Day 48: Sun Room [Second Shift]

[perfectrecord]

Hmph. While this Rude was the proverbial "man of few words," von Karma found more potential use from him than a number of the other patients he had met put together. He would still ask Franziska about the man... as well as the other people he had learned that she had been spending time around. Many of them were utter fools, especially that

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[number_crunch]

Incompetent integrals who couldn't even understand the importance of his announcement aside, Sho was still in a great mood. Striding into the Sun Room, Sho noticed his victory declaration had been taken down - considering who had answered before, he knew who it was, so he wrote the kid a note back, leaving his laughter on to the paper rather than hurting himself laughing again.

Settling down in a nearby couch, the Reaper realized he might have eaten a bit much - his injured ribs felt like they were creaking under the strain of the added volume in his stomach. Ah, well. A little discomfort was nothing compared to his good mood.

[for Mr. H]

[catstreetblues]

Rather foolishly, Sanae had assumed that if he avoided the courtyard, he could put off talking to Minamimoto. By the time he noticed his error, however, the nurse was already prodding him into the room. So much for him.

Ah, well, perhaps it didn't matter? Sanae was feeling a little less shell-shocked after his talk with Renamon (and perhaps a little inspired too); he could handle the Reaper without developing a migraine as long as he knew what he was getting himself into. Minamimoto would spend most of his breath on taunts; that was a given. Sanae would take it all with his usual patience, of course, but he did want to give the new Composer a little warning - a little deja vu. Now to make it look easy.

He sat down on the couch next to Sho, catching himself before he went a little too far with his act and threw a casual arm around the other man. "So, how'd you do it, huh?" This ought to be good.

[number_crunch]

And there was just the man he wanted to speak to - what was a Composer without a Producer? If Joshua was any indication, still alive. Still, one case out of one was hardly a relevant sample size, so he was willing to let Hanekoma stay for now. He'd make a note to keep an eye on him though

[catstreetblues]

Well, it wasn't like Sanae's job description included in the fine print "You Must Knock Off The Composer Occasionally". He'd probably set quite a few unpleasant precedents for what he'd done, actually. Producers were supposed to just keep to themselves and handle any issue the Composer needed resolved - but then, most Producers hadn't dealt with Composers who had taken issue with the entire Game before.

He nodded slowly as he digested Sho's explanation. If he'd heard right, it sounded like the Reaper had just made his own O flare in typical Minamimoto-resourcefulness - which, Sanae had to admit grudgingly, was a good use of Imagination. "I see." Minamimoto's apparent injury didn't escape his notice, but that was something to bring up later. First he had to drag all the facts out into the open. "I thought your Game wasn't supposed to end until tomorrow night. Looks like...going against the schedule actually worked out this time

[number_crunch]

"So I rotated my cycle a few circles ahead," replied Sho with a shrug. "It was just the first wave; not my fault if the Players can't make it to Day 7

[catstreetblues]

"Mm..." On the other hand, acting out of order was Minamimoto's M.O.; maybe he should have expected this sort of surprise attack. But how had he found out where Joshua would be? Had it been just luck? Maybe Josh had slipped, given out too much somewhere. The bulletin - ah, that was where it had to have been.

And then Sanae remembered abruptly that now he didn't need Alvin anymore. Poor kid, he hadn't even gotten a chance to make any kind of report.

He listened to Minamimoto's second phase plans and nodded vaguely, having heard this all before when Sho had first shown up. Taking over the institute and disposing of Landel had been his plan with Joshua as well, so even now nothing there had really changed - except that he wasn't jumping for joy at the thought of having to work under the Heaper. But...he'd prepared for this scenario long before. Might as well stick with it for now. "And what's the plan for that? Have you thought that far ahead?"

[number_crunch]

Admittedly, Minamimoto hadn't really thought that far ahead. He'd been focused on the problem at hand - a chance to kill Joshua while the inequality was in his favor was a once in a lifetime opportunity and he wasn't about to let it get away. Everything else was on the backburner. Besides, Landel wasn't about to run away, or if he did, all the better. Sho could care less about killing him an inheriting the position of "crazy doctor". This Game just wasn't his style, so his only objective was plotting a vector back to Shibuya. Of course, he wasn't going to just tell Hanekoma he was empty handed, though he didn't doubt the man would get the real data anyway.

"Eh, still formulating those equations," he said with a shrug. "Unlike with ol' variable J, f of L is presenting a much harder challenge to even locate, much less calculate an accurate line of attack. There's a lot of unverified data floating about on where his coordinates might be, but..."

Okay, so maybe this would take a bit of time. All works of art did.

[catstreetblues]

"Naturally," Sanae said lightly. Nope, looked like Minamimoto, in typical fashion, was doing things as they happened to pop onto his agenda - but for a minute beforehand, he had actually been a little terrified by the possibility of Minamimoto asking him for psyches to help with his grand schemes, partly because that would have led to yet another terrible moral quandary. He was, after all, obligated by his position to oblige the Composer's requests. At the same time, though, Sanae didn't really want to give Minamimoto the satisfaction of knowing that he could reliably call upon him like that.

"Well, tell me how that goes," he added, examining one hand and noticing that there were still a few paint flecks on it. "That girl last night did present some interesting possibilities to be explored."

[number_crunch]

The idea of getting psyches from Mr. H hadn't even occurred to the Reaper. Seeing as how his own powers were locked, as were the Composer's, he assumed that CAT was just a normal feline of no extraordinary ability here as well. Besides, he was doing plenty fine with tools of his own design so far.

"Girl?" It took Sho a few minutes to figure out what he was talking about - his own radio had been gutted for the far more glorious purpose of serving as the mouthpiece to his megaphone and he had been far busier with other matters last night than listening to the airwaves being broadcast. "Ah, right, the radian on the radio. Handing out free toys? The numbers on the board aren't very impressive though; it seems even the average hectopascal isn't too enthused about her."

And it wasn't like Minamimoto was one to dance to another's tune. Maybe if he saw some results, but until then, he'd be solving this by his own methods.