Day 23: Sun Room, Evening Shift

[high_prosecutor]

Miles Edgeworth had quietly snuck off to a corner of the cafeteria during lunch, avoiding making conversations. He knew other people would probably lecture him later or accuse him of avoiding them, but that hadn't been true at all. He'd just wanted some time to work quietly by himself for a while

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[stray_shinigami]

Renji smirked. "Nothin' wrong with that if I get to watch." He stuck his tongue out at her.

"I've got the other names written down... in the notebook thing." Renji sighed. While he had a decent memory, names weren't exactly his strong suit. Especially not western names, which most of these seemed to be. "I'll copy down what I've got and give it to you tomorrow. You'll at least have some more names for people that you can trust..."

And then he was utterly enveloped in one of Ran's famous (infamous?) hugs. As always, he was struck by the curious sense of near-suffocation, but he wasn't about to object. There were few ways a man could die truly happy, and this was definitely one of them.

Ran made a good point - the same point that Rukia had made. And in a weird way, Ran saying it made it penetrate better, made it almost stick. Maybe it was because he didn't have all those hideous emotional complications about her. Or maybe it was because Rukia had already hammered that point home once and Ran had just struck in the final blow.

It was enough that a little of the tension left his shoulders.

"'kay" he mumbled into her breasts.

[fuyunohanabi]

She laughed brightly at that and then gave him a mock disapproving look as he stuck his tongue out. "You shouldn't make promises you don't intend to keep," she said, smiling sweetly at him.

She kept on petting his hair, feeling the tension leave his shoulders a little. Most of the time he made everyone forget that he hadn't always been a vice-captain; he was powerful and capable and well respected. But sometimes he made her feel old.

Rangiku sighed then, resting her shin on top of his head, and twirling one of the little braids of hair around her finger absently. "Trust me and Kuchiki-san to help. You don't have to take up all of this responsibility on your own." It was easier said than done, she knew; vice-captains were expected to act alone or under the orders of their captain, not so much as a team. But that was what was needed now.

[stray_shinigami]

Renji wasn't sure what to say. He felt that he should take responsibility; the only person he ought to be sharing with at all was Rangiku, and she was newer to this place than he was - and a lot more laid back, normally. But he was also realizing that he couldn't keep track of everything on his own.

"Yeah..." he said.

It felt kind of nice, to be on the receiving end of a hug for once, one where he wasn't trying to be strong for someone, and one where he didn't have to worry about thinking inappropriate things about the person hugging him like he did with Rukia.

"We need to figure out how to get stuff divided up." It felt weird to be thinking about making decisions in a group, but at the same time, he wasn't comfortable ordering either Ran or Rukia around.

[fuyunohanabi]

Rangiku pulled away slowly, moving her hand to his shoulders and squeezing slightly in reassurance. "You're doing a fine job," she said quietly, smiling gently at him. "And you'll continue doing a fine job."

She moved away finally, settling herself comfortably next to him on the sofa, their shoulders just touching, and drawing one knee up beneath her self. "We can sort that tomorrow, if your kids don't turn up this shift," she said. "I'll take care of them tonight while you get yourself a weapon." She sighed softly, clenching her fingers as though round a sword. "I know I'd feel better with a katana in my hands."

[stray_shinigami]

Renji nodded. "Dunno if you saw, but I got you and Rukia up at the start of the list. If they go first-come, first serve." He grinned crookedly. "And if not, I'll be up there to argue with 'em why we're a good bet. Once I got a sword in my hands, I don't think anyone'll be able to doubt." He just wished that it was really Zabimaru, but wishing didn't accomplish a whole hell of a lot.

He frowned. "Hopefully they show." Kids weren't known for being reliable. "I'm just tryin' to think of a good meeting point. Something between blocks. If you want to take a stab at the second floor, maybe the stairway rigth there..." he didn't have his journal with him, so he got up for a moment to steal a piece of paper from the bulletin board.

He drew a quick, rough sketch of what he knew of the first floor - the places they had been, where the doctor's offices were, and the stairways. He did a second sketch of what little he knew of the second floor - only one hall in detail, all the rooms marked, and then the existence of the next hall, as well as the stairways he knew of. "It's probably a safe guess that the layout upstairs is somethin' like down here, so there should be two more halls. This is the one where the... thing attacked us before. Which was right after we dispatched a small group of other... uh... things." He rubbed his chin. "So it's makin' me wonder if there's something interesting down here."

