The Infirmary had been the first place Haruichi had shot for once he'd walked into HQ - and aside from the fact that nobody had shampooed the carpet in at least three months it looked almost exactly as he'd left it two years ago. Haruichi had been just blinking and staring at the room for nearly five minutes, feeling both absurdly disconnected and as though he had just walked in his front door. He half expected to turn around and see himself, nineteen or younger, lab coat and long hair, snarling at whatever idiot had traipsed down for medical attention while doing his utmost to fix it for them. As if who he'd been was haunting the place.

Standing there now, in standard uniform with his hair cut short and his arms crossed, Haruichi found himself reluctantly and unexpectedly taking the moment to get used to the fact he'd come back. Would he be different? Would the ANBU have changed? How many faces and files would he recognize? Was this really where he belonged, as he'd been sure of last night? Haruichi was uncomfortable pondering himself, but he made the effort anyway.

And then Raidou kicked the door down, bellowing inanities and compromisingly clutching an unconscious man, who was drooling down his neck.

Behold, all ye who disbelieve, the paradigm of professionalism that is ANBU.

"Kanae-sensei isn't here right now," Haruichi snapped smoothly, arching his eyebrow at the other man and uncrossing his arms as he pointed imperiously at the exam table nearest him. "So, tremendously unfortunately for both of you, it's me you'll have to deal with, Namiashi." Practiced white eyes scanned the two men, Haruichi did not resist the urge to roll his eyes expansively. A fight. "And my first question is what in god's name did this one do to warrant this? Besides fail to duck."

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There were very few things in the world that could surprise a veteran ANBU. Expecting the mellow tones of one of the few sweeter tempered medics in Konoha and finding yourself face to face with a bristling Hyuuga ranked fairly high up there.

Raidou blinked.

Then he did what very few ANBU would do in the face of Haruichi's building wrath; he smiled crookedly and slid Minamato off his back to land him non-too-gently on the exam table. "Failed to break-fall actually," he said, rubbing the back of his neck clean with a slightly disgusted expression. "And failed to know the better part of valour. He also lost a tooth," Raidou pulled out the incisor in question and set it down next to the man, "if you can do anything about that." Minamato was never going to have a pretty smile, but at least he might keep a whole one.

Raidou stepped back to give Haruichi some room and leaned against the wall, easing the ache out of his shoulder. He rubbed slightly bruised knuckles a shade absently and studied the medic in front of him with a return of that crooked smile. Haruichi looked good -- no taller, no broader, and he hadn't added any extra muscle that Raidou could see, but he looked healthier.

Also annoyed, but that was Haruichi's default expression. It was never a reassuring one to see looming over you, particularly when you knew there was a scalpel somewhere nearby, but Raidou was oddly pleased to see it now. That and the sneakers, because Haruichi and his sneakers were just funny. "What happened to Kanae-sensei?" asked Raidou, in lieu of a welcome back, "Did you eat her whole or leave something for Intel to study?"

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Ignoring Raidou's rubbing of the drool and wincing of the muscles, Haruichi settled the other agent's prone body neatly on the exam table and checked him over in a few moments with his byakugan. Broken jaw in two places along the mandible, one ingloriously dislodged front incisor, a crack on his parietal bone and a generous smattering of bruises that no doubt corresponded to various offensively utilized parts of Namiashi Raidou's anatomy. Oh how things did not change.

"So far as I know, Kanae-sensei is on a well deserved break. Though if resorting to cannibalism is the accepted norm down here these days I suppose I ought to double-check." Haruichi closed down his eyes as he retrieved a kit cart, containing bandages, salves, scalpels and other tools of the medical trade.

Returning to the exam table, he pushed up his sleeves and surveyed the landscape for a moment. Skull crack first, he gently turned the agent's head so that he'd be unable to swallow his tongue in the meantime. The man's scarred face was bloodied and bruised, but Haruichi didn't think he'd have recognized him anyway. Haruichi concentrated, put his fingers smoothly through a few seals and began the very tricky task of reducing the swelling around the ding in the skull - it was the only truly emergency aspect of the treatment to be delivered besides the dental work. Once it was done - a task only taking a few minutes - Haruichi withdrew his hands and eyed Raidou for a long, ill-tempered moment before picking up the tooth lying on the table next to the unconscious body between them.

