Day 42: Bus 1

[rope_victim]

After the way night had ended (Miku wasn't sure if they'd ever get the smell of charnel out of her clothes), and morning had returned with its clockwork weirdness. She was hurried onto the bus in her dark red long coat and the dark, knee-length, slightly full dress beneath it. It was surprisingly warm, Miku noted, but that could've just been her

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[whos_da_man]

[Mitsuru-senpai, this stupid place must be female and last night was its 'time of the month'. Do buildings get PMS?]

Junpei wanted to be unhappy. He really did. Not only had he NOT gotten the most amazing set of shower head chucks EVER, but he wasn't even sure what to make of the walls starting to bleed in the bathroom. Sewage, that made sense in a bathroom. BLOOD, not so much. Then again, it was a GIRL'S bathroom. Blood was much more common there, he supposed. So, he wanted to be in a bad mood, except he couldn't.

He had a hat on. That was why he couldn't be unhappy. Sure, it wasn't his hat, but he was more than willing to wear a hat for some American baseball team called the Tigers. Maybe Detroit was a place worth visiting. The important thing was, HE HAD A HAT ON AND IT WAS BLUE.

The jeans and white long sleeve shirt were normal clothes for him and he was glad his nurse didn't feel like tormenting him like other nurses seemed to do to others given what he was seeing as he headed to the bus. Okay, the muffin was a little not tasty, but HE HAD A HAT.

Now, Mitsuru needed to get her well-shaped ass out and tell him what the fuck was going on with Ken before Junpei decided to do something really stupid. Maybe she was wearing something really tight to highlight that ass of hers...

[marin_karin]

[Apparently so. Although I really don't want to know what that fog was, if that's the case.]

Odd transitions and blood on the surroundings wasn't anything Mitsuru was terribly unused to, after the Dark Hour and Tartarus, but the way last night had ended was nothing less than jarring. It was mostly the fog, and being suddenly unable to see anything around her, but she'd certainly been able to smell the blood. It was frightening, to a point, smelling so much blood and not being able to see anything. It hadn't sounded as though anyone was screaming in pain, but there could have been monsters capable of silent kills hiding in the fog.

In the end, they'd also never gotten to have Amada summon his Persona. They were so close, but Landel had interfered, so they still had no idea how safe Amada (or anyone nearby) would be if he used the Evoker. Then again, she also didn't know if they were still safe at all. There was no telling what might have happened during that time while they were unconscious.

But she couldn't think on it too much. Iori still likely wanted to speak with her regarding the matter of Amada. Someone seemed to always be away when important things were being discussed, so it would be nice to have everyone on the same page. Perhaps Iori would even exercise some caution in what he wrote from here on out. Maybe.

Just in case, she would make it a point to ask him to do so.

The nurse gave Mitsuru some added details about this trip to town when she brought a change of clothes (a rather nice brown dress), but much as she would like to use the coupons the nurse had mentioned they would be given, there were more important things to do. Like make sure the rest of S.E.E.S. was well.

Thankfully, the nurse brought her out to the buses right as Iori was getting on, so she followed him. Takeba was already on the bus, which meant one less person to worry about. She took a seat beside Iori without any preamble. "I take it odd things happened to the building where you were last night?"

[whos_da_man]

Junpei looked up as Mitsuru's shadow fell across him, and he looked her over in the dress she'd been given as she sat down. Not too shabby. It wasn't a pair of britches and boots, but it did look good on her.

"The walls in the bathroom started bleeding," Junpei replied. "You all told me the building was evil. You didn't tell me it was evil AND female."

[marin_karin]

"The walls did?" Evil and female? Why would he even make that sort of comparison? Although if she thought about it like that, it had a certain amount of insane sense to it, but she wasn't going to continue following Iori's logic.

Mitsuru coughed once, then changed the subject. "Anyway, you wanted to speak to me about something else in particular, didn't you?"

[whos_da_man]

"Yeah, the walls, like the mortar stuff that was holding the tile together suddenly sprung a leak. Like everywhere," Junpei clarified. "It was freaky."

When Mitsuru changed the subject, for once, Junpei did not fight it. This was far more important the female buildings suddenly having a PMS. Though, if he thought about it, the entire male populace of the institute was still alive so maybe it didn't get PMS.

"Yeah," he stated, turning so he could fully face his senpai and directly meet her eyes. "What the hell is going on with Ken. You really need to be upfront with me because Akihiko-senpai telling me whatever the hell happened not being any of my business has me very close to losing my temper and doing something stupid."

He paused a moment. "Look, I'm not asking to be given a play-by-play every single damn minute of the day about him or the rest of you, but if something big happens, I need to know." He rubbed the back of his neck. "I know I sometimes don't seem like it, but you're all, like, family to me. Especially the squirt. I'm trying to be a good senpai to him, but how can I do that if my senpai are keeping me in the dark?"

