The smile on Sai's face grew wide again. "Shikamaru and Luffy-kun share room M37." That would have been in the same hall as Usopp's old room, but that little bit of information didn't seem important. "If I'd not been here tonight, I might have been meeting with him or perhaps one of the other ninja from my village. We're from the Village Hidden in the Leaves, from within the Land of Fire. The leaf symbol like the one on my headband will get the attention of all of us, should you use it on the board."
And speaking of... "The bulletin board can be found in the sun room. Anyone is allowed to post on it, though recently the nurses began watching what was being said more carefully. Anything that discusses plans after dark, any foul language, and generally a lot of anything that discusses the Institute being more than it seems to be is removed. It's troublesome, but we can work around it.
"As for what you were working on before... I could never be sure. You had a good collection of items in your closet. You'd made smoke bombs, as well as various other things that could be shot from a slingshot we put together. ...I'll need to find you a means of making another." Sai believed he spoke more around Usopp than anyone else he knew. Even when he was relaying the results of a mission he kept it brief and to the point. He thought he was doing that here. Perhaps it was because Usopp asked a lot of questions.
Usopp sat up a little straighter at Sai's information.
"So Luffy's right next door to me? I must have missed him!" Usopp had to believe Sai now, he'd practically promised to under the circumstances. He did hope Sai understood the promise didn't have to go both ways. Usopp didn't consider himself a reliable source of information at all. "I'll remember the leaf, 'Hidden in the Leaves in Land of Fire,' and... does Shikamaru like a more cartoonish or realistic style of deer? With horns or without? Oh, I have some paper and pens, just show me what you draw for him and I'll do something like that, but I'll sign it somehow so he knows I'm not trying to pretend to be from your village and it's not a ninja trick or anything." Usopp started to pull the notebook out of the pocket, struggling a little as the coat obviously hadn't been built to hold even small notebooks.
"That kind of material gathering and building sounds like me." Usopp wasn't sure what he was building himself, half the time. Some things were obvious weapons, but other things took a while to come to him. Maybe that was the difference between an artistic mind like his and a constructive mind like Franky's. "Did I mention anything about Kabuto when I was here? I guess we just have to make do with a homemade type of slingshot. Thanks for the help!" At least, as weapons went, those were pretty easy to improvise. Not as easy as the stick the roommate had walked out with, but Usopp was more likely to have a stick like that forcefully taken from him before he got beaten by it himself, if he brought it into a fight. Unless it has a big slingshot at the end of it, of course.
So Usopp had moved rooms, which was to be expected, but not very far. How odd that was. Sai stood and retrieved his own notebooks from the dresser as the pirate struggled with his. With his pen, he drew a quick and simple sketch of a deer before holding it out for his friend to see. Though a brush was his preferred tool, there was no point in wasting that ink on this.
As Usopp mentioned the name Kabuto, the ninja's eyes narrowed in confusion. "I know of a ninja named Kabuto," he said carefully, "but I wasn't aware you were acquainted with him. ...Unless we're not talking about the same person." Or a person at all. He could never tell with the pirate sometimes. His answer was an obvious enough way of saying that he didn't recall Usopp ever mentioning his prized slingshot.
"Oh, thanks." Usopp leaned over to watch Sai draw, although it was almost over before Sai had started. Sai was good. Even for something as simple as this, he had a lot of confidence, didn't hesitate at all, and the image was precise and clean. So Sai was an artist, or at least had some skill in it.
Enough to fake another person's style? No, because Usopp had decided he believed Sai at least until Usopp met with Luffy, so that was all there was to it. He pushed his doubts to the back of his mind, easier with Sai's confusion to correct.
"Kabuto? It's not a ninja, it's a weapon, my great new slingshot. Well, it's also a kind of beetle, or a hat, but that's not important right now. I'd never met a ninja, as far as I know, until you." Sai not knowing about it could be a way of measuring what kind of Usopp he'd met before, but it could also just mean Usopp hadn't bothered talking about his weapons to someone who probably would never have gotten the chance to see them. "You seem, um, kind of armed. Did you get your weapons back with your clothes?"
Maybe he should start checking his closet regularly, just in case.
Sai just stared at Usopp's explanation. That was one he was going to have to get used to. It wasn't as though two people sharing the same name was all that uncommon, but he knew he was going to be unable to help thinking about Orochimaru's right-hand man whenever the pirate mentioned his slingshot.
