Hospital Blues

[seiyayamada]

After exiting the mirror world, it had been agreed that hospitalization would be the best option. Calling an ambulance, Seiya had been driven to the hospital in order to be examined and treated. Once stabilized, the nurses ceased fussing over her wounds. Great, a bandaged hand and a gouged side. Fighting in the mirror world would be the death of her if she continued to go in alone. Alone... Loneliness crept up on her as the blank walls seemed to close in. She wondered how anyone would know where she was. Her father didn't really bother keeping up with her, and her cell phone was back in her bag at the school. Staring at the ceiling, Seiya just listened to the hum of the machines.

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[americandiplomacy]

Greg jumped a bit with the sudden voice from across the room; he hadn't really expected it. He hadn't really expected Seiya to cry, either, so that just added to the mix. "Uhhhh..." He started a little dumbfounded at the newcomer, and then shook his head. "No, it's... We're good. I'm good, anyway." Considerate he was not, apparently. "Seiya-san's just getting ahead of herself."

After taking a sip of his soda he turned his attention away from the girl on the bed, hoping that'd help her calm down just a bit... She seemed embarrassed to be crying in the first place. "I'm Gregory Harman, uh... Are you a friend of hers?"

[seiyayamada]

Noticing Ren enter the room, Seiya rolled to her side, pulling the thin sheet over her head. Sniffling, she turned red. Now two friends had seen her cry.

"I-I'm fine."

[homeruuun]

Aww. Ren hobbled in, leaning on her cane, and placed the bouquet on the bedside table for the time being. "Oh, you must be that transfer student senpai and Mippon mentioned!" Leaning her weight on her cane, she extended her free hand to him. "Ren Miura. Yaya-senpai here helped me out the other day."

Ren looked down at Seiya and leaned down with a bit of a chuckle, reaching under the covers just far enough to pat her head. "It's okay, senpai, I got you flowers~"

[americandiplomacy]

"Oh... Huh." The dots connected in Greg's head, though it was more of an assumption... That meant he still wasn't going to mention any mirror worlds or deadly shadows around Ren just yet. Still, he was pretty sure! "Right. Ren..." Ugh, he always struggled with the honorifics. ".. -san? Ren-san... Uh, I think." It was usually -san, so he should probably just default to that.

Anyway, he shouldn't worry about that too damned much. "You don't look, uh... Quite as bad as her, huh? You both got hurt, right? If you are who I think you are, heh."

[seiyayamada]

Peering up through the sheets, she frowned. "Flowers? Really? Miura-chan you didn't have to!" This produced a whole new level of tears, though they were happy ones. She sat up, accepting that there was no changing what they'd already seen.

"G-kun," she sniffled, "this is the girl who was with me."

[homeruuun]

Ren snickered at Seiya's cute reaction. "Yeah, I just sprained my ankle and got a few scratches and bruises and all." She threw a look around to make sure there wasn't anyone to listen in on their conversation, and lowered her voice a little. "It's thanks to senpai I'm not in a hospital bed, too, really. Speaking of which..."

She turned slightly to face Seiya, placing both hands on her cane as she bowed her head. "Thank you for helping me, Yaya-senpai."

[americandiplomacy]

Oh! So she knew, okay. Greg breathed a sigh of relief, at that. "Right... She'll probably want to see the pictures, too, then? I mean, uh... It'd make sense." He'd already fetched his phone and was sorting through it while they exchanged thank-yous or whatever. "Did she get, uh... Y'know. Something like yours?" A query for Seiya, there.

[seiyayamada]

As Ren bowed, Seiya bowed back, a bi t flustered. "Don't worry about it, really!"

She turned to Greg, nodding, "Oh, yes. She should see them." Seiya hugged her knees, resting her chin on her knees. "Persona." The word slipped out without much thought. "Yes, she got a Persona too."

[homeruuun]

Ren straightened up with a nod. "Yeah. I got pulled inside the mirror and had to confront my Shadow. I guess when I accepted it, it turned into a Persona...? I think I saw those terms in a psychology textbook before." She shrugged, not remembering the author's name at all. Something German, maybe.