[marin_karin]

What, was the building powered by blood, then? Because that was rather odd. Still, she was more than willing to save that for later. "I know, Iori, believe me. A lot of yesterday might have been able to be avoided had there been some decent communication between everyone. Akihiko's just as close to losing his temper. I'd recommend staying away from him for a while."

Mitsuru took a deep breath, then finally launched into an explanation. "But what's wrong happened before even Akihiko or I arrived. Amada was taken for experimentation one night, and at some point before then also hired himself a bounty hunter, although I just found that part out today. He won't tell me why he did the latter, and the former obviously affected him deeply. They made him relive traumatic events, in an attempt to cause his Persona to evolve.

"I don't know if the bounty hunter came as a result of his experimentation, but regardless, I'm worried. He won't tell us anything, and he still hasn't quite come to grips with the events of October's full moon. You and I both know that he will, but..." Mitsuru trailed off for a moment.

"You've seen first-hand what a Persona going out of control is capable of, haven't you? With Chidori, in the hospital? Everything since he's arrived, really, seems to have left Amada's mind in a bit of an unstable state. We wanted to have him use the Evoker last night as a test, to make sure that his Persona wouldn't go out of control. Night ended just as we made it there, and with the way it ended...I'm worried about him, but please, Iori...watch what you say on the bulletin board."

[whos_da_man]

Junpei kept his mouth shut and just listened. Seriously, he really listened, not just sort of paid attention like usual when Mitsuru launched into an explanation of some sorts. This was important to him, so he listened.

He got pissed off at what he heard, though he controlled himself enough that only the muscle that ran along his jaw twitched. He was angry because the people that ran this place took Ken and did stuff to him. He was angry because Yukari had lied to him about Ken. He was also angry that Akihiko seemed to have thought none of this was any of his concern.

He was a little amazed that Ken had the balls to go hire himself a bounty hunter, but that explained that one weird board message the previous day. Maybe he'd ask the squirt why he'd hired one; Junpei was someone Ken might be more willing to talk to than either senpai, since they could get a bit scary from time to time with that whole authority thing. Then again, maybe he'd treat that like he was treating the weird thing going on with Yukari and just wait for the kid to decide to talk to him about it.

"Okay," he replied slowly, having calmed himself down despite still being a bit tense. "Thanks for telling me."

He was silent for a long moment, looking down at his hands before he met Mitsuru's eyes again. "I won't interfere with the whole checking his Persona out thing, cause I trust you guys. I'm pissed as all hell at Akihiko-senpai, but I still trust him. Just make sure to let him know if he ever tells me again to go to his damn club to be his punching bag, I am going to burninate his ass."

He then sighed. "I dunno anything about this whole bounty hunter thing, but if no one got hurt over it and Ken's okay, maybe you should let it go. Or, like, ask the hunter. Isn't there some kind of law against kids signing contracts and shit because they're underage or something?"

[marin_karin]

"So long as I have the Evoker, neither of you will do anything to each other," she warned, "but thank you. We're trying to handle it as gently as possible, but that's proving to be rather difficult, given the circumstances." Really, Mitsuru had no clue how to handle the situation, but she hoped that this would work, somewhere down the road. Provided, at least, that things didn't get even worse for S.E.E.S.

"In regards to the bounty hunter, I'd be happy to let it go if there was no chance that he might do it again, or if he'd at least tell one of us what he'd hired the hunter for." Iori had a point, though. She had her pride, and didn't entirely want to admit that it hadn't crossed her mind, but she'd also been distracted with everything else. "I'll have to try that, though."

Then again, if this was the same hunter that she remembered from much earlier on the bulletin, Mitsuru didn't think that just arguing over minors laws would help. But it was at least worth an attempt.

"If that's all you wanted to know, then I do have a question for you, as well. You said a few days ago that you saw one of the patients eating a monster, correct? Do you think you could give me some more information on that?" While it hadn't been at the forefront of her mind, it did have her curious; if nothing else, it would be good to know exactly what to classify as an enemy and what to not. Unless this same patient went around attacking everyone they came across, then it would be good to distinguish between the two before she began gathering monster data for Lelouch.

[whos_da_man]

"I'll give you a heads up, senpai," Junpei said. "If Ken's not willing to tell you why he did it, you're never going to get it out of him. He's kinda like Yuka-tan in that way."

He then cast a quick look around the bus to see if Argilla was on it. Or that scary guy that cornered him at lunch the day before. Good; he didn't see either of them. "Well, there were these zombie dogs, one that looked a whole lot like Koro-chan on mutated steroids. I got chased into the shed and when I came out, this woman was ripping pieces of the flesh off their dead bodies and chowing down."