He shook his head at the last question, quite willing to switch topics. "I did not. Any weapon I, or anyone else, is in possession of had to be acquired in the Institute. I've heard there are patients that can craft them, but that's not how I got mine." He pulled out his two remaining trowels and set them down on the floor, followed by his kunai. Then he slid his machete carefully out from under his mattress.
"There are scalpels in my dresser should you require them." He smiled again.
Sai's stare made Usopp a bit more uncomfortable, more than the ninja's awkward smiles. Usopp shifted a little, but the change in topic seemed to ease the atmosphere again, as much as a strange hospital room lit by flashlights and occupied by a ninja and a pirate could be eased. Asking if this Kabuto guy were a friend of Sai's village was pointless, so Usopp went with the change of subject instead.
"Oh, scalpels? Well--sure, thanks! If you don't need them all." If he had even his old slingshot, he could have improvised weapons pretty easily out of the scalpels themselves or out of carving something, assuming they stayed sharp enough long enough. Without a slingshot, he didn't have a lot of faith in his ability to throw or fight with blades. That was more Zoro or Brook's field... or Sai's, apparently. Still, he had to admit even to himself that it beat the rubber band. But where did you get a machete out of a place disguised as a mental hospital?
"If we're friends, we should get to know each other better. Or I should get to know you, anyway. So, you became friends with Luffy and me after we all fought off some killer leeches." It wasn't pleasant, but in Usopp's experience it really wasn't that unlikely, especially compared to the rest of the story. "You know we're pirates, and Luffy's our captain, and I'd been building some things. I drew that headband with a pirate mark for you sometime. And you're a ninja, from the village hidden in the leaves, and you're artistic too. Right?"
The scalpels were easily retrieved, and Sai wrapped a few of them in a gray shirt before handing the bundle over to the pirate. They'd be easier to handle that way. He might have questioned what Usopp planned on doing with them, but it was possible even Usopp didn't know.
As his friend began rambling again, Sai returned to his time honored tradition of nodding and listening with what he hoped was an attentive expression. He was glad Usopp hadn't turned him away, not that he thought he was the sort of person who would...
"I paint, yes." Hence the pseudonym he'd been given. "I also use ninja arts that involve ink drawings - animals, mostly. They're not very powerful here."
He'd even gift-wrapped them. True, it was a shirt, but the thought was what counted. Usopp smiled broadly at Sai before taking them, and resisted the urge to open the t-shirt immediately to start trying to figure out what to do with the new items.
"Thanks! I'm learning a lot about ninjas today." Not that he'd really known much about ninjas before. If Sai tended to paint animals, no wonder the deer had come along so quickly, even with a different instrument. It was clear that painting, even a special ninja painting, wasn't Sai's only skill from the collection of weapons, improvised and obvious, that he keeping on-hand. Whatever panic Usopp had felt about the situation itself was easing away, and the weapons weren't threatening at all. Maybe it was the fact that Sai seemed so comfortable about them.
"You're weakened, like you said Luffy was? I guess I should try to make sure my legendary marksmanship is still on the same unmatched level that it used to be." At least the lying seemed to be the same.
"I'm sure it is," Sai smiled, seeing the lie for what it was and choosing not to comment on it. "But yes, I'm weakened here. Everyone is. Though... " he looked thoughtful, "there was a time when we couldn't access our chakra at all. Now we can, if just barely."
Barely was still better than not at all. Being able to run up the side of a building, even if not for far, could still allow for an escape he would have been denied otherwise.
"Are there any other questions? I wish to inform you about as much as possible tonight so that you'll be prepared in the future."
"I've just gotten here. I haven't even seen monsters or anything, unless the nurses count." Usopp had no idea, really. "You'd know what I should know better than I do."
Talking about that sort of thing was all right, but he still wanted to know more about the base of things than the day to day parts. For one thing, Usopp was a bit worried that if he knew too much about what he might be facing, he'd wind up a little terrified out of his mind again. That was embarrassing. "Does anyone know why they take who they do? Sai, what's your dream?"
Usopp thought the two were related subjects, without pausing to consider that they sounded completely unalike or that Sai might genuinely not have a dream.
"The nurses do become rather monstrous after dark, I've heard. I would avoid them then if possible." Sai spoke with a straight face. Usopp needed to be informed, after all. "The orderlies as well. In fact, just about anything living on the grounds during the day changes once night falls." Cats, bats, ...spiders...
Before he could respond to the pirate's first question, one he thought he'd already answered before - no one knew, he was startled by the second. The ninja blinked in surprised, unable to come up with an immediate answer. "...Dream?" Naruto had a dream. He wanted to become Hokage. Sasuke's dream was to kill his brother, if that could be considered a dream rather than just a goal. What was his dream? Did he even have a dream? Had Usopp asked him this in the past? If so, he hadn't thought much about it since...