[fuyunohanabi]

"Ah, I saw," Rangiku replied, leaning her head back against the back of the sofa and closing her eyes sleepily. A smile appeared on her lips. "We could always offer to bodyguard them if they really needed a demonstration." It wouldn't be so different to being back in the Academy, before she'd managed to talk with Haineko properly. They were all skilled enough to be able to use a sword without it being a zanpakuto. She didn't think proving it would be a problem.

She sat up more straight when Renji stood, watching him as he went to grab some paper. She peered at the rough map with interest. "Seems a good bet," she replied musingly. "Why put something very strong where there's nothing to be guarded." Even if this were a game, it made sense to be cautious and not let the pawns get too close to something important.

[stray_shinigami]

He laughed. "We could, at that. I'd bet on us coming out on top against most people here with a proper weapon." Himself, he even felt confident about unarmed, but he didn't expect the same from Rangiku or Rukia. He'd been put in the 11th and risen to a Seat position there for a reason.

"Yeah," he agreed. "Just be real cautious. The smaller monsters are cake. But it's like this place only has two settings - easy or invincible. The only one I've run across so far is the metal pyramid thing, but there might be other real nasty shit that I just haven't been unlucky enough to find yet." He frowned. "Hate to say it, but at least tonight we don't gotta worry about running up against other patients."

He hated to ask, but he did anyway, because he needed to know. "Is the someone you're getting your knife from Ichimaru?" His tone was notably devoid of anger; at this point, he was curious. And he was still trying to figure out everything that Ichimaru had told him.

[fuyunohanabi]

She nodded enthusiastically. "A shame Captain Zaraki isn't here," she said with a smirk. "I think he might enjoy it. The night time anyway." She imagined he would also spend a large portion of the dayshift sedated if he were here, assuming that any of the nurses survived that long. She was proud of her division, but for sheer physical strength, she'd back the Eleventh every time. They also did a good line in property destruction which she felt this place was sorely in need of.

Metal pyramid thing? Must be one of those things you needed to see to understand. If it had caused so much damage though, she'd rather not come into contact with it. She gave a solemn nod. "If they have us here, then who knows what kind of powers the other patients have. And the idea that they could use any of us like that is not reassuring." Any of them would be enough to cause serious damage to anyone who came up against them.

Rangiku sighed softly at his question. She'd known it would have to come sometime though, was surprised that Kuchiki hadn't asked earlier, to be honest. "Yes," she replied simply, returning his flat look with one of her own. Pretending otherwise wouldn't do them any good.

[stray_shinigami]

Renji laughed. "He's spend all his time sedated. I'd fuckin' pay to see that."

He nodded. "One of the kids told me it might be possible to snap patients out of it if you can bring up something personal and important enough, like a memory. But... that doesn't really help us a whole hell of a lot." Because really, if one of the Shinigami were in that state, their opponents would be down before anyone had a chance to speak, pretty much.

He didn't so much as twitch at her answer. "Then do me a favor and see if you can find out where he got it. He's only got two hands, and there's plenty could put a knife to good use that are getting by with nothing." Considering the way things seemed to regenerate themselves over night, there was really no reason for any source to be guarded jealously.

...unless Ichimaru just wanted to be a bastard. But Renji was slowly forcing himself to believe that the man had a reasonable streak. They just had different ideas about what constituted reasonable.

[fuyunohanabi]

Renji's laughter was good to hear and more than a little contagious. Besides, it felt good to laugh. There'd been precious little of it for quite a while, even before they arrived here. "I think a lot of people would," she said, still grinning. "We could take bets on how much of the drug it'd take to lay him out."

Well, it was good to know that there was at least something to break people out of this brainwashing, but she had to agree; with the amount of power that any one of them would have access to under Special Counselling, it would likely prove a moot point. "It's something to consider though," she said. "If we can get through to one of them, or if they could slow one of us down, even for a second." It might give them enough time to put a few more feet between them.

His reaction to her admission took her a little by surprise, she had to admit. Hadn't he been the one who had attacked Gin on sight only the previous day? Not that she was complaining. She nodded. "I'll see what I can do. He's ah... a little wary that one of us might try to kill him if he tells us where he got them from." There was a note of curiosity in her voice which she couldn't quite hide. Whhat was this sudden lack of animosity.

