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.

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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."

While Sasuke kept himself occupied, Satoko taken the opportunity to set up a small trap for the new shinobi. Back at the entrance of the room, Satoko has set up three types of trap. The first one was obvious with a long jump rope that extended across the entrance door at foot height, very good for tripping. The trap extended to the second part where there is some pumpkin dishes along the floor of the entrance. If Sasuke was to trip, he would land in the pile of dishes. The most simple trap to see.

Now for the real trap. Behind the exit, along the edge of the exit's wall were taped thumb tacks. If Sasuke were to grab hold of the edge of the door from the outside, he would feel his hands pinched by those needles. As for Satoko, she waited by one of the furniture in the room. This should be good.

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."

While Satoko sets up, Sasuke pointedly keeps his back turned, even though he can hear the quiet movements and shifts of things being laid out. He doesn't sense any real malice or intent to attack, so he's content to be patient and calm until she finishes. Missions and teaching had taught him the game of the long, silent wait.

When all goes silent, he at last turns, glancing about the room with sharply red eyes. The jump rope would stick out like a sore, brightly-colored thumb even if his Sharingan weren't active. A little smile quirks at one corner of his mouth.

In a flicker, too fast to see even for the eyes of some ninja, Sasuke is standing just on the other side of the doorway, feet firmly planted on the ceiling of the hall. Yes, the ceiling.

The tips of his hair dangle a foot or two above the pumpkin dishes, and careful, delicate fingers reach out to pinch around the pin of one of the thumb tacks, peeling it gently from the wall. Without turning to look at Satoko, he says in a calm - almost cheery - voice, "You weren't hoping to catch me with this, were you?"

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."

That drives up the other eyebrow. As far as Sasuke's concerned, there's only more reason for concern now that Kankuro has said it. But he doesn't press just yet.

"You have some experience with this?" Fair, Sasuke doesn't exactly know all of Kankuro's missions, his comings and goings. They're from different villages, after all.

Satoko watched quietly from where she sat as Sasuke instantly vanished from the entrance door. The girl had to blink before she saw him where she least expect. It almost made Satoko's jaw dropped. People's feet glued on ceilings never crossed the Trapmaster's mind. She watched him unraveled her trap, blinked even to make sure it was no illusion. "No way," she whispered a tone to herself.

The young girl smirked lightly as she displayed her innocent act. She let out a drag sigh, "oh my~ Now who would do some despicable act?" She began to walk towards him as she looked up with curiosity, "how did you do that anyway?" Satoko couldn't help it, the ninja's trick did left her speechless.

"You could say that." Oh yeah, he could see the dubious look on Sasuke's face -- under the whiskers and fox ears, that was! "Places like this aren't really of the world we know. So getting home is tricky." Which was a massive understatement, but he figured he'd be nice and not actually tell Sasuke how fucked he thought they were.

Guy still was being a hell of a lot more neutral than Kankuro would ever expect. Just roll with it he told himself. If he doesn't think you're an enemy, then don't be the one to start shit. But if Sasuke and Gaara ever wound up in the same place, he'd watch him like a damned hawk!

["Hey, hey, hey, you should totally talk to him, get to know him-"

A voice in his head kept telling him to talk with everyone he meets, and that wasn't the only thing that Naegi's dealing with right now. But nevertheless there is a time where one can't just stay quiet within his room and avoid everyone else.

...This would be the time.

...

There was only one person in the Lounge, and he's doing nothing as of the moment.

"Get to know him get to know him"

And with that, someone is going to approach the silent man.]

Hey, the person over there, you have some time to spare?

Edited 2012-10-14 02:06 (UTC)

Sasuke only chuckles to himself, pulling out a kunai and sweeping the blade of it down the wall to dislodge the taped-up thumbtacks, which drop lightly and harmlessly into his hand.

"Who indeed?"

He flips lightly over the girl's head, stepping over at normal human speed to tip the handful of tacks into the trash bin. "As for how I did what I did, practice and chakra." He turns back, placing hands on his hips and half-smirking down at her. It might have painted a more impressive picture if he wasn't wearing bright orange. "What's your name?"

One eyebrow raised, Sasuke turns his head to glance over his shoulder at the speaker. One orange fox ear on his headband flops hilariously as he eyes the boy, whose skin doesn't all seem to be the same sheen. Eyes spin crimson, seeing the metal interspersed with colored skin, and seeing that the eye socket is truly empty, that the cut in his face is just that and not a natural shape. He frowns, but remains otherwise neutral in his posture. Intensely, intently neutral.

"Apparently I do."

He turns away from the window, one hand rising to his hip. "At least until I figure out how to leave. Did you need some help?"

A frown, more obvious now, pulled over Sasuke's lips. "What do you mean, 'not of the world we know'?" Now Sasuke was more than curious - if Kankuro knew anything about where they were, he might know more than he put on about how to leave.

As for Sasuke's perspective, Kankuro seemed a bit more on high-defense than he expected from an ally, but their place in the tower could account for much of that. Sasuke didn't think his own guard would ever be let down entirely here.

Although it felt disappointed this trap was far out of Sasuke's league, she was still satisfied in another way. Satoko's eyes didn't left Sasuke, not even after the flip. She walked over towards the door to at least untie her jump rope. It was her mess, she had sense to clean it up. After the jump rope was retrieved, Satoko turned to Sasuke curiously,"chakra? What's that?" She wasn't familiar with shinobi terms.

But when he asked for her name, Satoko couldn't hide her grin, "it isn't polite to ask a lady's name without introducing yourself."

Hadn't Madara been able to manipulate dimensions? Kankuro considered that, then dismissed it with a shrug. "I mean, not of the world we know. You could hunt all over the earth and you wouldn't find this place, because it's somewhere else entirely. It pulls people from worlds that aren't ours, and mixes them all together."