She wondered what the pictures were about, but she moved on. "I tried to go to the bathroom where I was pulled in just to check up on it, but it was sealed off..." her expression got a little grim. "Endo from class 2-F was found dead."

[americandiplomacy]

"Yeah, I know, I was there." An odd thing to say, but he'd pulled up the pictures and hoped that would explain it. Greg moved next to Ren and showed her the first: A message scrawled in blood across one of the stall doors. He flipped through them quickly, knowing she'd probably not like to see these for very long, just so she could get the gist of it. "She wrote about mirrors, and uh... There's another message in there, it just says 'wake up'."

Not wanting to linger on that for very long, once she'd caught a glimpse of all five he returned to his seat. "It doesn't bode well. Uh, that's what I'm saying."

[seiyayamada]

"We have to go back inside and figure out why this happened." Seiya took another swig of her drink, wiggling her toes with an antsy sway. "Or at least do something."

Unable to just stand idly by, Seiya pouted a bit. "Maybe you two could be my eyes and ears on the battlefield, so to speak."

[homeruuun]

Ren's lips formed a thin line when she looked at the pictures. "Looks like a suicide note to me." And with the mention of shadows and reflections? That was definitely fishy. "Wake up, huh..."

She rubbed her chin in thought, trying to alleviate a bit of weight on her good leg. "Sure, but what I'm wondering is... would everyone - and I mean a general 'everyone' here - have to go through what I did to get a Persona? Doesn't really sound like a fun trip, but it sounds like it's what we need if we want to have a fighting chance against... whatever it is we're up against." Assuming there was a singular entity behind all of it, anyway.

[americandiplomacy]

Greg took a seat and then gave the girl on the bed another scolding look. "I don't think Ren-san here is in, uh.. Any condition to wander back into a mirror, either. You both need to recover." He lifted the phone to get absorbed in that again, though paid ample attention to the conversation outside... As well as Ren's question. He was a little curious, to be honest.

"What, uh... What did you have to go through, exactly? Seiya-san was stuck inside of an elevator, so I couldn't see her when she got hers..."

[seiyayamada]

Seiya frowned at Greg's glance, folding her arms. "I'm not gonna get out of bed, okay?" Smiling a bit, she appreciated the good lookin out.

"I guess everyone would... have to face it, you know?" Scrunching her nose, she glanced at Ren. "If you're uncomfortable recalling it, I can tell him."

[homeruuun]

She gave a dismissive wave of the hand. "It's fine. I accepted it, didn't I?" Ren pulled up a chair for herself to get some pressure off her feet, leaning both hands on her cane. "So... a Shadow. I think that's what called me to the mirror and pulled me inside. It's like... an embodiment of your repressed feelings, maybe?" She leaned her chin on her hands. That was more psychological than she was used to talk about. "It looked and sounded just like me... only really showing those nasty feelings I've been sweeping under the rug for a while. It was kind of like an anti-me. And well, uh, I got pissed and denied that it was a part of me, and I guess it turned into a monster? And that was when the whole fighting thing happened, until I took a hint and just... accepted it. Accepted that it was a part of me I've been hiding." She paused, musing on the subject a little. "And when I did that, I guess it became a Persona. So I guess it was kind of a personal trial I had to face? I suppose... everyone has a bit of a dark side to'em.

"Well, uh, I just hope not everyone has to go through the same thing if it includes getting beaten around by a monster."

[americandiplomacy]

Greg seemed curious enough about the story, one hand on his chin and eyes actually off of his phone to pay attention to her. "Sounds... Uh, easy, to be honest. Means I could just say I accept whatever it is, and uh... You know, be fine." It was probably a whole lot different, but that sounded good in his head. "Getting beaten around isn't good, though. If it gives you a way to fight them..." Hmmm. Yeah, the boy could easily say that he wanted one. He was also curious, now, about what sort of 'repressed feelings' it might go and have...

