towerofanimus | 01

Entry tags:

01 - Arrival

Characters: Sasuke Uchiha; Open
Setting: 3-up: Floor 1, Floor 4, Floor 25
Format: Prose preferred
Summary: Sasuke has just arrived and is none too pleased with any aspect of his situation.
Warnings: none yet

Opener: Costume

Towers. Exploded worlds. Bullshit.

This entire thing would be unbelievable enough if he wasn't also wearing this ridiculous costume. He feels like Naruto: orange slacks and orange shirt. ...And ridiculous fuzzy orange fox ears perched on a headband on the top of his head; a damn tail pinned to the slacks. No amount of tugging or pulling has managed to remove any of it - even his katana can't cut through whatever this is made of - and no amount of scrubbing in the bathroom sink will clean the whisker marks off of his cheeks. Fuming. He crumpled up every one of the notes he found - welcome tower, and candy quota - and chucked them into his trunk. This is not acceptable.

Floor 1, Cafeteria

Whatever else Sasuke disbelieves, however, he's not long able to ignore his stomach. He'd like to disbelieve himself right out of this place - if he gets hungry enough, will he wake up? - but that doesn't seem to be working just yet. And if this place is any kind of real, be it illusory or prison or whatever else, he'll need his strength to get out of it.

He's seated at one long table, alone, in a corner of the room, spoon stirring idly through the oatmeal he was given. It's not worth trying his luck on something else; for all he knows, there's poison in the rest of it meant to make him ill.

Floor 4, Lounge

Glass walls and nothing to see.

Sasuke's attempted a kai to cut through whatever illusion this might be more times than he can count, but outside the glass, nothing but fog and clouds. Whoever or whatever is behind him goes ignored, including the comforts of soft chairs; he stands at the window, or wall, or whatever it is, staring out into nothing.

Floor 25, Meadow

At least it's quiet here. His guard is up, somewhat, and his ears are piqued for sound and movement, but to the outside observer he lays at ease on his back in the flowers a few yards from the stairs, hands behind his head. Staring at the ceiling, for all the oddness of a ceiling over a field.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

More new arrivals; Kankuro was now digging into this pumpkin stuff, which was... well, not bad, he'd say. Better than the Facility and its endless ration bars, that was for sure!

And, while he did, he was surveying some of the other costumes people had wound up stuck with. At least he was among others. And at least the mask didn't cover his mouth, so he could eat.

A figure in bright orange caught his eye, and he did a double-take as he recognized Konoha's renegade Uchiha. Last time he'd seen the guy, it was in the middle of the Kage summit, and pretty much the entire remaining Uchiha clan had decided to come gate-crash. He'd been around in the Facility, but Kankuro hadn't really had much contact with him there.

And now here... and from the look on his face, enjoying the oatmeal about as much as Kankuro had.

Well, no time like the present. He picked up his tray and sauntered over to Sasuke.

"Fancy seeing you here, Uchiha."

The voice caught his notice; familiar and yet not. Sasuke's eyes lifted, expecting to light on a hood and painted face. And blinked.

...He felt at least a little less ridiculous.

"Kankuro."

He tilted his head, acknowledging the empty seats around himself. "Take a seat," he said in a voice that was half deadpan, half spiteful sarcasm, lifting a spoonful of plain grey sludge to his mouth. "We can swap complaints about these fool outfits we're in and then try to figure out how to get the hell out of here."

Well, that was honestly a bit more friendly than Kankuro had expected Sasuke to be, given the circumstances. Yeah, they'd made nice with Konoha from way back, but that had pretty well overlapped with Sasuke telling Konoha to die in a fire, so far as he recalled. So there'd been no period when he and Sasuke were on the same side of... well, just about anything.

Maybe hating Deidara. Yeah. That'd do it. Even in the Facility that was about all they had going.

Not that it was friendly, mind you, but the notable lack of actual aggression toward him was not what Kankuro had expected. He took the seat, though he sat lightly, ready to spring up if needed, and let his arm brush lightly against the scroll tucked out of sight in a pocket of his cloak. Just a little reassurance.

"Getting out?" He raised an eyebrow. "I dunno if you remember the last place we were in, Uchiha, but getting out isn't generally an option."

It was Sasuke's turn for incredulous surprise, one eyebrow rising on his forehead as he chewed the gruel that needed little chewing. "Last place?"

So far as Sasuke knew, he and Kankuro had never been in anything together. He knew the puppeteer from diplomatic visits and talk surrounding missions, but they'd never taken one together.

He watched the other as he took another bite of oatmeal, calculating, though his irises retained their dark grey. "From my experience, there is a way out of everything, even if it's not immediately apparent."

Eyebrows up. So Gaara remembered the Facility, but Sasuke didn't?

Kankuro thought that over briefly, then half-shrugged. If they were able to erase the memories temporarily, maybe they were able to stop them coming back. In fact, hadn't people said that Sasori had been in the Facility before he showed up during Kankuro's time there? And Sasori hadn't remembered anything.

"Don't worry about it," he told Sasuke, reasonably sure that Sasuke wouldn't just take that but having to put it out there anyway. "As for getting out of these places... it tends to be a bit more complicated than making a door."