Day 43: Sun Room

[arc_wrench]

Why does this place always have to spoil my fun? was the first thing HK thought when he realized he was back in his cell in the Institute. Oh well. This meant his nurse would be coming soon to lead him off to whatever boring place he was supposed to go to now

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[thatdamnedninja]

Zombies with familiar faces -- or where they even zombies at all now? Yuffie couldn't tell, didn't have time to check; all she could do was keep on living, keep on killing them. Or may that was -- She looked around, found herself in the Sun Room, shuriken in hand, moogle cloak -- Being used all over again, but she couldn't stop; it was them who had to, had to turn around and go back. The snap of bones was drumming out a symphony in the back of her mind, trickling through her like blood -- The smell and sight of explosions now, the rush of air as she dropped into battle; it was almost desperate, this plan, but they had to punch through, had to win, they just had to -- Mako, she'd never get used to the smell of it, but Weiss was right there and now was their chance, her and Vince's -- No, too late, there was the darkness; it caught her, and she hung helpless until--

-- "Good morning, blah blah blah blah Landel's Institu--"

Yuffie opened her eyes slowly, breath coming in harsh, shallow pants.

Disorientation made her head spin in dizzy circles, until she realized that she was hanging upside down over the side of the bed, tangled in blankets. Her fingers brushed the floor, brushed the handle of a chef's knife. Where had that come from? Where was-- Oh. Yuffie squeezed her eyes shut, grabbed the knife and clutched it close to her chest once she'd righted herself. Man. W-What a nightmare, she thought. So much had happened last night; Kadaj, the zombies, Homura being a massive prick… She hadn't had time to reminisce, hadn't been able to really…

Maybe it wasn't healthy, drowning that night out by slaughtering monsters, by swapping one nightmare for another, more familiar one. But it'd worked. That's what counted.

The moment didn't last. With a wordless grumph of frustration, Yuffie wriggled out of the knotted mess she'd wound herself into. How the hell had she gotten like that without waking herself up? There was no time to straighten it out, though, even if she'd felt like it. Which she didn't. At all. The nurses couldn't see her with the knife, and they'd be coming along any second now -- just in time, she slipped it in amongst the spare shirts in her closet and slunk back to the bed.

The door sprang open, admitting the Plucky the Longsuffering Nurse. "Good morning, Hanna!" She greeted, before casting a speculative eye at the mass of tangled bed sheets. "Oh, my. Did you have a restless night?"

"Yeah, I dreamed that a talking cabbage had stolen my heart and was running amok through a field of daffodils. All the daffodils had Landel's face, and they were singing about paperwork. What was up with that intercom announcement?"

"Never you mind that, dear," Plucky said, with an indulgent smile. "You've always been an early riser, but we don't want to make ourselves late by dawdling, do we? I was thinking that you might spend a nice, quiet shift in the Sun Room."

Yuffie's reply was cheerful, "I'd rather spend a nice, quiet shift in a blender."

Unfortunately for the ninja, escaping her fate proved to be pretty much impossible. She'd barely had time to grab her journal before Plucky was leading her away. The nightmare was still fresh in her mind, dogging every step she took, making her head feel heavy and light all at once; She covered her disquiet with a stream of annoying, aimless babble about her made up dream. What about last night? Were the rest of her party okay? What about Kenshin, and the Turks, and all the others she was coming to know?

[thatdamnedninja]

She gave Plucky the slip as soon as they'd reached the Sun Room, and immediately made a beeline for the bulletin. It looked like it was gonna be a busy day already; the board was saturated with concerned notes, and peppered with other tidbits of information. She scanned through it all, tacking up her own message and a reply here and there. There… that'd have to do for now. And if people didn't reply, she'd just have to follow through on her promise-threat to hunt 'em down.

Shaking her head, Yuffie moved a few feet to the left so that she could sit with her back comfortably against the wall. She brought her knees up to her chest, rested her journal on them, and started translating her notes from Wutaian to something that Lelouch'd be able to understand. Short of jumping up onto a table and belting out a drinking song she'd learned from Cid, work was the only distraction she could think of.