He held up the tooth and examined the bloodied thing critically. "I suppose in lieu of obtaining a dentistry degree in the next few hours I could make it into a lovely earing." Haruichi dropped it into a metal pan on the kit-cart with a shallow clink. "Shame you didn't knock out a pair." He eyed Raidou again, automatically surveying him for injuries. "I see your temper hasn't improved with the years, it's a wonder you've still got all your limbs."

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"Aspirations to become a jeweler now?" Raidou met the look with cheerful good-humour, as long as Haruichi wasn't actively attempting to murder you, he wasn't truly mad. "I never would've guessed."

Well, Haruichi was always mad, but there was a subtle distinction between pissed off and homicidal. A ballistic surgical implement was usually a good indicator of the latter.

Raidou eyed the man he'd put down thoughtfully for a moment -- besides the skull whack and the probably broken jaw (it'd made a damn ugly sound) he really wasn't that badly off. Raidou hadn't even hit him hard, mostly Minamato had simply... rebounded. Generally into hard objects.

It was, thought Raidou wryly, obviously the floor's fault.

"And I see your personality has stayed just as sweet, Hyuuga," said Raidou, still cheerfully, "Nice to see you're not dead. What the hell are you doing back down here?" Not that Raidou wasn't pleased to see him -- sort of -- but generally a second trip through ANBU was pretty good indication of a death wish or a hefty dose of insanity. Or both.

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"I'm 'the hell back down here' doing a job that apparently needs sorely doing," Haruichi replied, prickly temper not about to be assuaged by Raidou's good cheer. True enough, he wasn't trying to kill the bigger, stronger, older, better agent - but it sure as hell wasn't because of those facts (things like physics and superior ability to break one's face had never stopped Haruichi starting a fight, and likely never would).

Haruichi set about healing the various bruises and knocks on the agent, but wasn't about to work on his jaw. That was specialist work if the man ever expected to be able to eat crackers again, and Haruichi (though perfectly capable of it) was not about to spend two hours realigning every fibre of muscle, bone and nerve in Raidou's Punching-Bag's face. Not on his first day back, anyway; he still had forms to fill in. As he worked he spoke to Raidou, though he didn't look up from the patient.

"I'd ask how things have been in the service the past few years, but judging by the evidence before me it remains the same testosterone-addled assylum of the maladjusted it was when I left." His fingers found a particularly nasty contusion that looked like it had come from something rather alarmingly right-angled. "They've changed the carpets at the Entrance Desk, though." Haruichi hadn't thought it was possible for them to chose something more dishearteningly offensive to the eye, and yet they had. Incredible. Only ANBU were capable of proclaiming 'abandon all hope ye who enter here' with a paisley weave.

He finished and looked up at Raidou, irritatedly shoving a few strands of dark hair out his eyes. "How have things been in the field?"

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Raidou figured that roughly translated to 'I got drafted, don't ask'. He watched as Haruichi set about playing medic with every bit of his old skill and a definite flavour of his old rookie-burning scorn. Raidou -- not being a rookie -- remained unscathed. He leaned back against the wall a little more and folded his arms, tucking somewhat incriminatingly bruised knuckles out of sight.


"I think a rookie set fire to the old one," said Raidou, referring to the carpet, "Intel never managed to find out if he did it on purpose or not. I'd put money on yes, myself." Haruichi wasn't the only one who found the decorating grim. Raidou's personal theory hinged around the new design being an unsubtle form of ocular torture -- possibly to teach them all a lesson about property damage.

He lifted an eyebrow as Haruichi glanced up, eyes automatically ticking over the bare curse seal burned into the younger man's forehead before they dropped lower, meeting his gaze. "The field?" Raidou gave the question a moment's thought. "A testosterone asylum of the maladjusted pretty much covers it. Albeit with slightly more running around and yelling." He paused and reconsidered, "Unless you're thinking of the kunoichi. They have slightly less testosterone and a whole lot more rage. How've things been for you?"

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Flexing his fingers and lightly pinching the bridge of his nose for a second, Haruichi just shook his head slightly - then went to get the hospital forms for admitting the insensate bastard sprawled on the exam table. "They've been good," he replied, opening drawers one by one as he realized Kanae must have moved the forms. "Though given that I've just learned that the most sophisticated and reliable intelligence agency on the continent is unable to avenge incidents of property damage in their own headquarters, I am very willing to bet going out into the field on their say-so is going to be less than good." Haruichi carried on opening and closing drawers, now concerned as to whether or not he could find a pen with which to sign said form, should he ever locate it. Oh the humanity. "You're still alive, though. Well done with that." No, not there either.