He sat, saying nothing, eyebrows furrowed as he tried to think of something to say. "To get out of here...? Perhaps."
Usopp had looked up in surprise at Sai's first statement, then down at himself, but nothing there seemed different. Sai himself had changed, but that was just an outfit, not exactly a monster.
So listen to your nurse or she might eat you, or something.
The rest of it, Usopp just shook his head at, sighing. "So that's not it either... there's gotta be some connection. Somebody has to know why, just because we are here, unless it's all really random. If we could figure out that, maybe we could figure out how we're brought here, or how to leave, or at least what they do with the," bodies, "people who get sent off again."
Thinking out loud wasn't entirely helpful, but sitting and looking puzzled at Sai without speaking would probably just confuse his friend more. "Maybe it isn't something we all have in common, but something we all have individually. That'll be even worse!"
"Whatever it is, I'm sure everyone who's brought here has something to offer for the... tests they might be doing. They do seem to choose specific people." Though why they would take some away and then erase their memories he couldn't be sure. It couldn't be for a good reason.
Some of the awkwardness from Usopp's question went away, but why had the pirate had believed that question was important in deciding who'd been chosen?
"Just promise me you won't try to wander around the halls on your own at night." He'd asked this of him when he'd been there before, hadn't he? The situation hadn't changed. Usopp wasn't the weakest person he knew, but he thought his chances of being able to take on most of the monsters in this place one on one were fairly slim.
Usopp gave Sai an odd look in return. "What do you mean, tests? You said something about how people don't think it's for testing. Or did you mean they aren't sure? I'm trying to figure out who those specific people are, what kind of group someone's picking out. If we can figure out who and why on either side, maybe we can figure out how too. It beats not knowing anything."
Did Sai just consider it tests to be taking people's memories, assuming Usopp-himself ever had any memories of Usopp-Sai's-friend, or replacing them with strange memories like Sean, Sasu... Sasuke? Maybe the way they were weakening powers?
"And I'm not going to promise something stupid like that." Usopp's expression changed to one mixing confusion with offense. "How can I be with someone from the moment night starts to when it ends, unless I cling to my roommate? If monsters could be anywhere, including where the patients are, hiding in my room'll be pointless. Besides, if it's really your dream to leave, you should respect other people wanting to fight for it too." Or run away for it, depending on the situation, but Usopp couldn't just shrug it off either way. "Besides, I'm not that helpless! I fought, helped fight God, you know."
"No, I thought I said it was believed that we were here for testing purposes, based on what's been said over the intercom. It's not been a hundred percent proven, though." It would make sense, given what they'd been put through up until that point. Brainwashing, having the patients experimented on - those were tests in of themselves, weren't they?
Then the pirate started being stubborn, which he should have expected. Sai grew serious, glaring down at Usopp. "Then you should find someone as soon as possible. People die here, Usopp. Friends are brainwashed against each other. Just as it happened today, it can also happen at night. I fought you once that way - you and your crew - will all my abilities restored. I could have killed you if it hadn't been against orders." He got back on his knees to better look the pirate in the eye. "I've worked with you, even if you don't remember it, and I know a bit of what you're capable of. I'm not trying to insult you. Your safety is important to me. Do not travel alone if you can help it."
Usopp remembered hearing something different, but it didn't really matter--it seemed more like a misunderstanding than a lie. And there were more important things to discuss now.
"What did I do before to make you think people don't die where I'm from, Sai? I'm not going to try to say I'm not scared of dying, but there's a lot of things I'm more afraid of!" Usopp stared back, for once.
How weak were they now, that Sai could take out his crew? Most of them were monsters of a sort... "Wait, what do you mean, my crew? How many of us were here, other than Luffy? And I'll decide what to do after talking to him!" Usopp swallowed hard before adding, "I know you're trying to help, but he's my captain, not you! It'd be his decision to make before anyone else's."
Maybe they had been friends, but that didn't mean they'd agree on everything. Or maybe he had obediently hidden at night before..? What kind of impression had he left?
And speaking of... "The bulletin board can be found in the sun room. Anyone is allowed to post on it, though recently the nurses began watching what was being said more carefully. Anything that discusses plans after dark, any foul language, and generally a lot of anything that discusses the Institute being more than it seems to be is removed. It's troublesome, but we can work around it.
