| [Nov. 16th, 2016|09:15 pm] |
In his work with Ryouma, Genma had barely begin to cover chakra interactions between medic and patient. He hadn’t intended to go into chakra death quite so soon, but it couldn’t be helped now.
“It can happen, but it’s rare,” Genma said. “When a medic is so deeply chakra-meshed with his patient that he’s taking over autonomic functions like breathing, pulse, and blood pressure, he’s at risk. But ordinarily if the patient dies, the medic’s chakra system will break free. It can injure the medic, but it isn’t fatal except in the most extreme circumstances. And it doesn’t always injure the medic. What Hatake described — his chakra not wanting to get yoked to the dying pig’s — that’s how it happens. Your body won’t let you go down with the dying patient.”
Ryouma uneasily studied his own hands, flexing his fingers experimentally. He huffed a quiet scoffing sound, expression wry. “And it takes a pretty good medic to get that far enmeshed with a patient, I bet. So I'm in no danger.” Self mockery turned to concern when he looked at Genma. “But lieutenant, you..."
“If your patient is so close to death that he needs you to sustain basic life functions, it’s touch and go anyway. You don’t go that deep unless you think you have a reasonable chance of saving them. I’d only do that if I knew I had a team of doctors available to take over for me.”
“Even if it was the captain, bleeding out? Or one of us?”
It was a question every medic had to ask himself at some point: how far would I go to save a comrade, a friend, a loved one? Genma bit his lip, tasting iron where the pig’s blood still dappled his skin. “I’d do everything I could to save you. But if it was hopeless…” He studied the faces of his rookies — both of whom had nearly died on their first two missions. Kakashi flat-mouthed behind his mask. Ryouma’s dark eyes alive with concern. “A field medic’s job is to triage, treat, and transport. If I couldn’t save someone, even someone on this team, I’d have to let them go, because I’d still have a responsibility to the rest of you.”
Ryouma's gaze flickered, unusually unreadable. He jerked his chin at Kakashi and said lightly, “Might wanna reconsider that if it's our white-haired boy here. Fairly sure keeping him alive is a good way to keep us alive.”
That was a dilemma Genma never wanted to face, especially because it was true. The medic’s oath was to treat all patients equally, but everyone knew that some lives were worth more than others. If it came down to it, Kakashi was more valuable to Konoha than Genma. “If it was a choice of my life or Hatake’s—”
Kakashi scowled pointedly at Genma. “If you save me at the cost of yourself, I'll fall off the next cliff so I can stab you in the afterlife,” he said. “Can both of you shut up about dying so we can focus on the ground-breaking jutsu I'm trying to recreate?” |
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