full_score
in
damned
Day 58: Lunch
Although it had been good to see his mom again, Claude entered the cafeteria with a dark expression on his face. He was glad she felt comfortable enough with him to share her experiences from last night, but that didn't make him any less angry at the military for using her to do their dirty work. Why couldn't those bastards clean up their own
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It was time!
A couple minutes after sitting down with her A rank meal, Tsubaki didn't think anything was amiss--people always took a while to filter into the cafeteria, and Kurogane and Fai were probably two of them. She knew that Fai, at least, had seen her suggestion to meet at lunch, so he knew to find her. Flagging Kurogane down if he hadn't seen their notes couldn't be hard, right? Since she could actually talk about last night's mission, they had more to talk about than just what to do about Landel and the mission he had assigned. If they weren't reading the bulletin, they had to be warned ( ... )
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Shiina made her way into lunch feeling somewhat drained. Shou... a Shou was still alive. Alive. Living, breathing, moving, talking, snarking; everything she knew to be Shou and absolutely Shou. He wasn't dead. Even if it wasn't 'Hazama Shou' she was glad to at least have found one alive and well. As well as could be in this situation, anyway. She still didn't have the best grasp on just what this situation was, as it stood. But it was better than death. Yes, so much better than death ( ... )
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It easier spotting the soldier mentioned on the lunch announcement than Kurogane or Fai, and for a few minutes she watched the black clad figure though her thoughts were on how the three of them were supposed to have a meeting when no one was... well, meeting. Although there was a lot she wanted to reflect on--like for instance, the soldier she had talked to last night, the man who had taken their package from them--she wanted to see everyone first. Ensure they were still in one piece. Or rather, that the Institute was still in one piece and hadn't been overtaken by whatever punishment the military had in store for failed missions ( ... )
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"Th-thank you," she said rather belatedly, brows drawing together in uncertainty. "I... I'm sorry, I'm very new here. I'm not really sure what I'm supposed to be doing."
Shou had tried to give her a crash course in the place, but very little had made sense. Then again, it was Shou. When did anything about that boy make sense? And that went without saying even before you took the time to consider the whole vigilante cloning experiment slant to his life.
In an act to not seem completely crude, Shiina also gave a quick, friendly bow of her head. "I'm Shiina. Nagasawa Shiina."
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"Hurt the soldiers?" Shiina eyed the more official-looking officers that stood against the wall, keeping their eyes on the others eating at the tables. Honestly, she doubted she could hurt any of them. She lowered her voice a bit. "You mean those soldiers, right?" Even she was dressed in a military uniform, but it was still pretty clear who Tsubaki was talking about. Still, better safe than sorry.
Already feeling at ease, Shiina smiled a bit easier and relaxed in her seat. "Thanks. I appreciate it. It's nice meeting you too, Tsubaki-san." She glanced over their food, noting the differences. Not that she was hungry, but it was plain who was favored over whom. "So... is this... some sort of training camp?"
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Anything she said, though, depended on how long Shiina had actually been in the Institute, and what the girl said next made Tsubaki fear for one dismal moment that Shiina had just woken up, perhaps right before lunch. All prisoners had to have their first disorienting rise to consciousness sometime, but...
It never stopped being painful. Everyone should have been home right now, enjoying their lives.
"Have you talked to anyone else besides me?" she asked hesitantly at first.
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Tsubaki's hesitancy gave Shiina pause. Niikura had tried to say something along the lines of what this place really was, but then the shift change had distracted them both. This place wasn't just a mental institute. Something about horrors...
"I only got to speak to him a little bit. I just woke up an hour ago or something." Time was hard to keep track of when you were crying and hysterical.
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There were some thoughts she didn't try to hide, however.
"I'm sorry, Shiina-san. That must have been frightening for you." Tsubaki didn't want to pretend she knew all of what the poor girl was feeling, but having gone through the disorientation of finding herself in a strange room, in strange clothes, she could relate on that account. She smiled softly. "I think everyone wakes up the same way. The soldiers... well, they've only been in the hospital a couple of days. They didn't use to do the introductions or the supervision. I hope whichever ones who woke you up were all right to you."
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Tsubaki's quiet way about her was very soothing, and Shiina felt herself relaxing more and more in the girl's presence. Her words were definitely a little unnerving, but any information was golden. "So, everyone goes through that..."
Considering the previous treatment Shiina has suffered in the hands of captors, Landel's has been a breeze. She chuckles lightly, without humor. "They were all right. I wasn't threatened to the point of death, and they didn't even point a gun at me." Yeah. Definitely all right.
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“Listen, to answer your earlier question… it’s not really a training camp. Nobody who’s been brought here knows for sure what this place is for, but it will test you. Test how well you endure in threatening situations. It can get dangerous--mostly at night. During the day, I’ve never seen the soldiers threaten someone like that so I honestly don’t believe you have to fear they’ll hurt you.”
There were always exceptions, though, and as controlled as the Institute’s guardians could be in the daylight, anything could happen once dinner came around. Worse than people armed with guns and threats.
“But like I said, at night…” she continued, her sentence trailing off. “I’m sorry, I know I’m being abrupt when you just woke up here, but the most important thing you have to know is to be careful at night time. That’s when you can get hurt. I wish I could say this was a safer place.”
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Maybe she was being overly skeptical, but life after full-out martial law in Tokyo had made Shiina plenty aware of just how little control any one person generally held over their own life. Life at the institute seemed fairly similar to how life in Tokyo had been the past few weeks.
"Yes, I know him from back home. Sort of.... It's complicated." Shiina laughed a little, realizing she might have sounded quite of strange there but little could be done for it. It really was a complicated situation. Even she wasn't sure how to classify it. "Oh, I don't plan on going anywhere without my friend okaying it first. He seemed pretty insistent that I wait for him, so that's what I'll do ( ... )
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