Day 41: Intercom, Noon
"Hello, hello," said the Head Doctor in a cheery tone. It sounded as if he'd gotten over his paperwork hangover. "I hope half of you are clean and that the other half of you are hungry! Or that all of you are hungry! Ha-ha... Either way, we'll be serving a down-to-earth lunch of crispy chicken strips and fries; we also have cole slaw, potato salad
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Something was wrong.
Several thoughts occurred to him at once as Rokuta awoke, those two primary above the rest, and he fought back a wave of dizziness as he sat up too quickly. The feeling of light pressure against his forehead was an all too familiar memory, if a distant one: he hadn't experienced this for over five centuries, but it wasn't something he was likely to forget.
He lifted a hand to the stone and the cord that bound it in place, giving a light shudder as he wondered who bore its twin. Whose life was endangered to keep him bound here - wherever this was?
It certainly wasn't En, of that he was certain. How had he been spirited away from his kingdom? What was going to happen to it if he wasn't there? To Shouryuu? The king wasn't dead, he realized, but that did little to calm the rising tide of alarm within him. The ouki was there, but distant. Far distant, similar to how it felt when he was visiting Hourai.
"Yokuhi...?" he called softly, his hand dropping into his lap and clenching tightly as there was no answer from his nyokai, only the faintest stirring to tell him she was still there. "Rikaku? Kibou?" Nothing. Still nothing. Were they ill? What could possibly have happened?
All right, he...just had to figure out what to do now. Shouryuu was certainly searching for him, if nothing else, but would the king even think of Hourai? If that even was where he was now.
I've disappeared just like Taiki, he thought with another, stronger shudder. Maybe they'd done something to Shouryuu as well. Maybe he wasn't coming, and he was here alone, trapped and powers bound, while his kingdom would once again crumble to ruin by natural disaster and youma alike.
Before he could think much more on it, though, the door abruptly opened, bringing not the guard he'd expected but rather a woman who smiled at him in a rather astonishingly kindly fashion. "Ah, Corey, you're awake! Such a sleepyhead you are!" She seemed oblivious to his stunned silence as she prodded him up and out of the bed, chattering brightly about how he needed to be up and off to lunch before "everyone else" ate it all, or it got cold, or something equally dire-seeming in her opinion.
Corey? Who was Corey? And why was she treating him - well, not like the captive kirin of En, but more like a child in her care? Where was this, and who was the "everyone" she was talking about? Where there more people stolen away to be kept here?
When he asked, though, she only smiled and patted him on the head (and he automatically ducked away from with a flinch that earned him the tiniest hint of a concerned frown) and replied, "You're at Landel's Institute, dear. You've been sick, but we're here to help you get better. Starting with getting you something to eat, you must be starving after missing breakfast!"
It seemed all he could do for now was follow where she led, and hope that there would be some answers.
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