He slouched down in his seat. "I accidentally bumped into her the next day. I thought she was going to eat me, too, cause I saw her, but she said she's got some kind of thing, a virus maybe, that makes her have to eat monsters. Or something."

[marin_karin]

Mitsuru simply nodded and let the first comment pass. Iori was right, and there wasn't much else to be said about that. Moving on to what he'd seen, however, was another matter.

What sort of virus would make someone have to eat monsters? Perhaps she'd gone into further detail with Iori, although Mitsuru wasn't expecting him to remember all of it, if she did. He had a tendency to ignore things that seemed uninteresting, and skimp on details. "So it was certainly a patient, then, and not someone more humanoid on the Institute's side?" she asked, for clarification. "Did she explain the nature of this virus? If she acquired it during her stay here, at least?"

[whos_da_man]

Junpei nodded. "Oh yeah, definitely stuck here like us. Older, kinda cute with this wild pink hair that puts Yuka-tan's tastes to shame."

He then shrugged. "It's something she got back in her place. Junkyard, I think she called it. Said something about being, like, from a... well, I thought it sounded like she walked right out of a video game or one of those graphic novels, but she was kinda pissed about that."

He tapped his temple. "I don't think she was all there." Which was saying something coming from the guy that loved Chidori. "But if you eat zombie flesh, what can you expect?" A pause. "Oh! And there's this guy with a yellowish mark on his hand that's her friend that I think is like her too with the eating zombies and crap. He kinda cornered me the other day, but then left when I guess he figured out I'm like a teenager." He slouched more in the seat, almost as if he was hiding. "He's kinda scary, senpai. Don't go near him, okay?"

[marin_karin]

She was struck dumb for a minute as her brain processed what Iori had said. Junkyard, and hair that was pink even for Takeba's tastes...was he really talking about her roommate? Although, that would explain why she never really ate her dinner. Why she'd make an exception for desserts, Mitsuru wasn't entirely sure, but that little detail seemed trivial when she thought about her roommate eating the monsters.

Perhaps it wasn't entirely right of Mitsuru to pry, particularly about this "virus", but Argilla had some explaining to do. She could at least not mention any names to Iori until she heard more details from her roommate. After all, she couldn't remember many times when someone had mentioned seeing someone eating the monsters, and given how grotesque it sounded, she doubted that asking in a public place would be a good idea.

"I-I see," she replied simply. "That's...interesting." Although she wanted to ask what he meant by like a teenager. He was probably one of the most normal teenagers among all of S.E.E.S. "Why did her friend corner you? Simply because you'd seen her eating one of the monsters?"

[whos_da_man]

Uh oh. Junpei really didn't want to tell Mitsuru he'd been cornered because he mentioned sex to Argilla and she apparently hadn't gotten it and had probably asked Ken-like questions of the scary guy. But... his senpai had been truthful to him and he needed to stay as much on Mitsuru's good side as he could until Akihiko stopped being a dick.

"Heh. Funny you should ask that, senpai?" He adjusted his hat and chuckled a little. "I don't remember what we were talking about, but somehow sex came up. Argilla... she... well, she didn't know what it was. So I told her I could explain it if she wanted, but she should probably ask someone she trusted. So, the next day, this guy pounced on me and demanded to know if I'd said the dreaded s-word to her and then wanted to know why I even mentioned it, like I was supposed to know a hot, zombie-eating chick had no clue what the hell sex was."

He paused and then gave Mitsuru a look. "I didn't tell her anything, senpai, so don't you go thinking I did."

[marin_karin]

Mitsuru had to resist the urge to slap a hand to her face. That topic just would not stop cropping up, would it? Iori was lucky that he hadn't originally had anything to do with the bulletin discussions (as far as she was aware), past a few comments once he'd arrived.

She knew that Argilla's home was different, although this did make her wonder just how different. Mitsuru could understand why her friend would be so protective if she were a child, but the other woman seemed to be older than she was. "I do have to wonder how it managed to come up at all, but that's in the past. Although I'm afraid fail to see how that could be scary, just from what you've said."

[whos_da_man]

"Senpai, he kept looking at me like he was going to eat me," Junpei replied, completely serious. "And he wouldn't tell me his name and then just got up and stalked off. And he was... taller than me. And, like, oldish."

[marin_karin]

That...certainly sounded rather odd. She didn't quite see how being taller would attribute to it, but she could see how it might be a bit frightening. Perhaps she'd be able to at least get his name from Argilla later, so she would have a better idea of who to look out for.

"I get the picture, Iori," she reassured him. "That must have been an awkward conversation."