| As Shadows Grow Long | [Nov. 1st, 2013|11:54 pm] |
[Takes place Yondaime Year 5, May 2, in parallel with Ain't We All Just Runaways]
Genma’s attention was only half on the form he was filling in detailing the medical attention he’d rendered in the field. His pen ticked boxes to count off soldier pills and blood pills administered, the time between doses, the effectiveness of each dose. The side effects he’d seen. The countermeasures he’d taken. It wasn’t until he got to the ‘notes’ section that he had to pause, unable to put words together.
He’d known a Code Broken Link was ominous. He’d known there was nothing good waiting for them in Konoha. But the village was intact, and—other than the bristling presence of guards on the walls, and the scarcity of ANBU in the compound—almost unchanged.
He’d been prepared for something awful. War. Terrorism. Hundreds of civilians dead. Borders insecure.
Orochimaru raising his venomous head at last.
Perhaps even a threat against the Fire Country Daimyou.
In the three days they’d had to contemplate it, as they’d traveled downriver, the idea had crossed his mind, although he hadn’t let himself dwell on the possibility. It was never good practice to imagine your friends in danger, and a threat to the Daimyou was a threat to the Guardian Twelve, was a threat to Asuma.
He’d never, ever, imagined the Guardian Twelve could stage a coup.
He would never believe, without ironclad proof, that Asuma had been anything but loyal to the village and to his duty.
He couldn’t believe Asuma was dead.
It happened all the time during the war: you shared an evening or a meal or a bed with someone, maybe even someone close; you went out on your respective missions; you came back to learn your friend hadn’t. You couldn’t plan for it, and you couldn’t let it stagger you, because there was a war going on, and a ninja’s duty was to his Kage and his village and his comrades. Rule twenty-five was an almost-comfortable straitjacket you wrapped yourself in when you got the news your friend was nothing but a blood smear and a set of dogtags. It kept you sane until you could keep yourself sane again.
Somehow, in the five years since the war had ended, Genma had forgotten how to pull it on.
"Lieutenant?" Katsuko said quietly.
Genma took a quick breath to clear his head and looked up at her. "Ueno. I…" She was looking at him, waiting for orders. Seeing too clearly, maybe. Her eyes were on the pen vibrating in Genma’s white-knuckled hand, poised in mid-air like an unthrown senbon. He put it carefully down. "Can you look up coordinates on the maps for the mines and the other places we stopped, and enter them on the terrain report while I finish up these med reports?"
Katsuko nodded, scooped up the map scrolls and the partly completed terrain report, and tucked them into her sling to carry them to her desk.
"Thank you," Genma said. "If you have any questions..."
She flicked him an ‘acknowledged’ handsign and nodded.
He turned back to his form. Tousaki suffered from complete chakra exhaustion, despite consuming three soldier pills in—
How close together had Ryouma’s doses actually been? Genma hadn’t seen him take them, but from the time they’d fought the demons in the forest to the time Raidou and Katsuko had hauled them out of the mines it had been only what? An hour and change?
—one hour. Repeated uses of Tousaki’s A-rank jutsu caused a significant chakra drain.
And we would have all died and no one would be writing this report if he hadn’t used every last scrap of energy on those gluttonous jutsu.
Conditions warranted both the repeated use of Tousaki’s most draining jutsu, and the administration of all three soldier pills despite the risk of overdose. Following combat, Tousaki was given three chakra transfusions by Namiashi. The first two under emergency field conditions, the third in a more controlled clinical setting. Despite the high consumption of soldier pills, Tousaki did not exhibit the worst symptoms of overuse. Blood pills and appropriate hydration were administered approximately one half hour after the last dose of soldier pills.
Genma paused and reached for his bottle of water. Swallowing felt a little like choking.
Asuma would never again show up at his door with a bottle of shouchu, a carton of takeout, and a raunchy B-movie.
Bastard.
There was no way he’d turned traitor. He’d been betrayed. Genma wasn’t sure if that made it better or worse.
Raidou cleared his throat. Maybe on purpose, maybe just because his throat was dry. It didn’t matter. Genma took a deep breath and another drink of water, and moved on to the next section of the report.
Over the course of three days, Tousaki slept and recovered his chakra stores to a minimally functional level. On the first day after battle, he showed some signs of aspiration pneumonitis; a result of inhalation of sterilely decomposed organic material in which he had been briefly immersed during battle. Treated with kouhaizouen no jutsu, repeated twice a day for three days, and a broad-spectrum antibiotic. Tousaki responded well to treatment.
Albeit with a fair amount of complaining about the discomfort of the jutsu. Genma wasn’t inclined to sympathy, since the jutsu was a pain in the ass to work, and, he’d pointed out, it was far less uncomfortable than drowning in your own lung fluid.
Recommendations: Continued antibiotics for a full seven-day course. Adequate nutrition, hydration, and rest, to return chakra levels to baseline. Evaluation by ANBU medical staff.
One more down. Genma stamped his seal in the box for attending field medic, and again in the box for reporting officer’s signature, and stacked the report with the ones he’d already done for Raidou, Kakashi, and Katsuko.
Now his own. That was going to be a joy. A field medic turning in an injury report on himself that listed anything worse than a paper cut was an almost guaranteed audit.
He started with the easy stuff, as he had for Ryouma. What drugs, when. What effect had they had. Then it got trickier. He worded things carefully, listening to the scratch of his own pen, and Raidou’s, and the sound of turning pages as Katsuko consulted the maps.
Due to the failure of his ANBU vest, Shiranui suffered a serious abdominal laceration, approximately twenty centimeters long, from the inner margin of the right iliac crest to the left mid-clavicular line. At its deepest it penetrated fascia, the external abdominal obliques and the rectus abdominus, and cut into the transversus, but did not penetrate into the abdominal cavity.
It was hard to write without thinking about the gash, still red-edged and puckered around stitches the doctor in Hayama had used to close the wound. Maybe he’d take another dose of painkillers, but if they were going to the hospital as soon as this paperwork was done, he didn’t want to be blunted.
He also wanted to underline that first clause. Or send a copy of the report to the Quartermaster. He’d definitely be taking the ruined armor in for evaluation.
Shiranui was envenomated with a previously unknown paralytic toxin, via a stab wound in the right shoulder. Sample of venom submitted for analysis.
Maybe it would be useful. It had certainly taken him down almost instantly. Something like that, painted on a senbon, could be a valuable weapon.
He labored over the description of his improvised attempt to clear the poison from his system by metabolic acceleration, and concluded that the fact he was continuing to experience headaches and mild nausea meant he probably ought to have his liver and kidney functions tested before they declared him fit for duty. But that was a real doctor’s call to make, not his.
He probably ought to have his head examined for having tried it at all, but desperate times called for desperate measures, and it had worked. That had to be a point in his defense.
When he was satisfied his own report was as non-damning and at the same-time accurate as possible, he affixed his seals to it, put the whole pile together into a folder, and turned in his chair to hand them to Raidou. "Medical reports. These need your seal." |
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