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"Thanks," said Raidou wryly, "that means a lot." It was a depressingly standard greeting for ninja of all levels, said with varying degrees of sincerity depending on whether you actually liked the other person or not. Haruichi, Raidou realized, was somewhere in the mid-range. That was slightly touching.

It was the other comment he found more interesting, though. "They're setting you up for field work?" Raidou cast a glance over the short, slender Hyuuga as he waded through drawers of medical accouterments searching for something. "You've been back five minutes. What'd you do?" Raidou rubbed a hand through his hair and brushed his scar absently. "No, wait, never mind. Who did you piss off?"

Someone distinguished, no doubt. Knowing Haruichi, he'd probably said something cutting to the Hokage himself.

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Still opening drawers and leafing through files, Haruichi didn't pause to consider the rather intuitive assumption of Raidou's question. "Arakaki Hisoka," he replied getting up on his tip toes to reach a shelf of papers. "But I had the job before that, it seems. I suppose if you people can't be trusted to keep your organs to yourselves or perform major surgery on each other somebody else will have to see to it no matter where you are. Damn..." Haruichi's white eyes narrowed slightly, annoyed indeed by his inability to find these papers. He dropped back down to his heels, then it occurred to him that his glasses might help - so he fished them out and put them on so as to aid this apparently epic quest for proper bureaucracy.

Blinking, he peered around the desk again and spotted them. They'd changed the colour of the headers from red to green, the prats. Haruichi scooped them up, pinned them to a clipboard and managed to find a pen. He walked back over to his patient and laid the clipboard on his chest so he had leverage to fill it out. Looking up at Raidou, the Hyuuga medic wondered for half a second what would happen if he had to go treat Raidou in the field. Well... for a start there'd be no chance of carrying him. Bloody huge creature that he was (compared to Haruichi at least). That was about as far down that track as Haruichi was willing to let his mind go at eight fifteen in the morning on his first day back. Ease into the macabre predictions of death and destruction if he had to.

"I need this one's name," he said after half a beat he hadn't meant to take. "I don't recognize him, though I suppose after the feng-shui you've enacted upon his facial features there wasn't much chance of that in the first place."

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The glasses were new.

They were also not, in any sense of the word, flattering. Raidou made no claim to be a style guru by any stretch of the imagination, but even he knew that thick, black square frames suited no one. Particularly when they magnified your eyes that way.

He blinked down at Haruichi as the man looked up at him in silence and wondered if he wasn't in for an impromptu wrathful jyuuken after all. He was gathering himself to dodge when the medic finally spoke. Raidou blinked again and lifted an eyebrow. "I'm told feng-shui is always an improvement," he said, relaxing now that vengeful justu were apparently not part of the near future. "An important part of a healthy lifestyle, in fact."

The glasses were even less flattering when observed from close range. As were magnified Hyuuga eyes. Raidou could see veins. "His name's Minamoto Touji. Affectionately known as 'asshole' by his many non-friends. What's with the new face gear?"

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Writing down the name and starting to fill out details, Haruichi hissed a little air through his teeth at Raidou's teasing. "They're glasses, Namiashi. They could not be more self-explanatory." Truth be told, Haruichi hated them - though he'd defend them to the hilt now that he was forced to co-exist with them. Particularly since the optometrist at the hospital had nearly brained him with a lens grinder for his cheek when he'd been given them and Haruichi doubted he'd get another pair in a hurry. He only needed them for reading, but then, Haruichi was a medic. He read a lot.

Scribbling over the form, detailing the situation, Haruichi supposed this was a tame enough case for his first five minutes back in this particular bat-brained trust. Nobody had managed to poison themselves yet, at least.

...Speaking of: "You don't know if Shiranui Genma is still in the service, do you?"

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Sometimes it was hard to tell if Haruichi was being touchy because he was Haruichi and his default status in life was touchy, or because you'd clipped a nerve. Eyeing the glassware in question, Raidou was willing to tender a wager on the latter. Score one, Namiashi. Not that he was actually aiming for points. Much. Raidou let it go. Teasing was all well and good, but teasing someone about their looks was a slippery slope that led straight back to acid scars and a lack of happy places.