"As for what you were working on before... I could never be sure. You had a good collection of items in your closet. You'd made smoke bombs, as well as various other things that could be shot from a slingshot we put together. ...I'll need to find you a means of making another." Sai believed he spoke more around Usopp than anyone else he knew. Even when he was relaying the results of a mission he kept it brief and to the point. He thought he was doing that here. Perhaps it was because Usopp asked a lot of questions.
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"So Luffy's right next door to me? I must have missed him!" Usopp had to believe Sai now, he'd practically promised to under the circumstances. He did hope Sai understood the promise didn't have to go both ways. Usopp didn't consider himself a reliable source of information at all. "I'll remember the leaf, 'Hidden in the Leaves in Land of Fire,' and... does Shikamaru like a more cartoonish or realistic style of deer? With horns or without? Oh, I have some paper and pens, just show me what you draw for him and I'll do something like that, but I'll sign it somehow so he knows I'm not trying to pretend to be from your village and it's not a ninja trick or anything." Usopp started to pull the notebook out of the pocket, struggling a little as the coat obviously hadn't been built to hold even small notebooks.
"That kind of material gathering and building sounds like me." Usopp wasn't sure what he was building himself, half the time. Some things were obvious weapons, but other things took a while to come to him. Maybe that was the difference between an artistic mind like his and a constructive mind like Franky's. "Did I mention anything about Kabuto when I was here? I guess we just have to make do with a homemade type of slingshot. Thanks for the help!" At least, as weapons went, those were pretty easy to improvise. Not as easy as the stick the roommate had walked out with, but Usopp was more likely to have a stick like that forcefully taken from him before he got beaten by it himself, if he brought it into a fight. Unless it has a big slingshot at the end of it, of course.
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As Usopp mentioned the name Kabuto, the ninja's eyes narrowed in confusion. "I know of a ninja named Kabuto," he said carefully, "but I wasn't aware you were acquainted with him. ...Unless we're not talking about the same person." Or a person at all. He could never tell with the pirate sometimes. His answer was an obvious enough way of saying that he didn't recall Usopp ever mentioning his prized slingshot.
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Enough to fake another person's style? No, because Usopp had decided he believed Sai at least until Usopp met with Luffy, so that was all there was to it. He pushed his doubts to the back of his mind, easier with Sai's confusion to correct.
"Kabuto? It's not a ninja, it's a weapon, my great new slingshot. Well, it's also a kind of beetle, or a hat, but that's not important right now. I'd never met a ninja, as far as I know, until you." Sai not knowing about it could be a way of measuring what kind of Usopp he'd met before, but it could also just mean Usopp hadn't bothered talking about his weapons to someone who probably would never have gotten the chance to see them. "You seem, um, kind of armed. Did you get your weapons back with your clothes?"
Maybe he should start checking his closet regularly, just in case.
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He shook his head at the last question, quite willing to switch topics. "I did not. Any weapon I, or anyone else, is in possession of had to be acquired in the Institute. I've heard there are patients that can craft them, but that's not how I got mine." He pulled out his two remaining trowels and set them down on the floor, followed by his kunai. Then he slid his machete carefully out from under his mattress.
"There are scalpels in my dresser should you require them." He smiled again.
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"Oh, scalpels? Well--sure, thanks! If you don't need them all." If he had even his old slingshot, he could have improvised weapons pretty easily out of the scalpels themselves or out of carving something, assuming they stayed sharp enough long enough. Without a slingshot, he didn't have a lot of faith in his ability to throw or fight with blades. That was more Zoro or Brook's field... or Sai's, apparently. Still, he had to admit even to himself that it beat the rubber band. But where did you get a machete out of a place disguised as a mental hospital?
"If we're friends, we should get to know each other better. Or I should get to know you, anyway. So, you became friends with Luffy and me after we all fought off some killer leeches." It wasn't pleasant, but in Usopp's experience it really wasn't that unlikely, especially compared to the rest of the story. "You know we're pirates, and Luffy's our captain, and I'd been building some things. I drew that headband with a pirate mark for you sometime. And you're a ninja, from the village hidden in the leaves, and you're artistic too. Right?"
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As his friend began rambling again, Sai returned to his time honored tradition of nodding and listening with what he hoped was an attentive expression. He was glad Usopp hadn't turned him away, not that he thought he was the sort of person who would...
"I paint, yes." Hence the pseudonym he'd been given. "I also use ninja arts that involve ink drawings - animals, mostly. They're not very powerful here."