That was pretty straightforward, right? Crazy, yeah, he would admit that much, but not impossible to understand, especially for someone as intelligent as Sasuke was reputed to be.

Sasuke's frown only deepened at that. This sounded like talk of gods and planes and worlds beyond worlds. Part of him had never believed any of that was true. ...Part of him had always believed at least some of it must be.

This whole thing left an uncomfortable feeling in his gut that he doubted had anything to do with the oatmeal.

What he really wanted to know was, "How did we get here?" Because answering that would explain how they'd get out.

Sasuke startles, a bit taken aback. Kankuro had told him that people here were from different worlds, but... not knowing about chakra? At all? Even civilians from his world at least know of its existence, or he thinks they do, at least. The question makes the reality of his situation sink in a little more heavily than he'd like.

"Chakra," he starts carefully, a little unsure at first how to proceed from a lack of knowledge base, "is... energy. It's inside things and people and animals - more in people than things. It's..." How did Kakashi describe how chakra works for people who aren't shinobi? Or people like Lee? "...It's why you're stronger when you eat and sleep, and weaker when you're tired and hungry." He stops there; the concept of shaping chakra, using it outside the body, might be a little too complicated to start off with.

But he laughs at her next question, amused by her cheek. "My name is Sasuke." Last names can wait. "Yours?"

She smiled when he introduced himself. "Satoko Houjou. Or you can scratch off the last name, whichever you feel like."

Satoko leered while Sasuke explained. After he was done, she responded, "it's probably easier to just call it energy. You'll mislead little kids easily." It was her nature to be a brat. Still she didn't quite understand how his energy made him stick to the ceiling. She pouted a little, "you sure it wasn't just a trick?"

"Hey..." Her cheerfulness died but she tried to keep a secure smile. "Do you know if anyone here is from Hinamizawa?"

"A pleasure, Satoko." And it was, at least as much as anything could be here.

Another quiet laugh was his response to her confusion. Civilian, definitely. "Not a trick. It's a little complicated to explain, but I can make my energy interact with things outside my body instead of just inside." Simple, as though speaking to an academy class of age seven. Simpler, in fact, just because she didn't have the knowledge.

His smile faltered a little at her question. His Sharingan spun once, taking a deeper look at her - at her chakra - being sure it was the unfocused flow of a civilian. It was, so, though his guard stayed up anyway, he did hold out a hand in invitation, should she want to take it. "I'm afraid not. I'm new here myself. Do you want help finding other people from your village?" He knew civilians were considered children much longer than shinobi, and she looked young by either marker anyway... God, what cruel force would put her here in this elaborate prison?

Edited 2012-10-14 05:09 (UTC)

Satoko nodded.

She tapped her chin as Sasuke explained, translating it in a way for her to understand. A couple ideas ran through her head, like suction cups. She glanced at his shoes to make sure to make sure of it too. She wasn't aware the Sharingan spun.

She stared down at his hand. Perhaps any child would take the invitation, but Satoko isn't used with assistance, especially from adults. The girl swung her arms behind her back and smiled. She didn't want to be a burden on him since he was new as well. Besides, she has taken care of herself before so why would she stop now? Satoko kindly waved her hand to Sasuke and smiled, "naw, that's okay. I'm sure I'll spot them. It's a tower anyway."

Romeo, dressed as a superhero with antlers was searching the lounge for candy, filling his bucket, he needed lots to share with the other kids in case anyone couldn't find any.

When he saw Sasuke he froze, because he knew him... Romeo had never seen him in his life but he had Itachi's memories and he bit his lip as he stared at him sadly.

"Do you want the easy answer or the 'I don't fucking know' answer? Cause that's all I got. The people running this funhouse drag us out of our worlds for whatever reason seems good and shiny to them, and then shove us in here. That's how it happens. How they make it happen? Your guess is as good as mine."

On the other hand, Mr. Creepy In The Mask had pulled of some kind of insane dimensional... something... at the summit, so if someone could work it out, it was probably Uchiha here. Kankuro turned that over, and decided it was a decent reason to continue making nice until such time as Sasuke went off the rails again.

“......”

Another familiar face. Were the tower administrators going to bring anyone else from the facility?

Uchiha.

Gaara wasn’t used to seeing him in an unguarded state. Or at least, that was how it appeared, but he knew better than to make the assumption. He approached the other with wariness, getting just close enough to let his presence be known.

[Idrial does not eat in the cafeteria herself and she hasn't done so since her first meal of oatmeal there. In fact, she had been advised by a number of friends who were here in the Tower too to hunt for her own food whenever possible and she was planning to stick to that strategy.

Today she is wandering around the cafeteria however but not for any particular reason except for interaction with people. It is a little strange, all these people walking around in costumes. She feels quite grateful that the Tower had not chosen her to partake in this event. Seeing him sitting by himself she walks over to the table and gestures a hand to a space on the bench beside him.]

Greetings. May I take this seat?

Edited 2012-10-16 00:40 (UTC)

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Page 1 of 3

01 - Arrival

Opener: Costume

Floor 1, Cafeteria

Floor 4, Lounge

Floor 25, Meadow

[Cafeteria]

Floor 4 - dives in!

[Cafeteria]

[Cafeteria]

Floor 4

[Cafeteria]

[Cafeteria]

[Cafeteria]

Floor 4

[Cafeteria]

no subject

Floor 4

no subject

[Cafeteria]

Floor 4

[Cafeteria]

[Cafeteria]

Floor 4

Floor 4

Floor 4

no subject

Lounge

[Cafeteria]

[Meadow]

Cafeteria