| [Dec. 18th, 2013|11:37 pm] |
Ryouma dropped his chin so fast he nearly pulled a muscle in his neck. "You'd teach—? But I thought you had to be super educated for that stuff. Years of apprenticeship in the hospital. I can't even read."
"To be a hospital medic, you have to do years, yeah," Genma confirmed. "But field medicine…" He tilted his head, studying Ryouma. What was he looking for? "I could teach you a few really useful basic jutsu in a few months, probably. You obviously didn't have to know how to read to learn all the other jutsu you know, right?"
"Bribed or bugged other kids into reading the lessons to me at the Academy," Ryouma said numbly. "But that was only sometimes. The rest of the time I just had to listen to the sensei and muddle it out on my own. Even creating my own jutsu was mostly trial and error and accident. But—"
But medical jutsu. That was different. That was rare, valued, respected. Anyone could kill; how many shinobi could heal?
He curled his fingers into his fists. "You don't think my rot jutsu'd get in the way? I mean, I've mostly only ever twisted my chakra to kill. Seems like it might be...risky, trying to go the other way."
They'd reached the edge of the training fields and the broad, smooth expanse of stone that fell sharply off into the rugged cliff of the Hokage Monument, but Genma stopped and turned to face him. His amber gaze was steady, serious. "You'd have to practice on a lot of dead fish, and then on live animals, before you tried anything on a person. But everyone does, when they're learning."
Ryouma'd practiced the Nikutai Tokasu on dinner-scraps and tree-stumps and captured rats long before he'd ever used it in combat. He jerked his chin in a nod.
"It might be a little harder for you at first," Genma said judiciously. "Since it's probably a similar chakra manipulation. But I doubt it's impossible. I mean, you should have seen the mess I made of the first fish I tried to do a basic wound closure on."
Basic wound closure. How often had he seen comrades bleed out, because they didn't have a medic in the field and bandages and pressure just weren't good enough?
If he'd studied field medicine when he was fourteen, instead of inventing rot jutsu, Kenichi might still be alive.
Or all of them might be dead, because the Nikutai Tokasu was the only tool a scared, outclassed genin could possibly have used to kill an ambushing Iwa jounin. And while the Human Flesh Melt Technique hadn't saved Ryouma's genin teammate, it'd damn well avenged him.
But if he could somehow have both…
He swallowed. "If you could teach it, lieutenant — if you'd be willing to — I want to learn it."
Genma shrugged, and started off again towards the edge of the cliff. "I can't promise I'll be the best teacher that ever lived, but I'll do my best. If you can manage even a few simple medical jutsu, every captain in ANBU will want you for his team when your rookie year is up." He looked back over his shoulder. "And if you try it and hate it, you can always just stick with rotting things." The corner of his mouth curled up, wry. "Preferably downwind from me."
"Everyone's a hater," Ryouma sighed. He gathered chakra in his feet, tipped over the cliff-edge, and followed Genma down the rugged path between Nidaime and Sandaime's heads. The strain of vertical walking pulled at his thigh; maybe he wasn't as healed as he'd thought, after all.
But exercise would prevent the scar from stiffening, and taking the exposed staircase that switchbacked its way down the cliff added at least twenty minutes to any descent. Of course there was the lift, on the inside of the mountain, but neither of them were wheelchair-bound yet. And the lieutenant was still walking fairly straight, though he'd pressed a hand to his belly and his brows were beginning to knit in a peculiar abstraction. Ryouma lengthened his stride to catch up. "Bad idea?" |
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