| [May. 22nd, 2014|05:18 am] |
Genma wasn’t wrong: it hurt.
It wasn’t the good kind of pain either, like sunburn and healing bones and anything you took in the middle of a fight that didn’t kill you. This was cold and sharp, with no adrenaline to blunt the edge. But that was sort of the point. Raidou had lost himself tonight, drowned control in rage and wrath and a lot of blood; he should feel the aftermath now.
He’d call it masochism, if he was actually enjoying it.
Penance was closer.
Genma finished picking the few missed bone chips and blackened specks of who-knew-what, and moved on to debridement. That definitely hurt. Hands had a lot of nerves, and no system built in to gate pain; the body liked to know exactly what was going on with its most important tools. Raidou let out a slow breath.
Genma paused. Then, silently, continued.
Raidou watched the sun-streaked head bent low, the bottom lip caught between white teeth in lieu of a senbon, the tired eyes still managing to focus, and thought, I’m being an asshole. Penance was something you did yourself; not something you dragged an exhausted, injured medic into against his better judgement. But the anger was still there, flickering around the edges, and Raidou couldn’t make himself apologize.
Debridement gave way to a second round of Ringer’s-flushing, which stained the dirt floor faintly red around their feet. Genma wrapped glowing fingers around Raidou’s hands, and healing flooded in. Oozing blood sucked back, replaced by knitting pink flesh and black scabs, and the odd tingle of infection cleansing. About a week’s worth of healing, if Raidou was any judge. Genma let go before the wounds were closed, but what he left behind looked significantly better. He packed ointment and clean gauze over Raidou’s knuckles, and bandaged everything tightly.
Then there was the rest.
Raidou sat still while Genma went over Katsuko’s handiwork, peeling back bandages to look underneath. Most of it passed muster; it wasn’t Katsuko’s first rodeo, either. A few long wooden splinters got yanked—remainder of being blown through a wall, Raidou guessed—and Genma spared a handful of green sparks to stitch healing into the nastier burns and whatever damage was lurking in Raidou’s ribs.
“Cracked,” Genma muttered, pressing on his side.
There was a faint shift under skin, like bone bending backwards. It stung viciously, then settled. Genma gave a grunt of satisfaction.
“Anything I missed?” he asked.
“Senbon,” Raidou said.
“Show me.”
The puncture was tiny but it went deep into the side of Raidou’s thigh, more like a syringe mark than anything weapons-related. Genma gave it a narrow look, and Raidou could guess what he was thinking: infection was a risk, especially if the stabbing item wasn’t clean. Raidou didn’t object when Genma splayed a hand over his leg and shoved healing in. When the lieutenant pulled back, only a sealed pinkish dot remained.
After everything else, that seemed a little anticlimactic.
But the healing had done its job. Raidou felt scoured, stripped-clean—and steadier inside his own skin. His hands were a solid, red-edged ache from wrists to fingertips, throbbing like a migraine beneath the bandages, but that was good: real, real, real, no genjutsu here. His hair was plastered down with sweat and his shirt stuck to him when he pulled it back on. He badly needed a shower.
But he felt better. |
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