Day 52: Library (2nd shift)

[longlivetehking]

Scar possibly couldn't have been more thrilled at the prospect of being escorted to the library. He had visited this particular room plenty of times to know that it was entirely useless and uninteresting - like most daytime activities, for that matter. Still, the nurse seemed rather convinced he'd like one of those silly books filled with papers

Comments

scream, hit send to early

[bitpartgod]

It was the loudness of Sechs' voice that caught Kibitoshin's attention this time, and Kibitoshin's immediate reaction was to flush a bright, guilty scarlet that spread from the tips of his ears to the base of his neck in three seconds flat at the fact that he was the one that loudness was directed at. I-in a library, of all places! Even he knew better than to raise his voice in a library!

His first attempt at complaint was promptly slapped back down with one of Sechs' specialty back-pats and then by the android's enthusiasm, but the second he found a gap to speak into he launched straight in with added interest to boot. "Sechs! You can't just barge into a library and start shouting across the room like that, it's bad manners! And... and..." He blinked. "Are you okay? The way you're bending over... did you get yourself hurt again?"

And before he could remember what it was he'd been doing he was already over by Sechs' seat, tugging insistently but gently at his arm so that he could get a better look. What kind of a healer would he be if he didn't try to get a look, anyway?!

"You should try to be more careful!" he said with a sigh, giving his friend a pointed look- right before suddenly breaking into a warm, fond smile. It just wasn't in him to rain on Sechs' parade so early in the day, and he'd seemed so eager to share whatever it was he'd learned on the bulletin board, which just wasn't like him. Stopping him now would be cruel. "Go on. Tell me while I look you over, okay?"

[sixth_attack]

Perplexed as a fearsome dragon being told off for setting fire to something as (in his opinion) frivolous as a library, or in this case, being too loud in one, Sechs blinked at the scolding Kaioshin and tilted his head with near comical disgruntlement. What did he mean it was "bad manners" to be loud in a library? He could be loud wherever he wanted! The brash android was about to let out a series of scoffing and snorting when Kibitoshin suddenly jumped to a whole different topic altogether, and before he knew it, Sechs felt his protective arm being tugged away from his tender rib cage.

"K-Kibito! Watch it will ya?" Sechs stammered, wincing from the unexpected touching. Sechs kept his arm firmly clutched around his side against Kibitoshin's efforts to peel it away, but he couldn't resist his friend's mothering persuasion forever. Letting out an exaggerated groan, Sechs finally relaxed his arm, allowing the fretful Kaioshin to get a closer look at his injury. "Ugh, fine...!" he grumbled, "Just be careful, okay? I'm sure I busted a rib or two there..."

Sechs took in a deep breath. It was just like getting a tune-up from his cybertechs, no big deal. Yet when Sechs was faced with Kibitoshin's kindly smile, he immediately felt the telltale signs of another abashed blush heating up his face. Wincing slightly, Sechs squirmed on the chair and turned his reddening face away from the Kaioshin whilst he reluctantly uncovered his entire side for his friend to appraise. Sheesh! Was he ever going to get used to these sorts of interactions?

"Uh... Anyways!" Sechs awkwardly carried on as he willed the blush out of his face with all his mental strength. "Last night I went looking for Alita and that doctor. I got upstairs to check out some of the locked doors that could've lead to any trace of them, but I ran into a couple of snags on the way..."

Stubbornly set on appearing aloof towards whatever Kibitoshin was going to do to inspect his rib cage, Sechs kept his eyes away at nothing in particular. "First off... The uh... thing that the doctor did to me... It acted up again once I reached the second floor. But... I thought really hard about what you did the other night, thinking of all that light and stuff..." He gave Kibitoshin a brief but meaningful glance before looking away again, "And, I actually managed to get the drug's effects to calm down for a little while! It wasn't as good as your Ki energy but it still helped!"

A strained cough made its way out of his bruised chest, but with no traces of blood to worry about, Sechs carried on with his story. "Next I was trying to get through this one door when a HUGE ape thing came crashing in for a good tussle! Of course, I won against it in the end!" he added with a proud smirk, which faltered slightly at the more bitter than sweet memory of that victory. "But uh... not without us falling off the balcony and down into the Sun room!" He trailed off, his eye brows furrowing beneath his shaggy hair. "That's where I uh... Hurt my ribs there. Although, if that big stupid lump of hair and muscle hadn't broken my fall, it could have been worse...!"

He gave his head a little shake. He shouldn't be so glum over that fall; he won that battle in the end! He even had that monster's severed thumb as a personal trophy! It was too bad he couldn't show it off during the day...

