Work Text:
Another paper was put on Rei Mekaru's desk, and she grumbled as she continued typing on her laptop. She didn't get paid to deal with the idiocy of the Kisaragi Foundation's intelligence branch, or just the idiocy of the foundation in general.
She knew that Tsurugi and Teruya were probably working their assess off, but they weren't working as hard as her. After all, they weren't the ones currently trying to track a little hacker that got past their security to view footage from Alter Ego Yamato Kisaragi.
On top of all that, she still had work she needed to do. Despite her attempts to keep on top of everything, her will was starting to crack. Even as a college professor, she never had to think about so many lives in her hands if she messes up just once.
"Dammit..." she muttered, saving her work and submitting it for review from Tsurugi. That was one problem solves, now she needed to look at this paper. When she took a look at it, she immediately groaned and stormed outside to look for once of the workers.
"Hey, who delivered this paper to me?" she questioned, and one of the employees stood up. "This is treasury-related, this is supposed to be delivered to Teruya Otori. Go give it to him," she ordered, handing over the piece of paper. Afterwards, she turned around and stormed back into her private office.
She knew that she would get an analysis of the report from Teruya to forward to the administration branch later, but she was just glad to get something out of her hair. She decided to take a break from her workload and answer some of the emails she had gotten instead.
While she typed up a response to Tsurugi's question of the tracking progress for the hacker, a sudden wave of drowsiness overtook her. To combat it, she planned to drink a bit more coffee, but her thermos was empty. She had already drank it all half an hour ago.
With nothing to rouse her from this wave of sleepiness and not wanting it to negatively impact her work any, Rei decided to just give up and turned off her computer, putting her head in her arms as she went to sleep.
***
Rei found herself in a golden room with a ring of podiums in the centre. She didn't know how long she had been standing there, but she had never wanted to find herself back in the trial grounds again. That place haunted her nightmares.
"Hey, Rei! Over here!" someone shouted, and Rei turned her eyes to the centre of the podiums. Smiling back at her was Satsuki's head sticking out of a barrel, ever so content with the world. "Hiya!"
"Satsuki? What are you doing here?" Rei questioned, creeping closer to the barrel. "This has to be a dream. You're dead."
"Of course I am. But this is Rei's mind thinking me up, right? Satsuki is flattered!" the clown happily chirped, and the professor started worrying as the other girl made no moves to escape the barrel. "But why is Rei here? Don't you have a big important job now?"
"I...I don't know," she sighed. "I don't know. I don't want to know. I don't want to be in this place of all places."
"You want to be with your family and friends, right?" Satsuki asked. Rei was immediately startled by that statement, but calmed down when she remembered that Satsuki only knew this because it was a dream. "But if you have a big important job and came to see Satsuki instead, aren't you just running away?"
Rei hesitated before shaking her head. "I'm not running away, I just...I want a break. That's all." The professor sat beside the barrel with a sigh. "I have so many lives in my hands as a part of my job. I do everything to perfection, but the pressure keeps piling up. Tsurugi won't do jack shit about it either. ...What do you think I should do?"
"Hmm..." Satsuki looked down at her from the barrel. "Is Rei taking things all on her own again? If she's a cool boss lady now, don't you have people to give smaller work to? I told you to cooperate with others, remember?!"
The taller girl let out another sigh, remembering the real Satsuki's last words to her, a plea to get along with the others and stop the mastermind and the killing game. "Right, I...I should do that," she agreed. She didn't move off the floor though. "It feels like the Kisaragi Foundation's been going downhill lately. Like we're on a conveyor belt to death and we aren't getting off."
"Well, yo know who runs the place, right? You have to get Crazy Kinjo back to his senses!" the girl in the barrel suggested. "You need to balance him out and use whatever info you've got to persuade him! Because Rei is smart! And Rei is cool!"
Rei let out a snicker at the clown's enthusiasm, though she couldn't help but be annoyed by it despite her respect for Satsuki. It was a nostalgic feeling for her. "I don't want to go back and deal with all of those idiots yet," she decided, smiling at the floor.
"Oh, boo! Rei has to get up eventually!" Satsuki huffed. "Because it's up to you to make sure that they don't run around like loose chickens! Rei has to do it herself!"
"...Five more minutes. Then I'll go," Rei compromised, deciding to stand up from the floor and stretch her legs a little.
"Okay, Satsuki will count!" she happily exclaimed. "One, two, three..."
"Will you cut that out?!" Rei snapped, and Satsuki giggled at her ire. In the end, Rei stayed asleep for ten minutes, five of those being when the girl in the barrel unhelpfully and loudly counted for her.