Still, glasses. On a Hyuuga. Snerk.

He lifted an eyebrow at Haruichi's next question, slightly surprised. "Yeah, he is. He's--" my favourite mission partner, my neighbour, my friend, the reason Minamoto's lacking for current jaw function, "--still breathing. Doing fairly well, actually. I'm running a mission with him in the morning." Or he would be, just as soon as he stepped up to volunteer.

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Well, that was a relief. Well, a sort of a relief. Well, it wasn't necessarily bad news. Haruichi had been pretty certain nothing permanently crippling or fatal had happened to Genma since he'd seen him last - somehow it seemed the kind of thing everybody would know. There were other concerns to go with Haruichi's question too, but not ones he was planning to dwell on until he had to because Genma was right there in front of his face.

Haruichi nodded and made a small 'hn' sound, scrawled his signature on the admission papers and lifted the clipboard off his makeshift desk... who groaned vaguely but remained out for the count. Haruichi gave Minamoto a look of disparaging concern and poked him with the corner of the clipboard (only Haruichi knew how to give looks of disparaging concern, though the amusing thing was he didn't even know he did it).

"You'll need to take him to the hospital before he wakes up and vomits on my carpet," Haruichi told Raidou, pulling the papers off the clipboard and stuffing them into the unconscious man's shirt, along with his tooth in a small plastic bag. "He's stopped drooling at least." At least, so long as he was horizontal...

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More carrying. Splendid. Raidou heaved a tiny sigh -- the things I do for you, Shiranui -- and grabbed Minamoto's limp arm, shoving another hand between his thighs to heft him up and drape him over his shoulders like the word's most unpleasant shawl. Minamoto's scarred head hung down on one side -- still drooling, Haruichi, you liar -- and his feet dangled down Raidou's other flank, making a solid effort to bruise him in the ribs. Raidou scowled and readjusted his balance, compensating for the -- not inconsiderable -- weight. "You know, you really ought to get some tile laid down in here," he suggested to Haruichi as he got himself settled, "considering the amount of bodily fluids you deal with on any given normal day."

Raidou nodded in lieu of giving a salute -- his hands were somewhat busy keeping Minamoto from making a sudden ignoble splash on the carpet -- and gave Haruichi a final half-smile. "It is good to see you back, Hyuuga." He turned and headed for the door, "You were missed."

A good medic was always missed, but Haruichi had been something else. It was odd how reassuring it could actually be to have your entire family tree insulted while someone shoved your insides back in.

Raidou actually made it to the door itself before his day got a whole lot worse. His smile faltered and wiped away entirely in the face of Arakaki Hishoka's impressively unimpressed look. "Sir."

Busted.

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Haruichi consided passing sarcastic comment in order to deflect that nice little moment of cammaraderie, but before he could find it in himself the world decided to take punitive measures against the pair of them instead. At the sight of Arakaki Hisoka standing in the door, he had only a moment to curse the fact that it was Raidou carrying the human shield right now before the Director walked into the Infirmary. After that, the only thing worth cursing was his luck - because there wasn't even a snowball's chance in hell that this would end well.

Arakaki stepped in, which necessitated Raidou stepping back, and Haruichi watched the older man glance from Minamoto, to Raidou, to Raidou's bruised knuckles, to Minamoto's drooling and broken jaw.

"Morning Namiashi," he acknowledged somewhat darkly, tone promising that there would be more to say on the subject of him carting around a pummelled fellow agent. Much more. And with that the Director's dark eyes slid to Haruichi's white ones. "Hyuuga, you've got your first physical trial in ten minutes in the training rooms. Conventional hand to hand combat."

Arakaki turned to leave, his eyes flitting to Raidou and Minamoto once more before settling on Raidou's carefully schooled expression. "You did this?"

Raidou had to nod. On his shoulder, Minamoto burbled unconsciously through a resoundingly crushed face.

Arakaki smiled, a thin sliver of terrifying amusement, and didn't look back to Haruichi behind him. "Then you'll report to the training rooms, as well. A reprimand for the state Minamoto finds himself in."

Haruichi could contain himself no longer. "You want him punished for hospitalizing one agent by setting him on another one?" he demanded, incredulity drowned out by certainty.

Arakaki walked out the door, smiling still. "It's the only way he'll learn to do it right."

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