"So I'm back on the first floor with a dead monster for company, and that's when my radio goes off..."

[bitpartgod]

It had taken a little pestering and a blitz attack to pull it off (no surprises there), but he'd done it! He'd actually gotten Sechs to co-operate with him! Flushed with success, Kibitoshin started his check-up, first with his friend's arm, then his chest, albeit a little more gently than he had before- by the way he was moving, whatever injuries he had were definitely still pretty sore, especially if he had broken a rib. That was why he was blushing, after all; it was probably the effort of not ruining his Mr. Macho Cool Person look by doubling up whenever Kibitoshin's hands slipped.

Giving his arm a gentle prod, he forced himself to listen in silence for now. The scolding for putting himself into so much danger when he was all by himself could come later, when he'd finished. Interrupting him now would be just plain rude. Even so, that didn't mean the Kaioshin had any control whatsoever over his expressions. From the word 'snags', his face fell straight into an anxious frown, biting down on his lower lip to stop himself speaking out straight away. 'That thing' had a similar effect, widening his eyes a fraction, only for them to shoot open to the approximate size of dining plates at the words 'huge ape thing': huge ape!? L-like... like a Saiyan!? No way! But that was impossible! Surely he'd have known if there had been a Saiyan ape in the building, its head would have smashed right the way through the roof! Anyway, when he'd seen Goku he'd been missing his tail, so...

Focus, Kibitoshin. "R-really? I'm glad I managed to help you somehow," he said, giving a wobbly smile. That was reassuring, at least- even if he couldn't be with Sechs 24/7, he could still have a positive effect on him. "And I'm definitely glad you won! Still, maybe it would be better to fight somewhere that isn't on a balcony next time. Just in case. That could have been really serious!" He gave a sigh, shaking his head at Sechs as though he were completely beyond his control, like a hurricane or a teenage human girl or some other violent force of nature. "Still, I bet you really showed that thing how tough you are. You'll have to come and train with me, some day, I'd love to see how you do it."

With that said, and trying to ignore the fact he'd said 'some day', he went back to listening to the other man's story, moving from his arm to his chest. That cough definitely hadn't sounded good, but he wasn't in the medical wing, which meant it couldn't be too serious.

[sixth_attack]

"Yeah! Sure thing! I can show you -- ah!" Sechs' words were cut off when the Kaioshin's fingers prodded into a spot on his side that suffered a different sort of tenderness compared to where his ribs had been fractured. Visibly cringing on the spot, Sechs' train of thought instantly fell off its rails in a comical fashion.

Ugh! There was that weird sensation that made him want to laugh again! It was almost as bad as having his fractured ribs get poked too hard! Like some automatic button being pressed, Sechs felt his lips curl into an uncomfortable smile while his torso almost squirmed in on itself. Why did his organic body have to do stuff like this to him?! Almost immediately afterward, Sechs masked the smile with a pained grimace and turned on Kibitoshin with a warning growl. "H-hey! I said be careful there! Sheesh!"

Hoping that cover up was enough to convince Kibitoshin to not question Sechs' reaction any further or cause something similar again, Sechs gave out another gruff cough and continued with his tale, but with a more wary eye towards the healer's caring hands this time.

"So the radio goes off, and this guy on it says that there's this real important note left up in the nurse's lounge," Sechs said, "So I figured I'd go and find it but keep looking out for Alita and that sick doctor while I was at it."

The Replica carried on. "I go back up to the second floor and once I reach the staff area, there's a bunch of other prisoners looking for the same thing. Of course, I was the first one to find the note!" Sechs boasted once again before continuing, "After reading through it, we got attacked by this monster that was even worse than that giant ape or the monster from the mirror!" he exclaimed, "It was pretty bad ass and it breathed out a lot of toxins! We all managed to get out of there in time, but not before laying some good damage on it!" Not to mention the set of wounds that creature left on them, as Sechs glanced at his other bandaged-up arm.

"But anyways! It was a letter written by the Head Bastard himself," Sechs said, lowering his voice a little while jerking his thumb up to the ceiling. He didn't mind having other patients hear about the note, but he had to be careful, what with all the nurses breathing down their necks and all...

"It was for this guy named Alec," he explained, "and it was about how someone inside the institute was breaching the security for some outside group called 'Second World'. Then there was this extra note attached to the letter about this woman named Jill who Landel suspected to be the cause of the trouble. She's supposed to be part of this 'Second World' group that I think is trying to help us. But get this!" Sechs leaned in closer to Kibitoshin's pointed ear, "All this time she might actually be Lydia, the institute's Head Nurse!"

