japanese people here used the traditional form of address. He smiled in the most friendly way he could. "I'm Suzaku. Sorry to take up your time with such a random request, but I had some questions about the Arts and Crafts club."

[fuyunohanabi]

Rangiku smiled at the boy who approached her and nodded genially. He was young, sixteen or seventeen, but wasn't about to let that colour her judgement. Look at what Kurosaki and the others had managed to achieve against shinigami centuries older than them. "Pleased to meet you, Suzaku-kun," she said, shifting up on the couch to make room for him to sit down. "Rangiku is fine," she added. She preferred informality when she could get away with it.

"That's what I'm here for after all. Ask away."

[superdynamic]

"Thank you," he said politely, sitting down next to her. He couldn't very well start this like an interrogation, but the most basic things he wanted to know -- more detailed information about what the club really did -- were something anyone was likely to ask, and they would likely lead to more specific questions.

"Well, I was wondering what kind of goals Arts and Crafts has, and what you specialize in. Forgive me, but the stuff on the board didn't seem that specific. You focus on things like exploration, right?"

[fuyunohanabi]

Ah, the usual questions then. Not that she minded. It kept her mind of other matters at least. "Obviously, our main goal in the long run is escape and the destruction of this place and the technology or magic used to run it. We don't intend to leave here just to allow this to happen again under different overlords." That was obvious enough though. She thought that most people would share the same goals. "In the short term, yes, we focus on exploring and increasing our knowledge of the building and the surroundings. We send group to a variety of locations, mapping, collecting useful items, organising weapons for members when we can."

[superdynamic]

Suzaku nodded thoughtfully. That was indeed more specific, even if he didn't know which areas they went to or which items they collected. But that kind of detail wasn't what he wanted to focus on, and he doubted she'd give away every single piece of information about the club like that anyway. He filed away the bit about weapons, deciding to ask about that later. His mission to collect information on weapons was more general, not specific to this meeting, and he needed to talk to her about the clubs while he had the chance.

"So, how does that fit in with what the other clubs do? Do you share the information you find, while they focus on other areas and provide information about those things?" It was a bit of feigned ignorance, because Suzaku knew they didn't work together to quite that extent. But even though Suzaku would prefer just to ask outright, maybe asking that way would shed some light on how much they really did work together.

[fuyunohanabi]

Rangiku shrugged in response. "Each group is pretty much independent," she explained. "Maps and bits of information are shared, but each group has their own set of goals and intentions I'm sure. I wouldn't presume to know about what the other groups have in mind as a final goal. I know that Cooking Club is mostly concerned with making weapons and finding materials to do that, the St Francis Aide group runs a clinic to heal people when they need it, but I don't know anything much more than that about them." Which was fine in her book. Everyone had different goals, different methods of working.

[superdynamic]

Hmm. . . so they were even less cohesive than he thought. And it seemed like that was fine by her, which was interesting enough to try to confirm. After all, Lelouch wanted him to get an idea of what the leaders themselves were like, and not just their clubs.

"Oh, I see. Thank you," he said, still smiling. God, he hated this kind of thing, but without using the appearance of some new kid trying to understand how the clubs worked, he had no pretext under which to ask these questions and she might get suspicious. There was a time when he would have just asked straight-up, without even thinking about how to present himself, but he wasn't that person anymore. "Wouldn't it be better to communicate more, though? I mean, I don't know much about it, but it seems to me like you might be covering the same ground and doing twice as much work as necessary."

[fuyunohanabi]

There was an awful lot of talk about the lack of cohesiveness recently. Rangiku gave a little shrug in response. "We have meetings where we share any important information. As for covering the same ground, every group is going to want to collect metal or medicines or visit certain rooms," she explained. "Thee's always going to be some overlap there depending on the daily need of any of the clubs. As for exploring, there are maps fairly freely available of most of the first and second floor. Beyond the walls though, the chances of retracing another group's steps are fairly slim." She didn't see quite so much overlap as people seemed to think.

[superdynamic]

So it wasn't just that she didn't want to work with the other groups; she thought it wasn't necessary. And she did have a point, even if cooperation among all the patients would probably get a lot more done. No matter, it wasn't his job to persuade her, just to figure out where she stood on the topic. At least they had the meetings.

"That makes sense, I guess. Oh, another question -- you said you get weapons for your group members when you can. I know Cooking Club has their own alchemist, and someone on the board was offering to make weapons, but where do you get yours? If you don't mind my asking."

[fuyunohanabi]

"We work with Cooking Club when we can," Rangiku began, tapping her lips thoughtfully with her forefinger. "That's where I got mine. The alchemists really are the best people to go for to get better weapons so that's where our people go. The metal that we collect goes towards that." She was truly grateful for her katana and she would have to look into getting Gin a proper weapon, although he was probably as good with a knife as he was with a katana, his zanpakuto being as it was.

[superdynamic]

Suzaku was interrupted from replying by the sound of what was most definitely Lelouch's voice rising in what was most definitely a shriek. He whipped around in alarm, but Lelouch was only sitting on the couch with some girl and didn't appear to be in any immediate danger. In fact, that was the girl who'd made the speech at lunch, whom he now knew was Yuffie. . . and at that point the (rather loud) words "we're not a couple" finally filtered through. Which meant they could only be talking about him. Oh God. He agreed that embarrassing Lelouch was quality entertainment, but she could have picked a slightly less awkward point of attack. However, he couldn't afford to get distracted now, and fighting to keep mingled amusement and horror off his face, he turned back to Rangiku.

"I see. By any chance, do you know if there are people here who can make explosives or things like that?" It was worth a shot, to see what kind of information she might have. He already had a good idea of what her club did and how she felt about the others, after all.

[fuyunohanabi]

Rangiku followed the boy's gaze when she heard the shriek, spotting a young man and a girl on another couch. She couldn't help but laugh softly when she heard what the boy was shouting. That was amusing, she had to admit. He sounded rather flustered. "Some people are apparently getting excited," she said, lips curving up into a smile.

But back to business. "I know there have been a lot of people talking about it on the bulletin, so I'd assume that some people know how. Explosives aren't really my area of expertise though."