Day 56: Bus 1

[scintillatingly]

Claire (the second) had turned out to be a nice and interesting person. Sora wished that he'd had some more time to chat with her, but the failing light and the urging from the staff had made it clear before long that their trip was coming to an end, meaning that he'd had to rush to make his purchases. That was how Sora ended up walking back to the

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[zack_fair]

Three sets of batteries later and Zack had used up most of his money. He still had one dollar left, but there wasn't much he could do about that seeing how night was quickly approaching. He wished he would have been able to find something a little more exciting to buy, but at least he could tell himself that the batteries would be useful. Angeal would have been proud that he hadn't thrown his money away frivolously

[blood_and_pocky]

Behave, behave, behave! This nightmare prison was always about behaving himself, like an animal that needed to be trained. The original nurses, insisting he accept his false identity. Short-sighted people, judging him for his nature without knowing anything of a vampire. And now, tonight, the soldiers thinking they could just paw at him as they pleased.

In the line up, Aidou’s rage had started to build higher and higher while other captives around him resisted the searches. Naturally, his first instinct was to do the same, but knowing he couldn’t do so with a clear conscience was what fuelled a good deal of his disgust. He could defend his dignity, but what against? The intrusive pat down was a psychological attack more than anything, the kind he’d been combating since day one. After thirty four days of them, letting himself turn into the type of prisoner who resisted until exhausted was foolish. He had to save his energy for bigger battles. BehaveDidn’t he

[zack_fair]

While Zack had been dividing his attention between the view outside (which was getting harder and harder to see as the sun slowly disappeared) and the inside of the bus, it was pretty hard to miss a very angry teenager pushing his way down the aisle and then taking the seat behind him.

Especially since it was a teenager he knew and had worked with a number of times, whose his face was practically painted red.

Especially since Zack had always seen Aidou acting cool and composed.

Part of him wondered if it might be best to just leave the kid alone and let him cool off after whatever had aggravated him, but this was the sort of curiosity that was hard to ignore. If Aidou really didn't want to talk, Zack was sure that he would make that clear.

So, after a moment of contemplation, he turned himself around, resting one arm on the seat top as he looked the teen over. "What happened?" he asked. "You all right?"

[blood_and_pocky]

Oh, great, now the one girl was sitting with the other girl? Unbelievable! The noble rubbed his face over his hands and seethed, the degrading new search requirements adding to what had already been a tender composure regarding his… menu options.

He had to start believing in luck, because even he found it hard to believe his string of misfortunes could be so elaborately planned out. Which begged the question, why was his luck so bad? He hadn’t done anything except tried his damnedest to stay afloat before he got swept out on Landel’s sea of insanity. From what he surmised, Sasuke wasn’t exactly basking in victories, either, but apparently he felt he was doing far better than Aidou, at that

[zack_fair]

Well then. Zack had more or less been expecting that. When someone looked that upset, asking after them was bound to get that sort of response. Still, the fact that he had been prepared for it meant that he was able to respond to the snapping unflinchingly. He'd definitely been on the receiving end of anger that was far more potent than Aidou's

[blood_and_pocky]

Aidou shot Zack an aggravated look, tightening the line of his lips until he could feel the sharp points of his fangs. It must have been nice for the human to shrug off his treatment and think nothing of it. Over a week already Zack had been in Landel’s, but really, there were just some things he seemed to have accepted with little to no trouble, things that still prevented Aidou from breathing easy

[zack_fair]

Well, that just about answered it. "Everything" was really just a way to cover up the second part, wasn't it? Because when Zack had spoken with Aidou about the "everything" part before, the teenager had always kept his composure. No, in the end it had to be the search they just went through that had really set Aidou off, or it didn't make sense. They had to have triggered it, and to an extent, Zack could understand why. It was violating in a way that the rest of this experience hadn't been -- well, unless you'd been taken for those experiments or brainwashed

[blood_and_pocky]

“Well,” he drawled derisively, “I’m happy for you. You have the stomach for it.”

