Day 41: Intercom, Noon

[damned_intercom]

"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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[sekishi_keiou]

It was immediately apparent to Youko that this was not her bed in Kinpa Palace, but at first that didn't raise any alarm bells. She'd been sleeping in rike and inns and even on the floor throughout her time away from the Palace, so it was hardly unusual for her to feel plain sheets against her skin, rather than silk. It was the smell that first tripped some instinctive warning, the faint whiff of institutional-strength cleansers the likes of which were unknown in her new world. No, this smell was very particular to Hourai, to the world she'd grown up in and once called home.

Opening her eyes, Youko was greeted with the sight of exactly the sort of stark electric lighting she would have expected to go along with the smell of chemical cleaning agents. A hospital of some sort, but how? She'd gone to bed in Kei, in Kinpa Palace, surrounded by more layers of guards and protections than she could even really conceive of. No unplanned shoku could possibly have happened there, could it? At the very least, such a thing would have woken her!

Youko sat up slowly, feeling around her instinctively for Suiguu, but the sword was nowhere to be found. Not even the scabbard and its precious hekisojou were around--neither weapons nor healing were available to her, and that was at least as disturbing as suddenly waking in what seemed to be Hourai. When was the last time she'd been without a sword? Without Suiguu and its visions and powers? Youko felt naked, somehow, without her sword.

And on that note, what on Earth was she wearing? The jersey fabric of the shirt wasn't unfamiliar--it had a lot in common with her old gym uniform--but the yellow smiley face on the front was absurd and all told the outfit bore no resemblence to any hospital gown she'd ever seen. Someone had re-dressed her. She'd started to get used to servants following her around even when she bathed and dressed, but the fact that someone had changed her clothes while she was unconscious was undeniably unpleasant to think about. Even Hourai-style underwear! It all felt strangely alien, even though Youko had worn such things for most of her life.

A quick exploration of the room revealed nothing in particular except that yes, this was clearly somewhere in Hourai--on Earth, rather. She couldn't very well call it Hourai while she was here, could she?

Before Youko could get around to trying the door, though, it opened on its own and a nurse walked in. American? Now that was a shock, piled on top of all the other shocks. Youko had never heard anything about shoku taking people from overseas. How could she be here? The nurse's answers to her questions were no help, either--some sort of case of mistaken identity was going on here, clearly, but nothing Youko said seemed to convince the nurse of that fact.

Who on Earth was Yuuki Miaka, and why did this woman think Youko was her?