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"Thanks! I'm learning a lot about ninjas today." Not that he'd really known much about ninjas before. If Sai tended to paint animals, no wonder the deer had come along so quickly, even with a different instrument. It was clear that painting, even a special ninja painting, wasn't Sai's only skill from the collection of weapons, improvised and obvious, that he keeping on-hand. Whatever panic Usopp had felt about the situation itself was easing away, and the weapons weren't threatening at all. Maybe it was the fact that Sai seemed so comfortable about them.
"You're weakened, like you said Luffy was? I guess I should try to make sure my legendary marksmanship is still on the same unmatched level that it used to be." At least the lying seemed to be the same.
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Barely was still better than not at all. Being able to run up the side of a building, even if not for far, could still allow for an escape he would have been denied otherwise.
"Are there any other questions? I wish to inform you about as much as possible tonight so that you'll be prepared in the future."
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Talking about that sort of thing was all right, but he still wanted to know more about the base of things than the day to day parts. For one thing, Usopp was a bit worried that if he knew too much about what he might be facing, he'd wind up a little terrified out of his mind again. That was embarrassing. "Does anyone know why they take who they do? Sai, what's your dream?"
Usopp thought the two were related subjects, without pausing to consider that they sounded completely unalike or that Sai might genuinely not have a dream.
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Before he could respond to the pirate's first question, one he thought he'd already answered before - no one knew, he was startled by the second. The ninja blinked in surprised, unable to come up with an immediate answer. "...Dream?" Naruto had a dream. He wanted to become Hokage. Sasuke's dream was to kill his brother, if that could be considered a dream rather than just a goal. What was his dream? Did he even have a dream? Had Usopp asked him this in the past? If so, he hadn't thought much about it since...
He sat, saying nothing, eyebrows furrowed as he tried to think of something to say. "To get out of here...? Perhaps."
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So listen to your nurse or she might eat you, or something.
The rest of it, Usopp just shook his head at, sighing. "So that's not it either... there's gotta be some connection. Somebody has to know why, just because we are here, unless it's all really random. If we could figure out that, maybe we could figure out how we're brought here, or how to leave, or at least what they do with the," bodies, "people who get sent off again."
Thinking out loud wasn't entirely helpful, but sitting and looking puzzled at Sai without speaking would probably just confuse his friend more. "Maybe it isn't something we all have in common, but something we all have individually. That'll be even worse!"
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Some of the awkwardness from Usopp's question went away, but why had the pirate had believed that question was important in deciding who'd been chosen?
"Just promise me you won't try to wander around the halls on your own at night." He'd asked this of him when he'd been there before, hadn't he? The situation hadn't changed. Usopp wasn't the weakest person he knew, but he thought his chances of being able to take on most of the monsters in this place one on one were fairly slim.
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Did Sai just consider it tests to be taking people's memories, assuming Usopp-himself ever had any memories of Usopp-Sai's-friend, or replacing them with strange memories like Sean, Sasu... Sasuke? Maybe the way they were weakening powers?
"And I'm not going to promise something stupid like that." Usopp's expression changed to one mixing confusion with offense. "How can I be with someone from the moment night starts to when it ends, unless I cling to my roommate? If monsters could be anywhere, including where the patients are, hiding in my room'll be pointless. Besides, if it's really your dream to leave, you should respect other people wanting to fight for it too." Or run away for it, depending on the situation, but Usopp couldn't just shrug it off either way. "Besides, I'm not that helpless! I fought, helped fight God, you know."
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Then the pirate started being stubborn, which he should have expected. Sai grew serious, glaring down at Usopp. "Then you should find someone as soon as possible. People die here, Usopp. Friends are brainwashed against each other. Just as it happened today, it can also happen at night. I fought you once that way - you and your crew - will all my abilities restored. I could have killed you if it hadn't been against orders." He got back on his knees to better look the pirate in the eye. "I've worked with you, even if you don't remember it, and I know a bit of what you're capable of. I'm not trying to insult you. Your safety is important to me. Do not travel alone if you can help it."
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"What did I do before to make you think people don't die where I'm from, Sai? I'm not going to try to say I'm not scared of dying, but there's a lot of things I'm more afraid of!" Usopp stared back, for once.
How weak were they now, that Sai could take out his crew? Most of them were monsters of a sort... "Wait, what do you mean, my crew? How many of us were here, other than Luffy? And I'll decide what to do after talking to him!" Usopp swallowed hard before adding, "I know you're trying to help, but he's my captain, not you! It'd be his decision to make before anyone else's."
Maybe they had been friends, but that didn't mean they'd agree on everything. Or maybe he had obediently hidden at night before..? What kind of impression had he left?
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