Being in a military wasn’t the same as being subdued by this military, an imprisonment those here had suffered in equal parts, but Aidou thought the insult was still greater for himself. He was a noble and there was little in the world that could infringe on his freedom except the authority of his own kind. And now he had neither. Not his strength, and not his kind. He couldn’t look past either of those things

[zack_fair]

If anything, Aidou's attitude just seemed to be getting worse as the conversation went on. Zack decided to not respond to the sarcastic comment that he gave, knowing that those words were not in any way meant as a compliment. All he did was shrug. He felt bad that Aidou had been affected so badly, but it wasn't like there was much he could do to help with it. It was better that he just try to get his mind off of it at this point

[blood_and_pocky]

So it was a lukewarm update from Zack. Aidou gave a softer sigh and looked up at him in a scrutinizing way, one eyebrow lifted.

“A weapon…” He digested this piece of information, though considering their acquaintanceship was perfunctory and that there was the possibility of Zack one day vanishing without warning, the benefit was mostly all Zack’s. And whoever might inherit it from him down the line. A proper one, though…? “Where from? Was it made for you?”

His hope that those unusual weapons makers were growing in number was slim. Aidou didn’t have much use for them himself, but they were at least a variable worth considering when they were around to create workable items for other people. And unless Zack had stolen it or won it, Aidou’s next best guess was that he’d been given it.

“Been anywhere? Done anything?” The vampire pressed with a vain optimism that Zack might have come across something that Aidou didn’t already know about. The downside to casting around was that Zack could very well behave like Anise and conceal things

[zack_fair]

At least the talk of the weapon had caught the teen's attention. Zack wasn't surprised by that, though, since it had become obvious during his time here that weapons were a hot commodity. He didn't know if Aidou even knew how to use one, but a lot of people just wanted information here, and he wasn't interested in hiding anything

[blood_and_pocky]

Drawing his tongue along his teeth, Aidou let his gaze wander in thought. There was a ball of pain right between his eyes that had little to do with too much sun exposure. Although it went against practicality, he was in no mood to talk to anyone, even someone as benign as Zack. Even so, it was better than contemplating how many times he’d been inappropriately touched in this hellhole

[zack_fair]

It was really no surprise that Aidou knew about the rings, although now Zack had to wonder if the young man had one of his own. It was hard to believe that he did, since he obviously would have used it to get down to the basement faster if he did. No wonder he was so interested. "Yeah," he replied. "It was my friend's, so I didn't technically use it, but I went with her." That was an idea, though. If Tifa lent the ring to him -- or if they decided to work at it together -- the basement might actually become a real goal. He'd have to talk to her about it at some point, when they actually worked up the courage to speak to each other again. He didn't know if Cloud being here again made it more or less awkward

[blood_and_pocky]

That the shadows had appeared the same night Zack had been in Doyleton kept him from asking if Zack had actually done anything while there. With or without Landel’s sadistic tricks, he could only guess what could be wandering around the town at night, ready to intercept prisoners. Maybe more zombies

[zack_fair]

From the sound of it, Aidou didn't think very well of the new ranking system that had been put into place. It was hard to figure out why -- he could have an issue with the military in general or maybe he simply thought it was a waste of time -- but Zack wasn't about to argue. He'd had more than his fair share of exposure to ranking politics due to his time in Shin-Ra, after all. While it did feel odd to be at the bottom of the ladder again, Aidou was right. In the end, it didn't mean much

[blood_and_pocky]

“You say that so easily,” the vampire murmured. “We are very different creatures.”

There were others like Zack, too. People who adapted at a far greater rate than Aidou would’ve expected. He could endure the insults, too, but to get over them so quickly? Either Zack was clever at playing the long-term game, or he was used to making his dignity a lower priority.

Why would anyone do the latter? Zack’s lack of acknowledgement and anger became glaring absences at the thought. It made Aidou’s eyebrow lift sharply in open appraisal this time.

“Where is your pride, exactly? Being part of a fighting force isn’t meant to strip you of that. Quite the opposite. Don’t you just want to…” Ugh, what was he going to say? Don’t you just want to kill someone? Tear the place down until you finally have the answers for what its purpose is? Those were his wishes, and he wasn’t so stupid as to project them onto others. Some people just wanted to come and go quietly. But if Aidou was correct, Zack was still young and he had friends from his home here.