[bitpartgod]

"Sorry, sorry," Kibitoshin mumbled, quickly moving his hands away from Sechs' ribcage. Definitely there, then. The fact that he'd nearly creased up straight afterwards, giving a little quiver as though he were struggling to contain himself, was more than enough to confirm his suspicions- obviously, Sechs was just trying to put on a brave face while he was in pain. Immediately the Kaioshin felt a stab of guilt, one that he immediately tried to force back down with the reminder that he could try and heal it tonight, if that other person on the bulletin board didn't need help. Or maybe he could help them both? It seemed rude to show preference to his friends when...

... a-ah, the story!

Putting on a look of intense concentration (if he could pretend it was real, maybe it would become real), he nodded along, doing his best to catch up from whatever point his attention had lapsed from. Giant ape, falling off the balcony, the radio... there! The radio! And, as it seemed to be turning out, he'd had every right to be worried when he'd seen Sechs' notes on the bulletin board: it had turned out to be dangerous, almost more so than the giant ape thing had been. A-and was it really worth nearly suffocating or getting your arm broken or being terrified all night just for some note?

"Sechs-" Kibitoshin started, but then he bit down on his lip all the harder. He'd promised himself he wouldn't interrupt, but-- Sechs was strong, yes, but if he went on being so reckless...

And so he listened. And when Sechs reached the end of his story, breath tickling the Kaioshin's ear, his mouth fell open instantly. It was pretty hard to remember to be anxious, after all, when a bombshell was in the middle of being dropped. "W-what!? You're serious!?" He gave a little groan, clapping a hand to his forehead and closing his eyes. "Ahhh, you can't trust anyone to be who they're supposed to be around here! Why can't the bad guys just be the bad guys and the good guys just be the good guys?"

[sixth_attack]

Leaning away from Kibitoshin's oddly shaped ear, Sechs couldn't help but softly chortle at the Kaioshin's reaction. A grim smirk curled his lips. "Well, if there's one lesson I learned from battle..." he explained with a knowledgeable glint in his eyes, "Is that things aren't always what they seem at first!"

If Kibitoshin hadn't been checking his injury, Sechs would have crossed his arms in a sagacious fashion. "I think things are finally starting to unravel a little bit now," he said. "There seems to be a lot more stuff going on here than what most of us thought, not only inside the institute, but outside of it too! Hell, that bastard Landel can't know everything about the place! 'Especially if he's getting security breeches inside his precious little institute! He's not all that powerful!"

Just that statement itself was enough to boost Sechs' tenacity -- and hope.

Meanwhile, despite the small gratitude Sechs' felt deep down inside for Kibitoshin's caring attention, all the poking and prodding was really starting to grind on his ego. (Not to mention he could still feel warm patches glowing on his face...) A cat could only appreciate so much attention before turning on the hand that was petting it -- or in this case, a barely tamed tiger...

Sighing, Sechs grumpily cupped his hand in his free hand and looked to Kibitoshin with a pout that nearly resembled a child's impatient scowl when waiting for a fussy parent to finish bandaging up a scrapped knee. "Are you done checking me now...?" he half-grumbled, half-whined at the healer.

[bitpartgod]

"Maybe," Kibitoshin said mournfully, "but nearly everyone I've ever battled was nice and obvious." Though, he supposed, you would be fairly obvious if you were going to be destroying universes, like it or not. He'd never really been informed of anything on a smaller scale- even the planet-destroyers had never registered. That was the kind of thing that the Kaio dealt with, not him. Maybe he just wasn't used to small-scale evil, the kind of horrible, sly things that went on every single day on every single planet, or...

... he shivered. That kind of thing- it didn't bear thinking about. Especially not in a place like this. The last thing he wanted to think about was everything he'd let slip.

Then again, Sechs wasn't the only one suddenly seeing light at the end of the tunnel: if everything Sechs had seen was true... "Y-you're right," he said, eyes widening a touch as the implications finally settled into place, one after another like falling dominoes. "If he didn't know about something as big as that, maybe that means that there are little loopholes he doesn't know about either!" In spite of himself, the Kaioshin was smiling. "Maybe we do have a chance after a- ah..."

Quickly, Kibitoshin pulled his hands back and folded them neatly in his lap. Oops. Between the story and the Positive Thinking he'd completely carried himself away. Maybe any more of a check-up would be little excessive, considering Sechs was probably still pretty sore. "Sorry! If you want, I can heal it for you some time?"