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“Are you quite sure about this?” Migiwa asks, managing to pack so much meaning into his stony expression.
“I am.” Kozakura replies, trying once again to keep the irritation out of her voice. Migiwa is an old friend so she won’t lash out if she can help it, even if she’s tired going through this formality each time.
In the face of her foolishness he can only solemnly nod, fish the keyring from his pocket, and personally lead her to the elevator. There is much more he wants to say, but the last time he asked to speak freely she told him to keep it to himself. The elevator plummets much like her stomach does, dropping from the chairmen’s floor to the floor where no number was displayed.
The cool air nipped at her exposed neck and collar but she didn’t dare huddle into her lab coat. She couldn’t afford to be anything but strong here. Migiwa has the tact to slow his pace to give her privacy but he doesn’t dare let her out of his sight.
The first stop is 30B, since it's closer to the entrance. Kozakura glances at her clipboard knowing that she would find no differences that couldn’t be explained by standard deviations. Indeed, one didn’t need graphs or readings to plainly see that the patient was the same as ever.
What remained of Toriko Nishina is a heaping figure whose stringy mane obscured most of her face and upper body. Her legs poked out from that mass - one straight, the other bent at the knee as she leaned her back against the wall. Her blue hand had grown into a blue arm, and from there it grew further into a two meter monstrous appendage. Longer than she was tall, it pulsed on the floor while feigning at being docile. A bulbous growth lined with tiny stumps as though it would start branching into small twigs but it never did.
Her uncorrupted hand clawed into the spot where her left shoulder socketed into the torso, probably to attempt to numb the nerves there. Or maybe she was trying to amputate herself. Anything to stop the pain. It hurt to see her like that, but she was a difficult patient to administer pain relief to. If she wasn’t semi lucid, then she was lethally territorial as soon as someone stepped into her cell. Kozakura places her palm on the glass.
“Hey. Hang in there. I’m trying everything I can.” And as much as she knows Toriko can’t hear her, Kozakura hopes she does anyway.
A moment of silence, several deep breaths, and then Kozakura moves deeper into the facility.
Originally they occupied adjacent cells, but early on it was observed that close proximity to Kamikoshi caused Toriko to attempt to smash the wall dividing them down. She didn’t do any major structural damage but it was too painful to watch so with a heavy heart they had to be separated.
Kamikoshi had to be placed deep in the containment ward anyway. The very air around her was heavy and unnerving, and that wasn’t just personal bias - even staff who didn’t know her had reported the symptoms. Headaches, upticks in anxiety, and even nosebleeds if exposed for too long. The only one to visit Kamikoshi outside of work requirements is Kozakura, coming weekly and letting this vulture pick at the scabs over her heart.
What remains of Sorawo Kamikoshi is a smug looking prick that only happened to be wearing her skin. Physically the only change is that her left eye now matches her right, but in disposition she is unrecognizable. Confident and suave to the point of arrogance. For once in her life Sorawo possesses an intuitive sense of the emotional state of others and it's not even her.
Kozakura places her palm on the glass like she does for Toriko, but when the woman on the other side saunters up to the window to mirror the gesture Kozakura harshly retracts her hand.
“I told you two. I fucking told you two.” Kozakura murmurs, and even though it’s physically impossible for her to be heard through the glass, Kamikoshi’s eyes narrow warmly in faux apology.
“I know.” She mouths through the barrier, “I’m sorry, Kozakura.”
If this monster thinks it can get Kozakura’s stomach to do flips it has another thing coming. All she is is pissed off. She glares, as Kamikoshi has the audacity to put on her best puppy dog expression and mouths “Let me out.”
But that’s fine. Kozakura is in control. She doesn’t even come close to doing something reckless until Kamikoshi narrows her eyes into something tender and inviting and tells the most heinous lie so far.
“Kozakura, please? I love you.” That. That has Kozakura seeing red, red like the sweater she kept at her bedside, red like the blood dribbling down her chin from where she punctured her lip with her teeth. She’s tempted to throw a punch but stops herself because all it would have accomplished is breaking the bones in her hand. And she needs those bones intact, thank you very much.
Unfortunately for whoever this is behind the glass, Kozakura has plenty of experience with possessed women trying to play her. She’s not going to fall for this crap. She’s actually offended that the girl in the reflection meets her eyes and pleads “Don’t.” Kozakura wasn’t going to.
Insulted as she is, she can’t bring herself to stay angry at the girl when she huddles her knees into her chest and shivers like an orphan caught outside in winter. Kozakura would cradle her if she could. The girl gets weaker every time they meet. What would happen to her if Kamikoshi finally erased the poor shade into nothing?
It won’t happen. Kozakura just has to find a way to fix this before then. She marches back towards the elevator, Migiwa watching her the whole time but wisely saying nothing. When it’s her stop she returns to her desk and buries herself back into her work.