Oh well, he'd dismiss it for now. Gregory turned to Seiya with a slight tilt of his head. "Anything to add?"

[seiyayamada]

Seiya earnestly soaked up all her new friend had to say. The way Greg put it, it did seem fairly simple. Still, Igor had made it clear that there was much more to it.

"I think... we definitely need weapons. And Miura-san should come with me next time. I mean, God forbid there is a next time..."

[homeruuun]

"Well, maybe it sounds simple... when you're not the one being confronted with that stuff." She clicked her tongue slightly. It hadn't been a very enjoyable experience.

"Weapons, huh?" she rubbed her chin, and nodded. "I think I'd have something suitable..."

[americandiplomacy]

He shrugged off the supposed danger for the moment... Not like Greg would be getting in that situation anytime soon, at least he told himself so. The boy wanted one of these 'Personas', but it wasn't a desire great enough that he'd go leaping into every mirror in sight. "I dunno, uh, maybe it is harder. I don't really have anything... We just moved here, uh, see? Might've been weird bringing a weapon into the country." Not that either him or his father were the violent sort!

[seiyayamada]

"Oh man I'll get you a big gun, G-kun! [AMERICA'S GOT TALENT!]" Seiya beamed, already enjoying the prospect of fighting well prepared.

"Miura-san, when we're healed we should see if anything in the mirror bathroom matches this world's."

[homeruuun]

... At least Ren could get away with what she intended to use. A baseball bat wouldn't attract attention at all if you also carried a sports equipment bag along with you.

Ren blinked but dismissed the weird English Seiya suddenly spouted. "You mean to see how it mirrors it?" She scratched her cheek. From what she could remember, it was overall a mirrored replica, only distorted, but perhaps something might have changed since the incident. "Okay, but I wonder how long it will take before the bathroom opens up again. The popo could be there for weeks trying to gather evidence."

[americandiplomacy]

Greg's lips twitched with the odd and out of place English; it looked for a moment like he was going to smile but it never came. Crisis averted! "I'm not sure a gun would, uh... Be the best choice. Smaller ones would be easy to hide, but if I get caught with it I can't really explain that. 'I take it inside the mirror, officer' just makes me sound, uh... Crazy." Seiya's offer was still appreciated, though, and she'd probably be his best bet to get anything around here. "I'll take whatever I can get, if you can find something."

In response to the bathroom question, well... "Uh, I was there... The clean-up alone is going to take a while. You saw the pictures, yeah? Probably something to, uhhh... Bench for the moment. Sneaking in wouldn't really be a good idea, either."

[seiyayamada]

Seiya chuckled at Ren's use of the word 'Popo' before smiling at what she could only assume was an almost grin from Greg.

"I'll find you the best weapon I can." She pumped her fist as if to say 'you can count on me!' At the mention of cleanup she was slightly disheartened. "That's okay. Patience is key in all this, right?"

[homeruuun]

Ren scratched her chin again. "Well, there's the boys' bathroom next to it, right? Maybe if we go in from there, we can reach the other side's girls' bathroom. Failing that, there are a bunch of other mirrors in the school." Maybe they could find one from a gender-neutral place where they wouldn't risk being caught sneaking into the wrong bathroom.

"... What if all the mirrors in the city are connected? That'd be a huge network."

[americandiplomacy]

"Well, uh, we've seen things happen in a few mirrors now... It seems like any of them can be used, you probably just have to know how to open them." But unfortunately... "We don't, heh. So, uh... Unless we can figure that out, I don't know. Maybe you can only do it from the other side." That would make most sense, though they seem to know almost nothing... It's a little frustrating, if Greg's going to be honest.

"I just hope there's more people like you two. Maybe more people that, uh, know a little bit more than us." Wow, he talked a lot, huh? Upon noticing that, though, Gregory shuts up and sits back in his seat again. "That's, uh... That's just my two..." No, two yen probably didn't make sense, here. "My opinion, anyway."