[Closed to Lulu.]

[thatdamnedninja]

Translating this crap was too easy.

That's what it was -- crap. If she'd tried to get by handing this sort of thing to Reeve… Ugh, he'd have given her a look, she just knew it. She'd had all this time, and she'd barely been able to scratch the surface! Everything she knew, everything she'd been able to scrape together so far, asked way more questions than it answered! Yuffie scratched her cheek, brushed the pen through her bangs, tapped her feet in an off-beat rhythm. Sighed. And then scowled at the piece of paper, as if to say: I want very badly to dip you in three kinds of acid, follow up with petrol, and then light you on fire. With a bomb.

And then I'll -- Wait, is that Lelouch?

Yuffie blinked, observing him silently as he shambled over to his girlfriend, the bulletin board. He didn't look too good. Not injured, just. Kinda zombie like. Which, after a night like that, wasn't too nice a thought.

She glanced down at the report balancing precariously on her knees. She glanced back up at Lord Noodle, who looked impressive only because he was actually staying on his feet instead of face planting directly into the growing mass of paper. She thought about the night she'd had, about the nightmare and the rude awakening, and then she made up her mind. Pushing out a grin, she jabbed her pen at the air in greeting: "Mornin, Lulu! Boy, am I ever surprised to see you here, of all places."

[thatdamnedninja]

What… That was it? No annoying formalities, just a bit of half-hearted sarcasm? He hadn't even reacted to the little conversation she'd had with Suzaku! She had expected him to lose interest in her within a couple of (milli)seconds, but this -- this really took the cake. Either he really was that tired, or he really did have absolutely zero taste in conversational partners. Probably both, Yuffie figured. With a side order of general disdain. Lulu was just that type of guy.

Unfortunately for him, he was also good practice. If Yuffie was gonna stay afloat for the rest of the day, she was gonna need all the help she could get -- whether that 'help' was willing or not.

"I can see that you're bright, eager, and full of energy today," she replied, going back to her translation. Technically, it'd be more professional to keep the report entirely serious and free of subjective comments… Pfft! No way; those were staying. "Just as I expected. I've got something for you, by the way. You'd better appreciate it, or I'm calling in reinforcements."

[thatdamnedninja]

That was a little better. It looked more like he'd bitten into a weird grape than a sour lemon, so there was still some ways to go, but an improvement was an improvement. Yuffie's grin settled into a pleased little smirk as she hopped to her feet, as spry as she could be under the circumstances. Lelouch couldn't be planning to stand around for too long, which meant that he'd be slithering away any second now. Naturally, she wasn't going to let him escape so easily.

Notebook in her left hand and pen twirling between the fingers of her right, she shook her head. "Hate to break it to ya, but I'm fresh outta zombie bits," she said. "I sold my last one just yesterday, actually. Nope, what I've got is way better." Here, she hesitated for a split second. Did she really wanna boast about this? If she was totally honest about it, not really. It was still too early for that; there were still too many gaps. She shook her head again, pirouetting after him when he walked away. Just because she could.

With even less grace that Lelouch, Yuffie toppled onto her chosen perch, flipping the notebook open as she went. She pulled out the page in question. "Preliminary grounds report," she explained, giving it a wave. "I was gonna wait 'til later, but if you want it, it's yours. There's nothing else I can add until I get more information, anyway."

[thatdamnedninja]

"What else did you expect?" Yuffie retorted. She didn't much care for gaining his approval, but the pride that she should feel for her work… it stung, damnit! "There's so little for me to go off, it's like trying to suck water off rocks. Desert rocks. If I was back home, I'd fire myself for writing that thing." The head of Intel and Espionage was rolling in her metaphorical grave.

She met his look and returned it with one of her own, unflinching and--for once--completely honest; yeah, she was disappointed in it. Kind of in herself, as well. And he could disapprove all he wanted; he knew exactly what the problem here was, and if he really was smart, he'd know that she had something else holding her back: without numbers, without some kind of team she could lead, trust, and count on to do their jobs, this project was gonna crawl at less than a snail's pace. She couldn't explore all of the outside territories on her own.