[stray_shinigami]

Renji continued to laugh. "I wouldn't mind even losing money in that." He shook his head. "All we need is Ikkaku and Yumichika, too..."

But the Special Counseling thing. "If it could work, somehow... imagine what one of us could do to this place, then." He imagined releasing Zabimaru to his bankai in these walls. It would be worth whatever pain came from it.

"Ask him again, now," Renji said. "Besides, the knives wouldn't be for me. Unless he intends to go around scaring the children..." He shrugged. He felt uncomfortable talking about this. It still didn't make sense to him. "He knows that unless he goes near Rukia, there will be no problem with me."

[fuyunohanabi]

All of that and this place wouldn't seem so bad, practically a party, even! "A little sake wouldn't go amiss either," she said, happily imagining the thought. Maybe that was how they should go about defeating this place. Difficult to scare people who were enjoying the place.

Now that was a nice thought. "If it worked, then any one of us could do enough damage to get people out or find the man behind this." He had to be hiding somewhere in the building, and a few strategically broken walls wouldn't take too much effort.

She nodded at his request, wondering what had happened that would apparently make Gin change his mind. "I'll ask, I promise," she said. "If he knows he's not being hunted, it might be easier." All she could do was try, after all. "You talked with him?" she asked, raising an eyebrow curiously.

[stray_shinigami]

Renji checked to make certain that there were no nurses near enough to listen in before continuing.

"We can find the man behind this," Renji said, keeping his voice low. "Yesterday before you got here, he was in the chapel. I was there too. I looked at his spirit thread. I could find it again." He shrugged. "But right now, it's pointless until we're armed and have a force put together. Several people tried to attack him in the chapel." He shook his head. "What will give us a chance is numbers, coordination..." He frowned. "Only a few people know this. Don't tell anyone else. If nothing else, when people are taken for Special Counseling, they may be interrogated. If they don't know we can look at spirit threads, we need to keep it as an advantage."

Back to the subject of Gin. He shrugged, a grunt the only answer to Rangiku's question. "He knows I'm not hunting him any more."

[fuyunohanabi]

Rangiku leaned in towards Renji slightly, making it easier for him to keep his voice low. Her eyes widened slightly at the news, but she gave no other outward sign of surprise. She nodded in agreement. "We'd need to be entirely ready," she replied. "If we attacked then I doubt we'd get more than one chance before they found some way to block that ability too." The idea of interrogation was more than a little worrying; what if one of those who were capable of the ability were interrogated? They could give up whatever information they had in that case. But, she supposed, that was just one of the risks they'd have to deal with.

"Then hopefully he'll be a little more forthcoming," she said, tapping her fingers against her knee as she thought. If Renji wasn't going to go after Gin, then she hoped that there would be less of a problem. She'd rather focus on getting out of this place, than dealing with fighting between between patients.

[stray_shinigami]

Renji nodded. Rangiku had immediately grasped what was going on; he expected no less from another Vice Captain.

That was the point where the loud speaker came on, announcing dinner. "Shit." And none of the kids had showed up at all. This could be bad.

He frowned. "I know you said you got to go get your knife first... but you're in the F-block. Can you make a quick check in with Rukia and Kairi before you head off? Sora'll probably stick with Kairi. I'll... I'll take care of Valyn. You didn't meet him last night anyway."

It wasn't the greatest plan, but he wanted to make certain that everyone was taken care of. Claire probably had somewhere else to be tonight; she hadn't said anything about coming with them again. If Ran could get things figured out with Kairi and Rukia, Sora would most likely stick with them, and that was most of his worry taken care of right there.

The nurses started heading over and he stood, already getting himself mentally in order for the night to come.

[fuyunohanabi]

She sighed when the intercom came on, very quickly coming to loathe that voice. At least during the night there wasn't the pretence of civility.

She nodded quickly at Renji, making a show of getting up from the couch and stretching. "I'll check on them and send them first thing," she replied, glancing over at the nurses. "And I can survive another night without a knife if I have to." If something came up, she'd rather be protecting the others than leaving them for their own devices.

Hopefully this night would be more successful than the last.