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

[zack_fair]

Zack wasn't sure when this had turned from a discussion into an opportunity to judge him, but his eyebrows ended up shooting up when he realized that Aidou was questioning his pride. There wasn't much he could say, though. At one point he had been proud to be a part of SOLDIER, but that had been lost by now. What did he have instead? Well, pride in himself. He didn't think that his ability to take abuse meant that he didn't have any.

"I could kick up a fuss and get angry and fight back, but... in the end, that's not going to get us anywhere," he pointed out. "Just sitting there and taking it is almost harder to do." It took a certain amount of self-control. The other thing was that, so far, everything that had been done here hadn't matched up to some things he'd been through in the past.

If his friends started being put in real trouble -- if they were experimented on or tortured -- then Zack would probably feel it more. Then he'd probably be just as angry as Aidou seemed to be right now. But seeing how he'd died already, anything

[blood_and_pocky]

Aidou knew he was only going in circles, and he knew that comparing Zack to himself, as well as to other humans, was meaningless. There was no way of quantifying their individual experiences. It was unfair at a time when Aidou didn’t feel like being fair, and although his hatred wasn’t directed at Zack himself, the man had a right to take offence. Aidou wouldn’t have been surprised, yet, true to his word, Zack didn’t seem to take the insinuation personally. Aidou would have, certainly.

The noble made another disgruntled expression. Getting snide with strangers and kicking them in the face was one thing, but… Zack was an unbiased acquaintance and supposed to be something of an ally.

“I know,” he said. “That’s not what I meant. I apologize.”

Too many apologies he shouldn’t have had to make. He wanted to be home.

“Your interest is in the grounds outside, then?” Aidou finished. It didn’t make much of a difference if Zack didn’t have a select focus as it seemed.

[zack_fair]

"It's all right," Zack said, waving the teen off. He didn't take insults to heart that much, and it had been a sort of roundabout one in the first place. He could understand someone letting things slip when they were irritated, so he wasn't about to hold a grudge. That just wasn't his style. He'd even tried to give Genesis a second chance when the guy had given him more than enough reason to want him dead

[blood_and_pocky]

Aidou nodded. When there were multiple avenues to pursue and no clear understanding of how they all tied together, anything could be something. If Aidou could be everywhere at once--if he could have even just half his strength back--he would spend his nights looking at just more than one stupid, gaudy basement. Hime might have vanished, but her information was one of those avenues.

“Everything here is ten times more difficult than it should be, thanks to these imbeciles,” was the noble’s reply. So Zack was moving uphill at a crawl. So was everyone else, Aidou included, much to his own displeasure. If incompetence was the problem, things would be far simpler, but no, there had to be games, and tricks, and nights that seemed to end whenever they felt like.

“There’s a group trying the door in the basement tonight. If you have no interest, I’ll inform you if anything comes of it.” Swapping information was easy in comparison to actually getting said information, lately. Though it sounded like they had made a limited amount of headway

You cool with wrapping it up soon?

[zack_fair]

Even if the comment was delivered with that same undertone of anger, Zack had to admit he agreed with Aidou. The people in charge here made everything extremely difficult for them, and while that was obviously the point, it didn't stop it from being unbelievably frustrating. Zack had been used to succeeding, to always being the top of his class, so to speak. This constant failure was enough to wear down on his pride in a totally different way from what Aidou had been implying earlier

Yep, sure! We could just end it here if you like. :D

[blood_and_pocky]

The vampire would have much preferred focusing on allies and night time efforts, but of late his attention had been split between multiple things--and now, with the girl, he had personal business to deal with. Letting himself become pressed for time was sloppy, and yet he hadn’t gotten around to confirming plans until now. Though in regards to the coming night, perhaps it was best that Zack didn’t express interest in going to the basement, too. The people meeting were already large in number and discouragingly varied in background, from what Aidou could glean