She snapped the notebook shut, opened it again, and began sketching a map of Gaia. "I was thinking about the forest. This is gonna be a test run, pretty much; it'll only be my second night out there, and I need to see how well me n' Suzaku can work together before we start getting more adventurous." Naturally, she gave most of her attention, split as it was, to filling in Wutai's details. "Not that it'll be a walk in the park. As far as I know, nobody's actually gone in there yet. Unless," here, she paused. Did she want to give him a chance? Working with Reeve was one thing - she knew him. Liked him. Trusted him… "Unless you've got any suggestions, anyway," she finished. Dammit.

[thatdamnedninja]

To criticism, perceived or otherwise? Yup, she was. Especially on days like this. Man, she couldn't wait to get her hands on one of those Frisbees again…! It'd be great to blow off some stream, without having to deal with killing stuff at the same time. Getting frustrated about her project was better than getting frustrated about those other things, but it was still. Frustrating. Obviously. Yuffie made a face at her map-sketch-doodle. "Point taken," she admitted. Hadn't she been talking to Edgeworth about this just yesterday? Seemed like a week ago.

And she'd have tacked on a smartass remark to save a bit of face, if Lelouch's next words hadn't elicited a snort--one that didn't quite cover the snicker behind it. "What if I want a legion of underlings to do my bidding?" She asked, sitting up a little so she could glance back over at the report. Three decimal places. No kidding.

There was a soft scrabbling sound from below, by her feet. Was that -- a kitten. Yup. Yuffie leaned down, offering her hand to the black and white fuzzbut. Said fuzzbut was soon clambering happily around on her lap, the journal having been thrown aside to make room. "He's a fun guy," she agreed. "It'll be cool not to have to babysit." She loved the WRO, she really did, but the dumbass to competent ratio wasn't always in her favour. Especially with the new recruits. The second bit, though -- Yuffie blinked, looking up. "I'm used to forests," she said, after a split-second pause. "Guess you could say that it's a comfort zone of mine, since I used to be in 'em more often than not."

[thatdamnedninja]

"No way! I'll cheat and stea--borrow--somebody else's." Yuffie relaxed, a brief, cheeky grin flashing across her face. Was it just her, or had that faint smile been a real, genuine one?

Before she could decide one way or another, Fuzzbutt upped his campaign to recapture her wavering attention. Tickling and fussing the mewing ball of fur, Yuffie looked around for another one. Lelouch might've been playing it cool by staring at his pile of notes, but she hadn't forgotten the bulletin spam from -- how long ago had it been? Whatever; that wasn't important. No, the key thing here was…

… Aha! A sleek little thing, a long-haired silver tabby that seemed a little older than most of the others, leapt up beside her, onto the arm of the sofa. Yuffie introduced herself to it, then scooped it carefully into both hands. "I'll have to run it past him, anyway. How fast d'you think he could get up a tree?" Quick as a ninja should be, she leaned over and deposited the kitten carefully on Lelouch's person. If that wasn't an awesome way to punctuate a question, she didn't know what was.

[thatdamnedninja]

The scowl washed straight over Yuffie's head. Out of the corner of her eye, she watched him struggle with his furry friend. Fuzzbutt, who had clambered onto her head and was in the middle of giving himself a bath, paused to watch too. "There's nothing wrong with being athletic! And you're doing a hella lousy job of it," she pointed out easily. "You keep looking at all that stuff like you can't tell one word from the other, and I saw you at the bulletin." It was almost painful to watch. Almost, because she mostly just found it funny.

Oh, god. It was no use. Yuffie snickered-giggled, really-as the cat scaled Lelouch's pants and plopped itself down right where she'd left it before. "Looks like somebody agrees with me, too," she added, with a nod toward the cat. Lelouch could grumble all he wanted; it was pretty obvious that, for all his acting, he didn’t mind it nearly as much as he pretended to. "You think this is bad? I've got eleven of 'em back home."